Anchored in the West by NATO and the European Union, Americanized to the marrow in much of the country, driven by a dark past to a special sensitivity for human dignity and the rule of law, Germany, Kempe suggests, has what it takes to lead Europe, and especially to steer the post-Communist part of the Continent into the Western fold. Their Weltanschauung builds in the recognition that Germany's Nazi history still shapes their world in many ways, yet they accept no responsibility for the past. They consider themselves first to be global citizens and second to be Germans. This is a fine summary. Germany, like Europe as a whole, is no longer a land of stark ideological battles.
Unification remains a work in progress.
The years of the economic miracle have given way to worried questioning about high unemployment and immigration. The move of the capital back to Berlin has inevitably made the past palpable just as Germany is most anxious to go beyond it. Certainly, the past obsesses Kempe. It is no abstract question to him. Such a division is, of course, quintessentially German.