The End of Denial: Solidarity, Diversity, and Constitutional Patriotism in Germany

In the 1980s and early 1990s, one could be forgiven for getting the impression that Germans had a monopoly on self-obsessed debates about their "identity." When the country was still divided, politicians and intellectuals joined in what seemed to be an interminable series of ceremonies, conferences, and televised discussions about the meaning of Germany. Today, a united Germany has hardly found consensus on its ever elusive national identity; and yet, both the tone and the parameters of the debate have changed profoundly, and not just because of unification. Slowly, there is convergence on a definition of "Germanness" that is no longer ethnic, that is more accepting of immigrants, and that implies a less tortuous, though not complacent relation to its own past. This new self-conception might even hold lessons for the pan-European discussion about the integration of minorities and the future of the welfare state—a discussion in which it is often assumed that there has to be a trade-off between "solidarity" and "diversity."