Historians and sociologists who studied the German peoples had found
themselves in sudden demand among the politicians and media of the
smaller, more skittish nations; and their separate conclusions had been
nothing if not ambiguous. The general consensus among the most
respected, however, had been that history's "romantic Huns" were as
mysterious and unreadable a people as God ever put on the Earth. No
one could know what the Germans were capable of, for good or ill, until
they did it. In World War II they had played the part of heinous
villains (and done so with terrifying cruelty); in the reshaping of
Europe after the collapse of the Communist Bloc, they had acted as
generous unifiers, and staunch defenders of the lesser democracies.
That this latter posture had finally and decisively cut the political
binds and military restrictions imposed by the Allies after the fall of
the Third Reich, was a fact that some (though not all) tended to
overlook. The one consistency throughout had been an aggressive and
self-righteous pursuit of nationalistic goals, based partly, but not
solely, on a continuing discomfort with Western humanitarian ideals.
"The Germans don't want freedom," the 20th Century author had declared.
"They don't understand it. What they want is a strong leader, and a
cause worth fighting for." But here again, words could never quite
capture the stubborn fiber of the German spirit.
And, of course, those who did not fit the negative stereotype---there
were many---were human beings just like any other, complete with their
share of artists, dissidents, dreamers, idealists and alternative
politicians. That those in power continued to be for the most part
conservative, flag waving nationalists (as indeed had become the case
in the United Commonwealth) did not mean that the Germans had no heart.
Many quiet, everyday working people secretly hoped for the emergence
of a more moderate geopolitical stance; and few would deny that a truly
good German was as unselfish and compassionate an individual as one
could ever hope to find. Unfortunately, fierce nationalism remained,
and the end result was always the same: subtle but continuous
expansionism.