But who exactly belongs to this community, then, who is a German? The precise answer must be: Whoever holds German citizenship. It is acquired either by birth or is bestowed under certain conditions upon request. It has nothing to do with hair color, skin color, or race – it must never again have anything to do with those things, nor, as in the GDR, with a prescribed Weltanschauung, but only with rights and obligation and, to be sure, with the declared willingness to belong to this community. The person to whom citizenship is granted then enters into our community, together with his different background, culture, or religion, too. Especially for us in the East, that is nothing new at all. There was a time when Dutchmen, Frenchmen, and Bohemians migrated to Brandenburg. Brandenburg benefited from this. The Sorbs, who have preserved their Slavic culture and language, are German citizens without reservations of any kind and don’t want to be anything else. And I remind the reader of the German Jews, who made such important contributions to German culture and science.
And then there are those with whom we share language and culture, but not the fatherland, I am talking about the ethnic Germans in Romania, for example, or in the former Soviet Union. They are not German citizens and not our fellow citizens, but they are closer to us than others in foreign countries.
Finally, there are the foreigners who live among us, which means that while they are fellow citizens, they are not German citizens. To them, too, we are connected with clearly identified rights and obligations.
We get into serious trouble when we work with a crowbar in this complicated area and set up false alternatives. Both things have their right and their place: Germany as fatherland, characterized by its history and culture, and Germany as a state that grants its citizens the same rights and imposes the same obligations without regard to the person; or: the cultural concept of Germany (cultural nation) and the legal concept of Germany (political nation). For the way in which we deal with one another, the legal concept must be paramount.
print version
return to list