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concepts of national identity emerged during the debate on German
unification, after the ‘masses’ had pulled down the Berlin Wall. At
the end of his book, Müller notes that ‘normally countries, it seems,
do not debate their normality’ (p. 271). In this sense Germany is
probably not a ‘normal country’. However, Müller also points out
that it was precisely this capacity to debate their own political condition,
including the past, the ability to be sceptical, and a readiness to
protest, which allowed the Germans to build up a democratic culture
after the war. In the disorder surrounding unification, this democratic
culture proved itself to be stable, and the slide to the right, into a
pretentious nationalism, that many intellectuals feared would take
place, failed to materialize. According to Müller, this was to the credit
of the intellectuals, even if they sometimes faced the ‘normal population’
more suspiciously than was necessary.
CHRISTOPH SCHNEIDER is a Research Assistant in the Department
of Sociology at the University of Constance. He is working on a D�G
project, headed by Professor Bernhard Giesen, on ‘Norm and
Symbol’, looking at political rituals of commemoration and reconciliation.
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