Unified Germany: A New Sonderweg?

Abstract

Is German unification the beginning of a new Sonderweg, a new ‘special way’? If we attribute to this term the historically pejorative and suspect meaning with which many historians and commentators have used it, then the answer is ‘no’: united Germany is not setting off on a new Sonderweg. Indeed, we may reverse the terms of the question by stating that the Germany of the 1990s has now definitely left behind the anomalous situation forcibly imposed on her when she was divided after World War II; a situation, in fact, to which she, or at least the Bundesrepublik, adapted remarkably well. This does not, however, alter the fact that Germany’s return to normality puts her in a special position. It is this paradox that I shall seek to analyze in this chapter.