Yet Germany, despite more than 55 years of being a loyal democratic ally that displays more annoying pacifism than aggressive intent, is being portrayed as a new Nazi threat to Europe just because they have the cash to rescue other Europeans from their spending woes:
The rise of a German Europe began in 1914, failed twice, and has now ended in the victory of German power almost a century later. The Europe that Kaiser Wilhelm lost in 1918, and that Adolf Hitler destroyed in 1945, has at last been won by Chancellor Angela Merkel without firing a shot.
Or so it seems from European newspapers, which now refer bitterly to a “Fourth Reich” and arrogant new Nazi “Gauleiters” who dictate terms to their European subordinates. Popular cartoons depict Germans with stiff-arm salutes and swastikas, establishing new rules of behavior for supposedly inferior peoples.
This level of bile would only have been exceeded if the Germans had decided that southern European finances weren't worth the bonds of a single Pomeranian banker. Note how Britain is being treated for not wanted a tighter fiscal union to save the euro! (Tip to Mad Minerva)
I wish I could adequately convey the intensity of the anti-British feeling in the European Parliament. In today's debate on last week's Brussels summit, speaker after speaker rose to denounce our entire nation as selfish, narrow-minded and arrogant.
You'd think that the Germans might at least have a little sympathy for America now. Just being large and needed inspires anger and resentment. I've certainly been annoyed with the Germans over the last decade as they've cozied up to Russia for heating fuel and blasted us for the Iraq War. Their lack of support given the decades we put New York and Washington, D.C. on the line to defend West Berlin seemed rather ... well, rather French, truth be told. But I never thought the Germans were barely suppressed Nazis. However uneasy, we've remained friends and allies.
Hey, ten years later the Germans really are all Americans, now.
