Germany and the Germans The United Germany in the Mid-1990s; New Edition

by Ardagh, John; Ardagh, Katharina

• ISBN13: 9780140252668
• ISBN10: 0140252665
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-06-01
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

Ardagh's masterly account captures the diversity and contradictions of Germany in the mid-1990s. In a special new introduction he looks at recent events - the re-election of Chancellor Kohl in 1994, the rebuilding of Berlin to make it Germany's capital once again, the coming and going of recession, the flare-up of racial violence and the continued malaise in the east despite economic renewal. In a new postscript, Ardagh examines Germany's crucial role today in the European Union. And his book surveys many other aspects of German life, such as the clashing passions for fast cars and forests; the 'regional patchwork'; sex, snobbery and suburbia. He mocks the vogue for spa cures and the zany Cologne carnival. He explores the savagery of gutter journalism, the harsh lives of Turkish guest workers and, above all, the terrible legacy of Nazism. Perceptive and positive but never uncritical, his book has been acclaimed on all sides as a major achievement.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 1995 edition	xi
Introduction	1	(28)
Introduction to the 1995 edition: the new united Germany in a new era	1	(17)
A post-war historical survey: ruins to riches	18	(11)
The regional patchwork, an ancient legacy	29	(75)
West Berlin, 1945--89: the buoyant survivor	35	(13)
The new united Berlin, and its victory over Bonn	48	(16)
A diversity of dominant cities: life today in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Bremen	64	(20)
The Bund and the Lander: how and why federalism works	84	(6)
Benevolent technocrats in the Rathaus	90	(5)
North v. South: rustbelt Ruhr hits back against Bavarian boom	95	(9)
The `economic miracle' and its after-strains	104	(68)
Industrial splendour--but can it meet the high-tech challenge?	108	(17)
A paradise of labour harmony--but what of the waning work-ethic?	125	(16)
The great environmental debate: nuclear power, car exhaust, and death of the beloved forests	141	(13)
The ignored rural world and its grumbling peasantry	154	(18)
Daily life: a modernised society re-examines its traditions	172	(101)
The social snobberies of a semi-classless society	173	(16)
Women, sex and children: a few crusades yet to be won	189	(14)
A spick and span suburbia where the shops shut early	203	(7)
From Wurst and dumplings to fancy French and food fads	210	(8)
Assiduous tourists and crazy Cologne carnivalers	218	(11)
The spa romance--by courtesy of a lavish health insurance system	229	(7)
Schools: educating the mind, but not so much the character	236	(9)
The never-ending university malaise	245	(16)
Catholics and Protestants: a new amity, but new internal conflicts	261	(12)
Turkish `guest workers' and other immigrants: a painful path towards acceptance	273	(25)
Arts and intellectuals: lively activity, but low creativity	298	(70)
The novel: waiting for successors to Boll and Grass	299	(8)
The State's role as Maecenas: taking culture out of the `temples'	307	(7)
Theatre: morally serious, wilfully provocative	314	(17)
Fassbinder, Herzog and Reitz's Heimat: the brief golden age of the `New German Cinema'	331	(23)
Television becomes less tame, but Bild stays barbarous	354	(14)
The old GDR: daily life under German-style Communism	368	(53)
Private values amid public collectivism	373	(11)
Dilemmas for the Church, wooed but wary	384	(4)
The watchful grip of the one-party State	388	(9)
Brecht to Biermann: dealing with the intellectual dissidents	397	(6)
Travel to the West: harshest of the curbs on freedom	403	(11)
Inter-German relations: detente, but silly games with protocol	414	(7)
The new east Germany, free but anxious	421	(76)
A traumatic adaptation to the West	434	(14)
Privatisation, pollution and property	448	(18)
Land and Rathaus renewal: Keeping the old comrades?	466	(13)
Dilemmas for writers, new values in the classroom	479	(18)
Conclusion: how stable a democracy?	497	(88)
Digesting the legacies of Nazism	497	(15)
Political strengths and community weaknesses	512	(21)
The Greens and their values: fundamental social change, or just another youth protest?	533	(30)
Germany and the world: nationalism, or European integration?	563	(17)
Postscript, May 1995	580	(5)
Acknowledgements	585	(4)
Bibliography	589	(4)
Index	593