Don’t mention ze vor

There’s only one thing the British hate more than being hectored, and that’s being hectored by Germans. Yet that’s precisely what the outgoing German ambassador Peter Ammon did in his valedictory interview.

His Excellence is upset about the frequent references to the war made by Brexiteers, who draw an unwarranted parallel between the Third Reich and the EU:

“History is always full of ambiguities and ups and downs,” he said, “but if you focus only on how Britain stood alone in the war, how it stood against dominating Germany, well, it is a nice story, but does not solve any problem of today.”

Herr Ammon should have got out more when in London. Had he visited, for example, any international football match, he’d know that such sentiments transcend political boundaries.

When England plays Germany, many an English fan holds the index finger of his left hand across his top lip, while raising his outstretched right arm in a well-known salute. And when England plays any other European team, tens of thousands sing as one: “If it wasn’t for England, you’d all be Krauts”.

In fact, before the 2006 World Cup held in Germany, the departing England fans had been briefed on this sensitive issue and told not to mention the war. In compliance, during the opening ceremony many of them sported T-shirts saying “Don’t mention the war”.

One can always rely on any EU ideologue to intersperse truisms with banalities, bromides and platitudes. So yes, history is indeed full of ambiguities. But Germany’s quest to dominate Europe isn’t one of them. It’s an observable fact rooted in national psychology.

The Germans seem to think that their indisputable talents don’t get the recognition they deserve. Western music, for example, is practically all German, which is an unparalleled cultural achievement.

While one can’t say exactly the same thing about Western philosophy, the Germans arguably contributed more to it than anyone else. They also hold their own in literature and science, while their ability to mass-produce premium products is second to none.

Germans do have much to be proud of, but here’s the rub. People in general, and the British in particular, don’t like high achievers who flaunt their accomplishments too openly. They admire such people only if their success is leavened with diffidence and self-deprecating humour.

Germans aren’t exactly known for these traits, which is why they’re more often mocked than praised. To be sure, envy has a role to play there as well, but it’s not nearly as prominent as the Germans will have you believe.

I’d venture a guess that the Germans’ desire for respect, which they felt they merited and weren’t getting, was a contributing factor in both world wars. It’s also possible that, had, say, Italy been the defeated aggressor in the First World War, the peace treaty imposed on her would have been less harsh than Versailles.

When Nazi German and Vichy French bureaucrats were drawing the blueprint for the EU towards the end of the Second World War, they were both driven by their national desiderata. Having experienced a de facto single European state, they felt the concept was promising.

France, having lost two wars to the Germans in the preceding 70 years, and won a Pyrrhic victory in another, wanted some guarantee of a lasting peace – and a chance to mend her badly dented pride by riding the resurgent Germans’ coattails .

Germany, having lost any possibility of launching military conquests in the foreseeable future, welcomed the chance of rising to a highly predictable economic, and therefore political, dominance in Europe.

Things have panned out as the two parties planned, especially for Germany. She has emerged as the most politically powerful, and the only economically virile, country on the continent. And Germany foots the bill for most EU members in a sort of supranational welfare state.

Here it’s useful to keep in mind that, all the touchy-feely noises aside, the real objective of any welfare state, national or supranational, is to increase the political power of the state over the individual (or country). And Germany does much to vindicate this statement.

In common with all fire-eating ideologues, the good ambassador is adept at denying obvious facts. Hence he mocks the very idea that the EU is basically a German fiefdom:

“When I tell people in Germany I am confronted by this narrative occasionally in public debates they say, ‘This cannot be true. You are joking. This cannot be true. That is absurd.’.” Well, they would, wouldn’t they.

“I spoke to many of the Brexiteers, and many of them said they wanted to preserve a British identity,” laments the ambassador.

Shame on those retrogrades. Preserve a British identity when they could have a German one instead? There’s no understanding some people.

Being a German, he probably doesn’t realise how much political sovereignty determines the British national identity. Germany, after all, became a single political entity barely a century and a half ago, while Britain has been just that for more than a millennium.

Hence Germany has made a rather understated contribution to the art of politics, and what she has made is largely negative. She has been much more successful at churning out food processors and electric shavers.

Neither is France fit to teach politics to the world – any more than a man divorced several times is fit to offer marriage advice on the basis of that experience. While England has had roughly the same constitution since 1688, France has had 17 different ones since 1789.

If France taught the world how to build cathedrals and make wine, and Germany how to compose music and make toasters, England has shown how to run a state without too much social conflict. Germany and France are glued together mainly by culture; Britain mainly by politics.

Hence, throughout their political flip-flops, France and Germany preserved their national identity. France managed to do so even when being part of Germany. As the Nazis were rounding up Jews, Jean-Paul still held court at Les Deux Magots, and his plays were still produced at the Théâtre du Vieux–Colombier.

Conversely, Britain without her political sovereignty is no longer Britain. But the good ambassador is either insufficiently bright or too German to understand this.

Such failings don’t prevent him from patronising the British: “If you say the words ‘single market’ or ‘customs union’, probably 99 per cent of the population would not understand.”

Let’s see if I can pass the test. Customs union is like the Zollverein, isn’t it? That devious stratagem Prussia used to coerce other German states to come together under her aegis, am I getting it right? Well then, it’s hard not to notice that today’s Germany has absorbed this lesson of history rather well.

And British football fans, for all their supposed ignorance, have absorbed others much better than the good ambassador. They may not be able to define a Zollverein, but when they see it they know it.