I HAD NEVER visited Germany–at least not until last week. That’s no accident, as I do travel hundreds of thousands of miles every year to a wide variety of destinations, but is instead a choice rooted in history. World War II was the dominant theme in my house when I was being brought up on the Lower East Side of New York. Before dinner we would gather around the radio to hear news of the war. My father was not the only one in our crowd–which included aunts, uncles, tradesmen, friends, and others who dropped in and out of our apartment–who had relatives in Europe. Nor was he the only one who had some family members caught on the German side, and some on the Russian side when Stalin and Hitler carved up Poland. Those on the German side simply disappeared. We never heard from or about them again. Those that fell into the hands of the Russians were shipped to Siberia and, miraculously, survived. Well, not really miraculously. I recall our weekly drive to the main New York post office to ship a load of packages to aunts and uncles in Siberian camps. The Russians stole about 90 percent of the food and supplies we sent (which included the parts for a sewing machine that brought in some income for my aunt), delivering just enough to keep us sending more stuff every week. Most of our relatives somehow survived their Siberian internment and, after the war, were established by my father in a variety of small businesses, a few in France, the rest in America. It is the disparate survival rates of those caught by the Germans and those grabbed by the Russians that may explain why I got to Moscow many years before I agreed to go to Berlin. Which was no easy decision, even this long after the war. My wife and I visited Vienna a decade or so ago. Cita wanted to study St. Stephen’s cathedral and attend the opera, I saw an opportunity to try Vienna’s famous pastries. But we didn’t linger in Austria. We had been met at the airport by a tall blond fellow, driving a Mercedes, and paging Herr Schteltzer. That alone almost put us on a plane right back to London. Still, we persevered, even after the driver pointed out the balcony from which Hitler addressed the adoring masses after they voluntarily turned their country over to his 1,000-year Reich. But the accumulation of the accents, the history, and the imagined sound of breaking glass proved too much, and within 24 hours we were back in London. Last week, though, there was an invitation from Jeffrey Gedmin, the new head of Aspen Institute Berlin, to participate in a debate about the future of the euro. I decided that over half a century of avoiding a country that my wife assures me has made enormous cultural contributions to the world (including marathon-length operas by Hitler’s favorite composer) could no longer be considered rational. So, off to Berlin, a city unsurprisingly clean and surprisingly uncrowded and, well, sleepy. Either because it is now the 21st century, or because everyone spoke English and was so welcoming, or because our hotel was so wonderful, we had no instant Vienna-like desire to escape. And only a few “blasts from the past.” The first came when our driver-guide offered to show us the new rail station. Cita instantly vetoed that idea: too many memories of stories about and historic photos of death trains and cattle cars. The oddest came in the coffee house where the debate was held. Before things got started, a kids’ hockey team passed the hat to raise money for a trip to Moscow, to compete in some tournament or other. A beautiful young boy, perhaps 12 years old, stepped to the microphone and, in German, told his story and asked for donations. Perfectly charming. Except what flashed across my mind was that terrifying scene in “Cabaret,” in which a cherubic youngster sings, with increasing intensity, “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” Fortunately, the moment passed, and I contributed generously to sending these German children off to Moscow, to play on the ice. At last, the debate. Which my German counterpart opened by saying that he had relatives who died at Verdun, and that European integration was all about preventing the next war. He, too, is haunted by history. Although I believe that it is the democratic roots that have taken hold in Germany that are the guarantors of peace in our time, and not the bureaucratic regulation factory in Brussels with its new European currency, I was relieved to find that the historic ghosts that haunt me have been laid to rest. Almost. Germany will, it is clear, be a dominant force on the Continent, but by virtue of its economic, not its military, strength. Most of all, Germany, when not enmeshed in the appallingly anti-American and anti-Israel foreign policy favored by the EU, has been a true friend to Israel. It is Americans, myself included, who have been urging it to step up its military spending. To no avail, I am both sorry and relieved to say. –IRWIN M. STELZER
