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This duality is well-illustrated by Novelist Günter Grass, who, at 38, is scarcely a member of the youngest generation, but in many ways is a spokesman for it. Not long ago he told Americans: "We want criticism, but we don't want you constantly seeking the old phantoms." Yet he is raising quite a few phantoms himself. In his newest book, Dog Years, written in his dense, explosive prose, he imagines West Germany flooded with miracle glasses whose lenses permit anyone under 21 years to "uncover, recognize, worse, unmask father and mother . . . acts of violence performed, tolerated, instigated: murders . . . smoking cigarettes and looking on while. Record entries. Blowing on rubber stamps . . . Every father has at least one to hide."
Many of the fathers resent such accusations from the young, who can judge in perfect safety without ever having been themselves subject to the pressures and temptations of the Nazi era. Whether or not their sense of moral superiority toward the older generation is justified, their gods are certainly different. They are not even particularly patriotic; as for the worship of national sovereignty, says a young German poet, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "the beer hall is the only place left in which it is still taken seriously." But, paradoxically, the young bitterly resent the division of Germany, and if they have any single overriding concern, it is reunification.
The Larger Goal
Western observers sometimes talk themselves into the dangerous illusion that reunification does not really matter very much. Even Adenauer occasionally hinted at this. Germany, after all, so goes one argument, has been a nation for less than a hundred years. But this overlooks the fact that Germany was an idea and society long before it was a state. The trauma of the division is much stronger than many outsiders realize. Berlin is far from universally loved by Germans, but its precarious isolation in the Eastern zone's grey wasteland leaves Germany without a real center where its mind can come to rest. German intellectual life is scattered and provincial. Moreover, prosperous Germans feel reproached by the suffering of their countrymen in the East. They also tend to blame many troubles and frustrations on the split, whether or not there is any real connection. "Why does no postwar novel present the Federal Republic as a flourishing, gay country?" asks Novelist Heinrich Boll. "This is a sad country without sadness. It has delegated its sadness, pushed it over the Eastern border."
No practical solution is in sight. The continued split represents a danger to Russia itself because it might bring about a jingoist explosion in Germany. But Moscow, whether from a genuine fear of a reunified Reich or simply because it cannot afford a spectacular retreat from the heart of Europe, is not about to listen to such reasoning. Neutralization of Germany as the price of reunification is acceptable neither to the West nor to most Germans—although quite a few would be tempted. Some believe that eventually the East zone may mellow, and growing cultural and economic ties might paper over the division—but it is a faint hope.