|
View the H-German Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-German's February 2003 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-German's February 2003 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-German home page.
[Editor's note: 2 replies to this query follow.] 1. From: Juergen Nautz (juergen.nautz@t-online.de) Dear colleagues, unfortunately, I lack the time for a balanced academic statement. But I would like to offer a remark anyway: Half a century ago Germany was still afraid because of its potential for aggression; today the American administration is afraid of the peaceable nature of Germany. In my eyes this is a great success in modernizing Germany. Regards, Juergen Nautz 2. From: Susan Boettcher (susan.boettcher@mail.utexas.ed) In speaking to a friend yesterday, I was struck, too, by how US-German relations have been widely affected by the difference in the level of reporting in the respective media about similar issues. When Herta Daubler-Gmelin made her remark comparing Bush and Hitler, it was widely reported in the US media. Last week, Donald Rumsfeld made a remark in which he put Gerhard Schroeder, Fidel Castro, and Muammar Qaddafi in a group (of those totally unwilling to support the US), and I don't think I've heard a single thing about this in the U.S. Media, though my German friends are very upset about it. In short, we should think about how poor US reporting of events in Europe exacerbates the inability of the public to understand why Germany (and NATO) aren't lining up to support the "cause," and thus the decline in relations is exacerbated by a media that has extremely poor understanding or knowledge of European politics. Susan Boettcher
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|