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It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching. Indeed it is a characteristic of most human beings, whether politicians or not, to flatter themselves on their knowledge of history. Not everyone supposes himself or herself to be an expert financier or lawyer or scientist; but most of us believe ourselves sufficiently expert in history to have an irrefutable idea of the history of our own country and its neighbours.
We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgement on the past. We may be pessimists like Gibbon who believed that history was little more than “the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind”. Or, like Livy, we may be admirers of time past, believing it to be a golden age peopled largely by saints and heroes, wiser and better than those we see around us today. Whichever our preference we come to pass judgement. Yet in so doing we amateurs separate ourselves to a dangerous extent from the professionals. Ever since the days of von Ranke in Germany or, much later of Namier in Britain, professional historians have tended to steer away from judgement and concentrate on the safer task of description and analysis. Yet we amateurs press on down the path of judgement, even though this means we deprive ourselves of the most qualified guides.
Partly because of this waywardness popular judgements on historical events and characters vary widely from time to time and from country to country. There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon – and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.
Winston Churchill, both historian and statesman, wrote that “history with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past trying to reconstruct its scenes to revive its echoes and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days”. Winston Churchill was speaking on what must have been for him a remarkably difficult occasion, namely the tributes in the House of Commons to his predecessor as Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, after the latter’s death in November 1940. Churchill does not disguise the fierce differences which had only recently been settled between Chamberlain, the champion of appeasing Hitler and himself, the passionate opponent of that policy. Instead of triumphing, Churchill makes the point that the verdict of history shifts ceaselessly and that no one can be sure where if ever it will come to rest. Wisely he concludes, “whilst the only guide to a man is his conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations.”
There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours. Nevertheless it is true that on occasion those in charge of a country stepped outside even the widest conceivable definition of values, human or divine. Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of that time. Nor is it an excuse for the crimes of Auschwitz that the crimes of the Gulag, equally cruel and destructive, do not receive the same condemnation.
But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich. The unintelligent educationalists in Britain create a historical curriculum by which our children our soaked in knowledge of the Nazis, but ignorant either of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century or the remarkable rediscovery of democracy by Germany after 1945 - let alone the efforts of statesmen like Stresemann after the First World War to avert the prospect of a second.
Despite this lamentable lack of balance in our education I do not believe that either children or adults in my country are permeated by a widespread hostility to Germany. In my experience German Ambassadors to the Court of St James preoccupy themselves excessively with a somewhat different point. They are depressed by the emphasis in the British media on the history of Britain in the Second World War and in particular on that period in 1940/41 when we and the British Commonwealth countries were the only opponents in arms against Hitler. The strong though often whimsical pride which we take in what our parents and grandparents then achieved seems to me entirely justified and likely to endure. It is perfectly possible to enjoy a repeat on British television of the series Dads Army or the films The Dam Busters or In Which We Serve, while accepting that modern Germany is not an enemy to be distrusted but a friend and partner with which we share all important values.
Our children should also be aware of a fact which is still hardly understood. So far from neglecting or brushing aside what was done under the Third Reich, German historians, novelists, and film makers are constantly exploring and revising our judgements of the period and its actors in a fearless and inevitably controversial spirit which we should respect. The picture that emerges from their scholarship is nuanced, subtle and relevant to us all.
The first two Prime Ministers whom I served, Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher drew strikingly different lessons from the Second World War. Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of all continental Europe. On the positive side she stresses almost exclusively the overriding value of the Anglo-American alliance. Ted Heath on the contrary drew a different conclusion when, as a young army officer, he passed through the devastated cities of Germany in 1945. Following Churchill he believed that the answer to that lesson of history must be reconciliation and integration within Europe. He went beyond Churchill in believing that Britain must be part of that process, and himself succeeded in carrying that thought into effective action by leading Britain into the European community.
Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany which was already the strongest economic partner in Europe. Of course this turned out to be the opposite of the truth, though she was not alone in believing it. The economic and social difficulties which have followed unification may, it seems to me, be building now an excessive pessimism here in Germany about the national reputation. There is nothing false or arrogant about German pride in German technical and business skills. The modest street in London where I live is almost entirely peopled by German cars. We are not entirely stupid customers, as your export figures show. No one familiar with the streets or supermarkets of England can believe that Germany is feeble, let alone doomed, as a producer of the goods and services which the world needs
Yet the lessons of history are usually complex. The European Union derives from two imperatives of European history, both still valid. The first is the need for reconciliation perceived by Churchill and Adenauer, by Heath and Kohl. The second is the existence of the nation states of Europe with their deep roots and varied cultures. Because we have to reconcile these imperatives progress is slow. We have no exact model to follow; we are trying to create something unique. History provides no precise guidelines. We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour.
A modern historian Mark Mazower recently recalled that Fredrich Schlegel suggested that the study of the past gave us “a calm firm overview of the present and a measure of its greatness or smallness”. He added a comment about history which I fully endorse “as a discipline it is neither predictive nor a practical guide to action; its lessons are not so specific. Yet it remains an essential tool for scrutinising the easy moralising, the ideological certainties and expansive claims that batter our ears”. Wisely used history can give pleasure and provide us with a useful tool; but we should not become its slaves.
As we enter a new century, Britain and Germany are at last coming to terms with World War II, but now have to deal with a new historical hangover. The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake. We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war. But the new problems require new efforts, and the key to a safer world must be a strong Europe working in partnership with a strong U.S.A. To achieve this, we must constantly re-examine our history and our politics to forge the understanding we need for the future.