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rfmcdonaldI've been watching the German election campaign from a distance, and although I'm not as informed as I should be about the various events and trends I'm not particularly surprised that this year's election is turning out to be so bitter.
Why? Going to Jan Lahmayer's excellent Population Statistics website, I can discover figures for the population of West Germany dating back centuries. In 1900 there were almost 29 million people living on West German territory; in 1939 there were 43 million people; in 1946, despite the death toll of the Second World War some 46.2 million people; and, in 1949, the year that the Federal Republic was declared, West Germany was home to 49.2 million people. In the four decades that followed, West Germany's population grew by a quarter, reaching a total of 62.7 million in 1989 thanks mainly to heavy immigration, whether of ethnic Germans from East Germany and Communist Europe or of labour migrants from southern and southeastern Europe.
In 1990, West Germany's annexation of East Germany and continued mass immigration brought the total population up to 80.2 million people. Despite a low fertility rate, continued immigration has pushed the population up to 82.4 million as of this year. The population of the Federal Republic of Germany, in short, has grown by more than a third in the past 15 years. More, as the Council of Europe noted two years ago, West Germany's population has risen by a tenth since reunification, again thanks to inwards migration, from the East and from abroad. By any standards, both the Federal Republic is a very high rate of population growth, most especially so in the context of a Europe where populations are remaining stable.
High rates of population growth--in the Middle East, in Africa, in South Asia, and elsewhere--have been cited elsewhere as causes for political instability, as local states and local societies fail to successfully take on the taks of socializing and integrating their new members into established orders. The Federal Republic of Germany is a young political regime, dating back barely more than a half-century as a sovereign entity of any kind. The task of reunification is clearly more than anyone in either Germany had expected; the need for Germany to accustom itself to being a society of immigration was a further strained.
Does anyone have a right to be surprised by the rise of the Left Party and the vicious CDU/CSU slurs against East Germans and the transformation of Turkish entry into the European Union into a central political issue? Of course Germany's identity would be debated fiercely by a population that hasn't been socialized very thoroughly in the norms of the Federal Republic's pre-reunification peak. Any country that goes through the sorts of changes experienced by the Federal Republic in the past half-generation would be strained. It's to the Germans' credit that they're handling this inevitable--and, dare I say, necessary--tension so well.
Why? Going to Jan Lahmayer's excellent Population Statistics website, I can discover figures for the population of West Germany dating back centuries. In 1900 there were almost 29 million people living on West German territory; in 1939 there were 43 million people; in 1946, despite the death toll of the Second World War some 46.2 million people; and, in 1949, the year that the Federal Republic was declared, West Germany was home to 49.2 million people. In the four decades that followed, West Germany's population grew by a quarter, reaching a total of 62.7 million in 1989 thanks mainly to heavy immigration, whether of ethnic Germans from East Germany and Communist Europe or of labour migrants from southern and southeastern Europe.
In 1990, West Germany's annexation of East Germany and continued mass immigration brought the total population up to 80.2 million people. Despite a low fertility rate, continued immigration has pushed the population up to 82.4 million as of this year. The population of the Federal Republic of Germany, in short, has grown by more than a third in the past 15 years. More, as the Council of Europe noted two years ago, West Germany's population has risen by a tenth since reunification, again thanks to inwards migration, from the East and from abroad. By any standards, both the Federal Republic is a very high rate of population growth, most especially so in the context of a Europe where populations are remaining stable.
High rates of population growth--in the Middle East, in Africa, in South Asia, and elsewhere--have been cited elsewhere as causes for political instability, as local states and local societies fail to successfully take on the taks of socializing and integrating their new members into established orders. The Federal Republic of Germany is a young political regime, dating back barely more than a half-century as a sovereign entity of any kind. The task of reunification is clearly more than anyone in either Germany had expected; the need for Germany to accustom itself to being a society of immigration was a further strained.
Does anyone have a right to be surprised by the rise of the Left Party and the vicious CDU/CSU slurs against East Germans and the transformation of Turkish entry into the European Union into a central political issue? Of course Germany's identity would be debated fiercely by a population that hasn't been socialized very thoroughly in the norms of the Federal Republic's pre-reunification peak. Any country that goes through the sorts of changes experienced by the Federal Republic in the past half-generation would be strained. It's to the Germans' credit that they're handling this inevitable--and, dare I say, necessary--tension so well.
