My first encounter with Genscher was shortly after he took office, in Bad Reichenhall at the southern tip of Bavaria. It was in June 1974, in the waning weeks of Richard Nixon’s presidency. And though in those early days Genscher’s grasp of foreign policy could be most charitably described as minimal, he conducted himself with extraordinary aplomb at a time of great unease in the Western Alliance. He announced a “gentleman’s agreement” to ease tensions between the United States and what was then the Common Market, and proved as good as his word.
Over the next three years, we worked closely together. There was no foreign minister in whom I had greater confidence. Genscher’s grasp of foreign policy grew at an astounding pace. As he developed into the dominant foreign minister in Europe over the next decade and a half, we saw each other frequently. I maintained a special affection for this clever, dedicated, vulnerable man-passionate in his convictions yet wary of frontal battles, sensitive to personal slights yet prone to maneuvers inviting those slights.
Genscher approached his goals so obliquely that his dazzling skills occasionally obscured the high purpose that animated them. In later years, some of his complex maneuvers worried me. Without them, Germany probably would not have achieved such a high level of diplomatic influence. But there was a danger that, in less subtle hands, the Genscher style might jeopardize a hard-earned confidence in German steadiness. That such ambivalence could be generated by a solitary individual who represented (and did not even lead) a small party is in itself a tribute to an extraordinary personality. His resignation reminded me of the diplomat at the Congress of Vienna who is said to have reacted to the death of a colleague with the remark “I wonder what his motive could have been.” Was Genscher’s departure a withdrawal, or a move into a new role?
I do not pretend to know the answer. Perhaps Genscher does not know either. From the point of view of his place in history, Genscher chose an ideal moment. Behind him is his triumph in forging German unification while retaining the Atlantic alliance. At the same time, his resignation coincides with a moment of unprecedented turmoil in postwar German polities. Unification is exacting ever-greater sacrifices; the disciplined support for a national economic policy characteristic of the German labor movement is eroding; austerity seems inevitable if inflation and stagnation are to be avoided. Genscher may calculate that if his Free Democratic Party stays in the current coalition through the 1994 elections, it would end up sharing the blame and suffer serious losses.
For the past four decades, the German Constitution has produced extraordinary political stability. The statutory provision that a party must win at least 5 percent of the popular vote to be represented in Parliament prevents the emergence of small splinter parties. For most of Germany’s postwar history, there have been three principal parliamentary parties. Over the past two decades the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have oscillated between 34 percent and 49 percent. Genscher’s Free Democrats ran from 7 to 11 percent. Whichever major party exceeds 40 percent typically combines with the Free Democrats to form the government. In the 1990 elections, Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats polled about 44 percent, the Free Democrats about 11 percent, the Social Democrats about 34.
In the present Parliament, the Free Democrats can form a government only in combination with the Christian Democrats. On the other hand, as the most popular German leader, Genscher may reason that his resignation will enable his party to avoid criticism for switching sides in the middle of a crisis and yet increase its options for the future: perhaps by means of a coalition of all the major parties to deal with the emergency, as is favored by many leaders, or by an alliance of the Free Democrats with the Social Democrats in the 1994 elections. Any of these combinations could bring Genscher back as federal president, or as the architect of a new coalition after the 1994 parliamentary elections.
Genscher’s foreign policy has been driven by similar dynamics. Just as his party had to maneuver between the two dominant parties, his country had to navigate through the narrow passages among two superpowers and a number of suspicious neighbors. A native of Halle, in former communist East Germany, Genscher was initially an outsider in the Federal Republic and perforce drawn into the German national question with an intensity not shared by all West Germans, nor by any of Germany’s allies. Genscher managed these international crosscurrents with the same dexterity he applied to the domestic ones, and with the same general result: achieving for his country an a prestige beyond calculations of relative power, even before unification.
Even without the legacy of the two world wars, the conduct of German foreign policy would prove to be an unusually formidable task. Germany is more powerful than any other European country, and it has more neighbors. Whenever Germany has attempted a purely national policy, it has frightened its neighbors and contributed to instability. Germany’s military strength encouraged the formation of hostile coalitions. And its diplomatic attempts to achieve a global role isolated it because no one wanted to be junior partner to such a restless and ambitious country.
Historically, these difficulties were compounded by Germany’s late emergence into nationhood. Until 1871 a loose confederation of independent states, it was the last of the major European countries to come together. Expending so much energy on achieving unity, Germany seemed to lack the energy to define its national interest. No wonder this problem has been solved only twice in German history-by Otto von Bismarck at the establishment of a unified Germany, and after World War II by Konrad Adenauer. Bismarck chose dexterity, seeking to arrange relations within Europe such Chat Germany would always have more options than any possible rival, thereby preventing the formation of hostile coal
Adenauer opted for reliability. He reasoned that Germany’s past conduct generated too much distrust to allow for Bismarck’s subtle combinations, and that the German tendency toward extremes inhibited the sense of proportion crucial to a freewheeling Bismarckian approach. He sought to dissolve Germany’s temptations in a rigid commitment to Atlantic cohesion. Today, Chancellor Kohl represents the Adenauer tradition. Genscher tried to combine a pro-Western orientation with Bismarckian flexibility. But how long can such a policy be sustained? For if flexibility is measured by having an option to all sides, the charge of disguised nationalism is bound to raise its head; hence the occasional rumblings against Genscher in Allied capitals.
Fairness compels us to recognize the special challenge Genscher had to face as the foreign minister of a divided country. If the junior partner in a coalition automatically follows the senior partner, it runs the risk of losing its identity–even of abandoning its reason for existence. Atlantic orthodoxy might prescribe that Germany wait passively at the side of its allies for the ultimate collapse of the Soviet empire. But a native of East Germany could not be expected to wait while his own people lived under foreign-imposed totalitarian rule.
In time, the majority of Germans came to insist on a specifically West German response to their national aspirations. Ostpolitik was initiated by Chancellor Willy Brandt and pursued by Genscher under two chancellors-first Helmut Schmidt, then Kohl. And a German national response-however sensitive to Allied concerns-inevitably required special assurances to the Soviet Union to ease its fears of a resurgent Germany after unification.
The Schmidt and Kohl governments navigated this passage with tenacity and skill. And to Genscher must go major credit for its day-today tactical handling– even if the final push to unification was masterminded by Kohl. Genscher’s subtle tactics have at times caused twinges of uneasiness. The ambivalence of some of Genscher’s colleagues toward him was paralleled by Germany’s ambivalence toward its allies. After all, Genscher has had to work with six American secretaries of state, each insisting on his distinctiveness from his predecessor. There was an understandable temptation to take out reinsurance in the face of American gyrations that moved from deploying medium-range missiles to removing them entirely within the space of four years. Genscher saw few attractions in a residual nuclear deployment that left weapons whose range covered only German territory, even though his position annoyed both Washington and London.
Through all these controversies, Genscher maneuvered with consummate skill. History will surely record as his monument the tour de force of unifying his country while sustaining Germany’s Atlantic relationships. After German unification, Genscher found himself in a world for which no previous experience could have prepared him. The cold war ended, and with it the necessity to orient German policy toward both of the superpowers at the same time. With Soviet armies 600 miles farther east and the former Soviet Union in turmoil, the security component of NATO was bound to weaken; no European nation, Germany included, would henceforth submit to America’s priorities to the same degree, or pay the same price for its protection. The dissolution of the East German state made it seem less necessary for Germany to legitimize itself by subordinating itself to West European, especially French, prescriptions. And even European unity began to seem less urgent to many.
By now the dean of Atlantic foreign ministers, Genscher’s tactical skill and intelligence, reinforced by his country’s new bargaining position, gave him a prominence that-perhaps unintentionally–emphasized Germany’s national role. But to what purpose and for what end? For the master diplomat, a new opportunity had opened up: to maneuver among the multiplying international institutions–such as NATO, the European security conference, the Common Market, the West European Union-with partially overlapping, partially competing, purposes. There is a danger in these multiple affiliations: when everybody is allied with everybody, special obligations cease to exist, and national interest predominates. But skillfully used, international machinery could be turned into a tool of national policy. For example, Genscher’s analysis of the Yugoslav crisis was superior to that of most of his European partners. Still, he prevailed less by the force of his argument than by moving back and forth between the European Community, the European security conference and the threat of unilateral action. By the same token, Genscher’s latest project-" Europe from Vladivostok to Vancouver"–threatens to dissolve existing relationships in a structure so vast and vague that the national interests of each party will predominate.
In the end, tactical skill can obscure, but not change, reality. And Germany’s reality is a narrow margin for maneuver: too passive, it runs the risk of being engulfed by the storms swirling around the center of the Continent; too active, it threatens to magnify those storms. For 18 years Genscher used that narrow margin brilliantly. He did not widen it, but then that may be inherent in Germany’s position.
When all is said and done, the democracies can thank Genscher for having maintained their alliance through many storms. His country’s adversaries can honor him for his effort to build bridges. And his friends will not forget that his personal loyalty matched his diplomatic skill. Genscher will surely go down in history as one of the most important statesmen his country has produced.
