The postwar country’s sovereignty was held in check by the Western allies (and in the east by the Soviet Union), and its leaders fought to loosen the corset bit by bit through benevolent deeds. Its meekness and rock-solid commitment to the good of the EU, in which political power was more widely distributed than it is today (mostly in the direction of Paris), stemmed from the World War II crimes committed by Nazi Germany. In the 1949-to-1990 Bonn Republic, West Germany was a humble subordinate of the Western alliance. The charges of egotism and high-handed behavior are relatively new. The big question for the future of Europe might be whether Germans will notice, too. The rest of Europe certainly notices that things are increasingly done Germany’s way, even when the German way arguably - or as some of the country’s critics suggest, plainly - isn’t best. And the Germany of Chancellor Angela Merkel hasn’t hesitated to throw it around. Besserwisserei may be a cultural trait that reaches back centuries, but Germany wields more power in Europe today, particularly in the European Union, than at any time in recent memory. The other is the growing threat that cultural vanity will begin to shade into self-defeating political egotism. Resentment is only one part of the problem posed by Germany’s self-satisfaction. Just ask Germany’s European neighbors, and others, including the United States, where resentment of Germans has been percolating for years, under constant threat of bubbling over. In German the phenomenon is summed up in one word: Besserwisserei, a know-it-all attitude, which the Germans themselves admit is somewhat of an engrained cultural trait.īut it’s increasingly clear that one country’s allegedly evidence-based Besserwisserei is another country’s intolerable smugness.
Whether the field is migration or manufacturing, fiscal policy or renewable energy, Germans increasingly believe that they, and they alone, know best, at least judging from the attitude newly on display everywhere from newspaper columns to parliamentary speeches to barroom chats over beer. Their country slipped to fourth in this year’s poll, behind Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but that seems unlikely to do much to dim the self-confidence of a country enjoying a surging economy and growing international cachet. But for a growing number of Germans, the important thing was that it offered confirmation of their own self-image. The poll relied on criteria measuring entrepreneurship, power, public education, and quality of life, among others.
OOne year ago, Germany was named the “best country” in the world, according to a poll by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
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