The following essay by the Hungarian historian Mária Schmidt was published at Látószög blog. Many thanks to CrossWare for the translation.

Misunderstandings

(The Századvég [The Century’s End] Foundation and The Watcher: Where is Europe going? — The written version of the presentation of the results of the research by Project 28 in 2018 at its conference on March 2)

March 26, 2018

By Mária Schmidt, historian

The protracted migrant crisis has generated sharp antagonisms within the European Union. It took to the breaking point the British-EU controversy, which led to Brexit in 2016. It poisoned the relationship between the eastern and western parts of Europe. The reason for this lies, of course, not only and not exclusively in the different positions on the migrant question, but the preceding controversy, which endangers trust in each other and threatens the survival of the Union.

The decisive role in the creation of the EU was played by the two superpowers in a bipolar world: the United States of America and the Soviet Union, who also competed in the ideological, military and economic spheres. The duel the two of them fought brought the victory of the consumer market economy, which was combined with the complete financial collapse of the socialist model. The Cold War was won by the West: A reunited Europe, as well its most influential state, Germany . The fact of reunification, however, was misinterpreted by the EU as well as by Germany, which therefore drew poor conclusions.

Western Europe and the Federal Republic of Germany were clearly beneficiaries of the Cold War. However, Germany did not really contribute to this victory. Western citizens enjoyed an unprecedented economic upturn for four decades until the end of the bipolar world. They enjoyed all the benefits of a consumer society, coupled with security, freedom and financial well-being. On top of that they even pinned up the flag of the moral supremacy they felt over the total communist dictatorship. In the case of the West Germans, the most agreeable thing was that they did not have to, be responsible for anything, because that was the job of the victors in the world war. They were well-content to root for the suppressed and to do business with both sides of the Iron Curtain. According to the Bulgarian sociologist Ivan Krastev, it was as if the BRD [Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Federal Republic of Germany] was always on vacation while everyone else was working. The West Germans were sipping red wine in Tuscany as they continued to support and root for socialism, which was built behind the Iron Curtain by their brothers and sisters, just as it was by us [Hungarians]. They became frustrated and felt robbed after the affair which they so enthusiastically supported finally went bust. The East Germans and the rest of them — without their prior permission — abused the moral support they had given them, and without their permission arbitrarily stopped experimenting with the socialist future. The West’s intellectual leaders were thus faced the fact that the Iron Curtain disappeared at the same time, and they found themselves in a new position they did not even want.

They were reluctant, but still willing to pester the eastern part of Germany to replace all “Ossis” [Easterners] with their third- or fourth-class west German cadres. They categorized whole generations as a useless burden, punishing them for abandoning socialism without their permission. They divided Germany again into “Wessis” [Westerners] and “Ossis” [Easterners] instead of uniting it. Let us remember that the unity of Germany — and thus of Europe — was expressly opposed by the left wing of the political class of the Federal Republic of Germany, namely the Social Democrats and the Greens, complemented by the ’68ers Left-Liberal propagandists. When the Wessis flooded the Ossis, they kicked them out of their positions, declared their education and diplomas invalid, their careers, their achievements nullified, claiming that the GDR [Deutsche Demokratische Republik: German Democratic Republic] was a guilty system, and for whose actions they [the Ossis] were responsible. All this is now can be classified as straightforward greed for, i.e. a collective immorality, in preparation for the rehabilitation of Marx, which will be sanctified by the European Union itself when Commissioner Juncker inaugurates his statue in Trier [Note: the statue of Marx was erected on April 13, after this essay was published].

Not that we were surprised. The political elites of Western Europe are rife with Marxists, former Maoists and Trotskyites, who have never been brave enough to emigrate to the socialist side and experience the “future” in practice, and so did not to have to face the vicious nature of communism and apologize for their supporting behavior. For them it was always important to have an attractive utopia in their backyard that they could believe in or could pretend that they believed in. Its updated version is the European bureaucratic union, the planned United States of Europe.

Both Germany and the European Union therefore misinterpreted the events of 1989-90.

The Ossis are lazy, naïve and sensitive — the Wessis are arrogant, selfish, and insensitive

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the BRD and the western part of the EU started from the notion that once the model they operated won, they could continue to move into the new millennium unchanged. Therefore, the task before them was identified as a assimilation rather than a merger. Thus the West Germans did this with East Germany and Western Europe with Eastern Europe. “Connection” conditions were imposed, whose execution was rigorously requested. By no means did they ever use, nor do they use, the term “merger”.

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