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BERLIN: Germans got an unwanted reminder of their nightmare past this month with Silvio Berlusconi’s Nazi slur and as they tried to put the episode behind them as fast as possible they wondered — Why does everyone hate us?
The Italian Prime Minister compared a little-known German politician to a Nazi prison guard during a heated debate at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week, triggering a furore that cast a shadow over Berlusconi and German-Italian relations.
Berlusconi’s insult, telling Martin Schulz he would be a perfect candidate for a Nazi character in a film, drew rebukes across Europe. But in Germany the outburst caused more shock and sorrow than anger or indignation.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder first demanded an apology and then after a hastily arranged telephone call said he gladly accepted Berlusconi’s regrets.
Sensing Germans have no stomach for Nazi stories or reminders of their grandfathers’ crimes, Schroeder welcomed what he labelled an apology as a chance to close the chapter.
Berlusconi later insisted he had not apologized, saying he had only expressed his sadness for being badly interpreted.
“I did not make an apology,” Berlusconi said. He defended himself, saying he had in mind a clumsy German soldier named “Schultz” in the 1960s US television series “Hogan’s Heroes.”
Schroeder had no further comment. “The wider political dimensions were cleared up and the chancellor considers the case closed,” said Schroeder’s spokesman Bela Anda on Friday.
But Schulz, the little-known member of the European Parliament who angered Berlusconi, said on Sunday the Italian leader had only confirmed the worst fears of his detractors with the outburst.
“Berlusconi is cooking up a new version of events every day but it doesn’t change his nature of the insult,” said Schulz, 47. “He should apologize to the European Parliament as fast as possible and make it clear that his lapse won’t happen again.”
WILL NAZI COMPARISONS EVER END?: For 63 million Germans born after World War Two — some 75 per cent of the population — Berlusconi’s astonishing insult tore open old wounds.
“Won’t these unseemly Nazi comparisons ever end?” wrote columnist Rolf Kleine in Bild, Germany’s top-selling newspaper.
“Whether outside Germany or from within, it’s always tempting when there are no other arguments to bash Germans with the Nazi battering ram. The darkest chapter in our history is often used as a killer argument. Just stop it now!”
Six decades after the war Germans are sensitive about their Nazi past and Nazi references are often political dynamite.
Schroeder dropped his justice minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin last year after she stirred a row with the United States by comparing President George W. Bush’s policies towards Iraq to those of Adolf Hitler.
“Nazi analogies are total nonsense,” said Dietmar Herz, political science professor at Erfurt University. “They have nothing to do with Germany today. Abroad, they’re being artificially kept alive by the press in countries like England.”
When overseas Germans are often bewildered to still be confronted by the past — called Krauts or greeted by the stiff-armed Hitler salute. But they are still unable to completely shrug off the burden of guilt from that era — and would rather not be reminded of it.
“Germans are always having to fight old cliches abroad,” said Herz.
“Berlusconi’s remarks only perpetuate the image abroad of Germans as Nazis,” said Mueller-Busch, 27. “The Germans he attacked had nothing to do with the Nazis.”—Reuters
