LONDON â€" In the overheated atmosphere of the Cyprus bailout crisis, Germany has once more been portrayed as a bullying villain wielding its economic power to dominate a struggling Europe.
Deutsche Welle said Chancellor Angela Merkel must be growing weary of being portrayed in an SS uniform and sporting a Hitler mustache.
“Since the start of the euro zone crisis, opponents of austerity measures have relied on Nazi comparisons to get their message across,†according to the German broadcaster.
Germanophobia has become a persistent leitmotiv in the crises that have enveloped the most vulnerable, and predominantly southern, economies of the 17-member currency zone.
As Rendezvous wrote last June, “All the old stereotypes about the Germans are rising to the surface as frustration grows over their refusal to sign what they regard as a blank check to their less disciplined European neighbors.â€
The German-bashing resurfaced with a vengeance during the Cyprus crisis.
Juan Torres López, a Spanish economist, caused a furor with a guest column in Spain’s El PaÃs in which he wrote, “Angela Merkel, like Hitler, has declared war on the rest of the continent, this time to guarantee Germany its vital economic space.â€
The newspaper responded to protests by withdrawing the article from its Web site. Mr. Torres López said he had no intention of comparing Ms. Merkel with Hitler (although he stood by his references to war and Lebensraum.)
“The drama over Cyprus has made clear that the euro zone crisis is developing into a struggle over German hegemony in Europe,†Jakob Augstein acknowledged in Germany’s Der Spiegel.
In a column that was highly critical of Germany’s role in the Cyprus settlement, he wrote:
Just like twice before in our recent history, the Germans are falling deeper and deeper into conflict with their neighbors - regardless of the cost. It’s a path that could easily lead to fear of German political hegemony on the Continent. Indeed, Merkel’s idea of European integration is simply that Europe should bend to Germany’s political will.
The deal eventually reached with Cyprus on a €10-billion bailout looked unlikely to soften the outlook of those who blame Germany for their economic ills.
German officials were peppered with questions on Monday about whether the deal would aggravate long-simmering resentment within Europe, Reuters reported from Berlin, “and perhaps even convince some states that Merkel’s cure is worse than their disease.â€
Gideon Rachman, writing in the Financial Times, argued that the latest wave of Germanophobia provoked by the Cyprus crisis was unfair.
“Behind all the shouting and the wrangling, German taxpayers will once again be funding the biggest single share of yet another euro zone bailout,†he wrote.
“It seems a bit harsh that Germany is extending loans of hundreds of billions of euros to its neighbors - only to be accused of neo-Nazism in return.â€
Mr. Rachman believed the phenomenon was as much to do with the weakness of Germany’s European partners as with that country’s strength.
He highlighted the diminished role of France, where President François Hollande “has let it be known that he disapproves of Germany’s insistence of austerity but he has not proposed a coherent alternative.â€
Brendan Simms, a Cambridge University history professor, wrote earlier this month that a surge of political and popular Germanophobia was not surprising.
Writing in Britain’s New Statesman, he said that Germany was both too strong and too weak. There were many who worried that Germany was not using its power actively enough, due to the country’s historically based discomfort with exercising military force.
“It sits uneasily at the heart of an E.U. that was conceived largely to constrain German power but which has served instead to increase it,†he wrote.
Professor Simms said there had been widespread calls over the past three years for Germany to take the lead in resolving the escalating euro crisis.
“That is the dilemma of German power today,†he wrote. “Germany is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.â€
