"Unfriendly, even dangerous"? Margaret Thatcher and German Unification

1 Unpublished paper, presented at the conference: Awkward Relations? Britain and Germany in Europe since the Second World War – Magdalene College, Cambridge, 23-24 March 2016 Detlev Mares, Darmstadt “Unfriendly, even dangerous”? Margaret Thatcher and German Unification No exploration into the awkwardness (or not) of Anglo-German relations would be complete without considering the highly delicate moment of German unification in 1989/90. It is common knowledge that the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had deep misgivings about the prospect of German unity and was among its most vocal opponents. In the words of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, her role in the process was “unfriendly, even dangerous” 1. It does not come as a surprise that this dramatic moment in Anglo-German relations has received a fair share of research. Several monographs have been devoted to the subject 2, and articles have analyzed the issue starting from the late Cold War context, from Thatcher’s political world view or even from the history of emotions, focusing on the Prime Minister’s personal fear of the Germans. 3 Parallel to ongoing research, important source material is being made available to the public, most recently a selection of documents from the German Foreign Offices. 4 Despite the growing amount of material available to research, the basic outlines of the history of Thatcher’s attitude towards unification hardly change. Margaret Thatcher emerges from the files as a woman without a secret – her words in public did not differ markedly from what she said behind closed doors. And yet, more striking than this consistency in her words is the impression of inconsistency in her actions during the crucial months in 1989/90. If one reads 1 Kohl, Helmut: Erinnerungen 1982-1990, München 2005, p. 59 („eine unfreundliche, ja gefährliche Rolle“). For example: Jackisch, Klaus-Rainer: Eisern gegen die Einheit. Margaret Thatcher und die deutsche Wiedervereinigung, Frankfurt 2004; Himmler, Norbert: Zwischen Macht und Mittelmaß. Großbritanniens Außenpolitik und das Ende des Kalten Krieges. Akteure, Interessen und Entscheidungsprozesse der britischen Regierung 1989/90, Berlin 2001. See also the relevant chapter in Mares, Detlev: Margaret Thatcher. Die Dramatisierung des Politischen, Zürich/Gleichen 2014. 3 Some recent examples are: Deighton, Anne: Britain, Margaret Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War, in: Hanns Jürgen Küsters (ed.). Der Zerfall des Sowjetimperiums und Deutschlands Wiedervereinigung. The Decline of the Soviet Empire and Germany's Reunification, Köln 2016, pp. 247–253; Dodd, Andrew: "Ihr wollt den Rest Europas in Deutschland verankern": Margaret Thatcher and German Reunification, in: Patrick Bormann, Thomas Freiberger, Judith Michel (eds.). Angst in den internationalen Beziehungen, Göttingen 2010 (Internationale Beziehungen 7), pp. 115–130; Heydemann, Günther: Großbritanniens Rolle und Politik unter Margaret Thatcher während der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands, in: Klaus-Dietmar Henke (ed.). Revolution und Vereinigung 1989/90. Als in Deutschland die Realität die Phantasie überholte, München 2009, pp. 485–496 and 665-667; Geppert, Dominik: Die Rolle Deutschlands und Europas in Margaret Thatchers politischem Weltbild, in: Jürgen Luh, Vinzenz Czech, Bert Becker (eds.). Preußen, Deutschland und Europa 1701-2001, Groningen 2003, pp. 234–250. 4 Möller, Horst, u. a. (eds.): Die Einheit. Das Auswärtige Amt, das DDR-Außenministerium und der Zwei-plusVier-Prozess, Göttingen 2015. 2 2 through the diaries of Kohl’s foreign policy advisor, Horst Teltschik, working with her must have been disconcerting. At the beginning he records her reaction to unification as “cool”, then he is informed about pledges of support, somewhat later she bemoans the process as moving too fast, only to accept unification somewhat later. 5 At one moment, she tries to convince US-President Bush of the need to counterbalance German weight in Europe 6, at the next she assures Soviet leader Gorbachev that “very satisfactory” arrangements have been made for unification.7 Helmut Kohl experienced working with her as a “Wechselbad” (alternating bath, roller coaster). 8 These examples indicate that the Prime Minister’s actions were not as adamantly opposed to unification as her words indicated. Why was that so? Simply put, the answer is: She would have liked to oppose German unification more coherently, but she couldn’t. This was partly due to external factors, concerning the limitations imposed by international and European politics, but it was also due to contradictions in her own thinking. This latter aspect is the one I will focus on today. Margaret Thatcher’s wavering originated in the fact that German unification was part of a fundamental shake-up of Europe’s political and security structures. This wider issue included the question which role a unified Germany would play in a restructured Europe after the end of the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher was far from being alone in her concern about the future shape of Europe, and she was not the only international leader to recoil from the thought of a bigger Germany at the heart of the continent. But Thatcher found herself caught in a particular paradox: As far as the drive to greater liberty in Eastern Europe was concerned, change moved in a direction she welcomed; on the other hand, she did not welcome the fact that the situation changed because she worried about the dangers of change for political stability. A crucial reason for her to worry about future stability was the fact that Germany was to be united; and a crucial reason for her to worry about German unity was her view of Britain’s and Germany’s respective roles in Europe’s past and future. As Anne Deighton has recently emphasized, Britain was a “Cold War status quo power” – the country benefited from the post-1945 settlement because it provided the UK with continued international influence after the loss of Empire and the gradual diminution of global power. 9 German unification threatened this established order and Britain’s place in it. In the following paper, I will argue that Thatcher’s attempts to use history to support the case against German unification were rooted in her views on national identity and on Britain’s role in Europe, which became problematic with the shifting international order at the end of the Cold War. Thatcher’s position was challenged by German perspectives on Europe’s future which she neither accepted nor understood. She certainly did worry about the role Germany had played in history, but it was questions of national identity and the future of Europe which forced her anti-Germanism into the open. It was unfortunate for her that the 5 Cf. Teltschik, Horst: 329 Tage. Innenansichten der Einigung, Berlin 1991, pp. 38, 72, 116, 161. Salmon, Patrick/Hamilton, Keith/Twigge, Stephen (eds.): Documents on British Policy Overseas. Series III, Volume VII: German Unification 1989-1990, Abingdon 2010, p. 311. 7 Salmon et al.: Documents, Doc. 188, p. 367. 8 Kohl, Helmut: „Ich wollte Deutschlands Einheit.“ Dargestellt von Kai Diekmann und Ralf Georg Reuth, Berlin 1996, p. 341. 9 Deighton, Anne: Britain, Margaret Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War, p. 248, quote ibid. 6 3 images of Germany she derived from history did not seem to fit the post-war Germans any longer. This blunted her sword and left her increasingly isolated in the process of unification, forcing her to grudgingly go along with it. To argue this case, the first part of the paper will recapitulate Thatcher’s views on history and their impact on her stance towards German unification, while the second part will ask how plausible her premonitions look 25 years later. 1. British history, German history, European history – and Margaret Thatcher A key term in many of Thatcher’s statements on the past and the future of Germany’s and Britain’s role in Europe is “dominance”. Germany is presented as a country that tried to dominate Europe and Britain in the past and thus has to be denied the chance to do so again in the future. 10 Britain, in turn, is construed as a bulwark against German domination and – more generally – as a country never to be dominated by a foreign power. This thinking had deep roots in collective historical memory, linking traditional diplomatic concepts of a balance of power to experiences from the first half of the 20th century, notably the World Wars, but also referring to the Second Empire which was often seen as a root cause of later evil. Thus, the stereotyping had a predominantly historical bent, while other images often associated with Germany, such as the engineering prowess, were of secondary importance.11 References to historical precedent are themselves part of historical experience: In times of steady political development, the legacies of history tend to be resolved into encouraging narratives of learning lessons from history, seeking reconciliation for past injuries or crimes, and transcending former conflicts by building a better future of peace and prosperity. Such narratives underpinned the trajectory of European relations after the Second World War. However, in times of abrupt change, when the international order is put under strain and forced into fundamental reorganization, the spectres of the past often manage to stage a return from the abyss of history and regain an influence on politics. The period of German unification was such a focal point in time which invited the return of unresolved questions from the post-war settlement and undigested historical experiences. As early as 31 October 1989 – ten days before the unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall – an article in the “Times” by Conor Cruise O’Brien warned of a “Reich Resurgent”. Although hotly disputed by other writers 12, such fears of a new German hegemony over Europe did not remain confined to Britain or her Prime Minister. They could also be found among other European leaders, even Helmut Kohl’s close friend, French President François Mitterrand. In February 1990, Thatcher 10 Thatcher, Margaret: The Downing Street Years, London 1993, pp. 769 and 814. On mutual stereotyping, cf. Demleitner, Elisabeth: Gentlemen und Nazis? Nationale Stereotype in deutschen und britischen Printmedien, Würzburg 2010 (digital publication). 12 Burdman, Mark: British, Soviets team up against Germany, in: EIR Volume 16, Number 47, November 24, 1989, p. 29. 11 4 was happy to tell President Bush that Mitterrand “had told her that, if we were not careful, Germany would win in peace what she had failed to achieve in war”.13 But Thatcher’s was a special case among international leaders. Instead of harbouring doubts in private and trying to calm concerns in public, she expressed her unease in speeches and interviews. She also had these thoughts worked out by six experts on German history whom she invited for a seminar at Chequers in March 1990. 14 The seminar became notorious when a “summary record” of its proceedings was leaked to the press in July 1990. It had been written by Thatcher’s foreign policy advisor, Charles Powell. Although the academic participants from the seminar quickly disputed the gist of the summary, Powell was widely seen to have spoken the prime minister’s mind: In the future, Germany might want to become a broker between East and West instead of staying firmly on the Western side, moreover it might dominate Eastern and Central Europe economically. 15 For Thatcher, the conclusion was clear: There would have to be an international framework – perhaps CSCE, certainly NATO – to “balance German dominance in Europe”.16 Many European leaders favoured a different antidote against rising German influence – greater European integration. But this idea did not offer itself as a solution to an opponent of European integration such as the British Prime Minister. Many assumed that her views were revealed in an ill-judged interview by one of her closest supporters in Cabinet, Nicholas Ridley, the secretary of state for industry. Speaking to “Spectator”-journalist Dominic Lawson in July 1990, Ridley construed a direct link between the European Commission in Brussels and German domination. For him, joint European monetary policy was “all a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe”. He ranted against the Commission of “unelected reject politicians” and proclaimed that he would not give up sovereignty “to this lot. You might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly.” 17 The intimate connection between Euroscepticism and anti-Germanism became obvious when the interviewer tricked Ridley into reframing his attack on the European Commission into a comparison between Hitler and Kohl. Ridley’s inconsiderate words caused an uproar. Since the prime minister did not rush to remove him from office, the impression stuck that she shared his hostility towards the Germans, seeing them as enemies rather than partners in building a new European order. The Ridley interview appeared at about the same time as the leaked Chequers summary. The latter even offered a theoretical foundation of sorts for anti-Germanism – the concept of national character. When Powell had sent some prior information to the Chequers participants, he had asked them – among others – “what does history tell us about the character and behaviour of the German-speaking people of Europe? Are there enduring national characteristics?” 18 His “summary record” implied a positive answer to the last 13 Salmon et al.: Documents, p. 312. See ibid., p. 217 (meeting of Thatcher and Mitterrand in Paris on 20.1.1990). 14 The six experts were Lord Dacre (Hugh Trevor-Roper), Norman Stone, Timothy Garton Ash, George Urban, Fritz Stern and Gordon Craig. 15 See Powell: Summary record, in: Salmon et al.: Documents; also Heydemann: Großbritanniens Rolle, S. 493/494. 16 Salmon et al.: Documents, p. 311 (Thatcher in conversation with Bush). 17 The Spectator 14 July 1990, p. 8. 18 Letter from Powell to T. G. Ash, 19.3.1990, quoted in Salmon et al.: Documents, p. 503. 5 question, with the existence of national character taken for granted. This was what Thatcher herself had expected. In the preparation of the seminar, she had mused that „some of the old balance of power“ would become necessary to counter German power, and that in this confrontation „the character of the people“ would be decisive. 19 The belief in an unalterable national character would have been disturbing enough on its own since at the time national character was not a category anymore to be widely accepted as a guidepost to political thinking. 20 Instead, it had a decidedly anachronistic, 19th century touch to it. Even worse, the German character described in the Chequers record was not at all positive – Powell’s summary provided a helpful list of alleged character traits: “in alphabetical order, angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex, sentimentality”. 21 No matter that after the leak participants rushed to deny any such content of their statements – it became clear for everybody to see that the British Prime Minister believed in such a thing as national character and had a very peculiar view of German history. However, the Chequers seminar came up with more encouraging phrases about the present – Powell concluded that there were “no real worries about the new German generation” 22. This made it difficult to deny the Germans the unification they craved. The unblemished behaviour of the present generation of Germans denied Thatcher the justification for a decisive move against unification, had it been in her power to do so at all. So she went along, in a most half-hearted way which coloured her interviews and her conversations with international leaders. To hear her talk to the US-President once again: “One had to remember that Germany was surrounded by countries, most of which it had attacked or occupied in the course of this century. Of course, Germany today was very different: but other countries would become alarmed if there was not some sort of counterbalance.” 23 George Urban, one of the Chequers participants, left the seminar with the impression that despite Thatcher’s anti-Communism, “Germany is, deep down in her mind, still Britain’s real foe” 24. But it were not only her historical stereotypes of Germany and the Germans which shaped Thatcher’s outlook on unification. Her belief in the existence of a German national character was but the obverse of her thinking on Britain’s role in past and future. The nation’s history was not one of Thatcher’s main concerns, but it provided examples of character, shaped her views of national identity and fostered detachment from Germany and, even more, from Europe. Thatcher’s rise to power was based on the self-proclaimed mission to stop Britain’s alleged decline and restore the country’s greatness. This task was very much a matter of economics, but Thatcher also presented it as a moral undertaking. She wanted people to develop a spirit of innovation and self-assurance against what she saw as over-dependency on the state. Here, history came in handy to serve as a reservoir for national role models. 19 Minute from Mr Powell (No. 10) to Mrs Thatcher, 18. März 1990, in: Salmon et al.: Documents, Appendix 1, p. 502-503, quotes p. 503. 20 Mandler, Peter: The English National Character. The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair, New Haven/London 2006, calls his relevant chapter “England after character?”. 21 Salmon et al.: Documents, p. 505. 22 Urban, George: Diplomacy and Disillusion at the Court of Margaret Thatcher. An Insider’s View, London/New York 1996, p. 155 (diary entry of 20.7.1990, quoting “The Independent”, 16.7.1990). 23 Salmon et al.: Documents, p. 311. 24 Urban, George: Diplomacy and Disillusion at the Court of Margaret Thatcher, p. 132. 6 Unfortunately, in the words of her recent biographer, “her sense of history was more romantic than accurate.” 25 She proffered her own interpretation of “Victorian values”, which enjoyed little appreciation from social historians, complained of too little attention to facts from British history in the national curriculum and harnessed exemplary historical figures, such as Winston Churchill, into service as an inspiration for political leadership. Hers was not primarily a nostalgic image of England as “the country of long shadows on county grounds” or of “warm beer” 26. Instead, Peter Mandler has highlighted two different elements in Thatcher’s vision of national identity – traditional Tory patriotism and individualism.27 The latter one linked an English sense of liberty with the liberal economic doctrine of the small state. Both elements of national identity were somewhat contradictory since economic individualism tended to run against the grain of patriotic professions of national community. Indeed, this contradiction runs all through Thatcherism – an individualism that was meant to strengthen personal initiative independent of state support also tended to undermine bonds of solidarity and community which were cherished by more traditional conservatives. However, when arguing the case against German unity, this contradiction was less important than the fact that Thatcher’s vision of national identity provided images to support detachment from Europe and continental nations. The topic of the highly-prized British sovereignty was raised in an interview with the German news journal “Der Spiegel” in March 1990. Asked whether she worried that Germany might dominate Europe, her reply straight away switched to the British: “We are not to be dominated, certainly not.” She added that “we have the oldest parliament in Europe […] We are not easily dominated.” 28 In her speech at Bruges in 1988, she had placed the British fighting spirit for the cause of liberty at the heart of the British contribution to European history, stating that “we British have in a very special way contributed to Europe. Over the centuries we have fought to prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power. We have fought and we have died for her freedom.” 29 So historical identity, binding up the history of parliament and liberty, became both a pattern of thought and a matter of useful argument. However, despite proclamations to the contrary, it could hardly be dissolved from creating an opposition between the national “self” and national “others”. In German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Thatcher encountered a markedly different perspective on Europe and on nationalism. As Christian Wicke has recently argued, Helmut Kohl reconciled nationalism and Europeanism in a German society which had developed postnational tendencies in the second half of the 20th century, partly moved by guilt, partly by good reason. Wicke traces Kohl’s form of nationalism back to a mixture of different elements – mainly Catholicism, liberalism, republicanism and romanticism, which stressed a deep attachment to that very German concept, “Heimat”. 30 Kohl’s nationalism was not without its 25 Moore, Charles: Margaret Thatcher. The Authorized Biography. Volume Two: Everything She Wants, London 2015, p. 6. 26 Major, John: Speech to the Conservative Group for Europe on 22nd April 1993 (http://www.johnmajor.co.uk/page1086.html). 27 Mandler, Peter: The English National Character, pp. 231-234. 28 Der Spiegel 26.3.1990, p. 182 (my translation). 29 Thatcher, Margaret: Speech to the College of Europe, Bruges, 20.9.1988 (http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332). 30 Wicke, Christian: Helmut Kohl’s Quest for Normality. His Representation of the German Nation and Himself, New York/Oxford 2015. 7 own problems. In a divided country, it prized ethnic and cultural traditions over new influences, making Kohl unwilling to include immigrants and their cultural heritage into his concept of Germanness. But Kohl’s version of nationalism exuded solidity, stability and peacefulness – in fact, he tried to make nationalism seem normal again in a country which eschewed strong professions of national pride after yielding to extreme forms of national hubris in the first half of the 20th century. Moreover, Kohl’s vision of a German nation integrated into a European framework transcended the gulf between nation and Europe that had come to haunt Thatcher’s world. Her passionate defence of national sovereignty made her suspicious when a big country such as Germany expressed its willingness to transfer parts of its sovereignty to a larger entity such as the European Union. To Thatcher, this sounded like a cunning ploy rather than sensible policy. As her biographer Charles Moore notes, “Kohl’s endless pleas for ‘a European Germany’ to avoid ‘a German Europe’ sounded almost like a threat in her mind” 31. In contrast to Kohl’s blend of nationalism and Europeanism, Thatcher professed an (at first limited) anti-Europeanism, based on the selfperception of Britain as a historic defender of her own and other people’s liberties. In Thatcher’s view, the preservation of sovereignty and parliamentary independence against foreign domination was only possible in distance to rather than inside a European framework. Thus, both Kohl and Thatcher followed diverging trajectories in their thinking on nationalism and Europeanism. Although their differences on Europe were present from the outset of the Kohl-Thatcherrelationship, German unity at first did not pose a problem. In 1984, the Prime Minister “reaffirmed the conviction of successive British Governments that real and permanent stability in Europe will be difficult to achieve so long as the German nation is divided against its will.” 32 But while this was a heartfelt issue for the German Chancellor, the British Prime Minister just went along as long as concrete steps towards German unification seemed to be a matter of mere wishful thinking. 33 Only when the prospect of German unification became ever more likely after the fall of the Berlin wall on 9th November 1989 and Helmut Kohl’s roadmap to unification from 28th November 1989, Thatcher’s mind dissolved the link between “stability” and “unification” which had featured so prominently in the declaration of 1984. Instead, as it turned out, she saw the very division of Germany as one guarantee for stability in Europe. I will not go into the details of British politics on German unification here because the story has been told several times. As I have indicated above, there were plausible reasons for hesitation. The end of the Cold War and German unification conjured up challenging questions of security and stability, such as the future role of NATO or the survival of Gorbatchev’s reign in the Soviet Union, indeed – as would soon become clear – the survival of the Soviet Union itself. These problems were also recognized in the British Foreign Office. But it is instructive to see that the diplomats were clear right from the start that German unification could not be prevented; they urged support for the principle of self31 Moore, Charles: Margaret Thatcher. The Authorized Biography. Vol. Two: Everything She Wants, London 2015, p. 396. 32 Thatcher/Kohl Joint Declaration, May 1984, quoted in: Salmon et al.: Documents, Doc. 15, p. 36. 33 Moore, Charles: Margaret Thatcher. The Authorized Biography. Vol. Two: Everything She Wants, London 2015, p. 396. 8 determination and tried to welcome the prospect in order to keep levers of influence in the process instead of being seen as slowing it down, as the Prime Minister wished to do.34 In consequence, the diplomats were quicker than the Prime Minister to spot Gorbachev’s acquiescence to German unification; the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, was warned by his officials “that we seemed to be more pro-Russian than the Russians.“ 35 Moreover, the Foreign Office was much more relaxed than Thatcher about the historical contexts of German unification. In a guideline to British overseas representatives from February 1990, Douglas Hurd stated what many considered the obvious: “Risk of Fourth Reich? No. FRG has changed fundamentally since Nazi period. Forty years of well-established liberal democracy. A close friend, partner and ally.” 36 When unification happened in October 1990, the Foreign Office seemed to be vindicated, while Margaret Thatcher herself later conceded that her policy on German unification had met with “unambiguous failure” 37. However, this defeat did not move her to alter her view that German unification would prove a severe burden for the future history of Europe. This suggests the question: How do her arguments stand up to scrutiny after a quarter of a century? 2. Thatcher, with hindsight In his “summary report” on the Chequers seminar, Charles Powell mused that “no-one had serious misgivings about the present leaders or political elite of Germany. But what about ten, fifteen or twenty years from now?” 38 Here we are now, even more than 25 years from then. What has become of Thatcher’s worries? This question is most difficult to answer at this particular point in time. While Britain totters on the verge of Brexit, Germany is reeling from the effects of a refugee crisis – both issues alone have the potential to cause yet another fundamental shake-up of the European order, and there are many more difficulties to contend with, for example the simmering Euro-crisis and the new freeze in relationships between Russia and the West. Historians are not prophets – there are few helpful prophets around anyway –, but if one thing seems clear at the moment it is this: The European settlement found after the end of the Cold War is most likely to turn out to have been a period of transition, not a durable framework for the future. We might come to learn that we have not reined in the contradictory forces known from European history, which attach themselves to new challenges and problems while history keeps unfolding, despite Fukuyama’s well-known optimism to the contrary. But – and this is the only question of interest today – do the current problems conform to Thatcher’s anticipation? Do her worries seem finally justified? 34 See e. g. Salmon et al.: Documents, Doc. 25, Enclosure (suggestions for public line on German reunification), pp. 68-78. For Hurd’s opposition to a policy of “slowing down” unification – as opposed to Thatcher’s justification of this strategy both in her memoirs and in her late book, “Statecraft” – cf. Minute by Mr Hurd, in: Salmon et al.: Documents, Doc. 108, S. 229/230. 35 Hurd, Douglas: Memoirs, London 2003, p. 383. 36 Salmon et al.: Documents, Doc. 159, p. 320. 37 Thatcher, Margaret: Downing Street Years, p. 813. 38 Powell: Summary record, quoted in Salmon et al.: Documents, p. 506. 9 On the face of it, the answer seems to be “yes”. When the division of Europe and Germany was overcome, the Cold War version of stability disappeared for better or worse. But this was the result of the end of the Cold War, of which German unification was just a symptom, not the cause. Most definitely, current problems cannot be attributed to a German national character impatiently seeking domination over Europe. There has been much talk of German hegemony in recent years. In the financial and Euro crises, Germany has been blamed for imposing austerity on its neighbours; it has also been said to benefit from imbalances in inner-European trade, with employment at record levels at home, while the gap between rich and poor in other European states is growing. Whatever the justification for these claims 39 – the dominance emerging from this constellation has been of a rather passive kind. It is not based on a wish to dominate Europe so much as on a wish to keep the world’s problems away from one’s own doorstep. Germany’s economic power is part of the imbalances of European monetary arrangements, but this is not the result of a clever German plot, as expected by Thatcher and Ridley. Brendan Simms has pointed out the irony of current financial and economic arrangements in Europe: The very structures erected to constrain Germany, such as monetary union, give the country more clout in international contexts. The economic problems in many European countries are the result not of German power but of the arrangements to rein this power in.40 Of course, this result would not have surprised Thatcher who warned that it was futile to try to build European stability on economic and monetary union. But a German wish to dominate it was not. German power therefore assumes a paradoxical character which was beyond Thatcher’s powers of anticipation. She mainly envisaged the origins of instability in categories handed down from 19th-century diplomatic history. In these categories, though, Germany comes across as a very reluctant hegemon. In international affairs, it even tends to be criticized for its lack of engagement, for avoiding military conflict and for naiveté in underestimating the need for the occasional deployment of military force. 41 This may be due to the lessons Germans have learnt from their violent past – it certainly is not a return to the militaristic traditions of the past. So if there is a “return of history” 42, it seems to be a history pulling Germany into its maelstrom, not Germany pushing forward to make it happen. In fact, occasional calls on Germany to act the role of a hegemon, in line with its strength, perceive its “geo-economic semi-hegemony” as one of the reasons for current instabilities in Europe. 43 Be that as it may – the situation vindicates Thatcher’s worries about a coming phase of instability in European relations, but it contradicts her assumption that the root of evil would be too much German eagerness for power. In fact, there may be yet another twist to the present predicament. Arguably, German political leaders twenty years ago envisaged a future built on a new kind of politics, 39 For the role of historical memory in the German stance in the crisis, including the partly self-congratulatory Holocaust remembrance in German political culture and the experiences of inflation at crucial moments in the 20th century, cf. Richard J. Evans: The myth of the Fourth Reich. The spectre of history looms over the eurozone crisis and Germany’s role in it, in: The New Statesman, 24 November 2011. 40 Simms, Brendan: Kampf um die Vorherrschaft. Eine deutsche Geschichte Europas 1453 bis heute, München 2014, preface to the German edition, p. 22. 41 The Economist, 5.3.2016, p. 24 (The end of Heile Welt. Germany’s illusions have been shattered). 42 Cf. Hans Kundnani: The Paradox of German Power, London 2014, pp. 1-6. 43 Cf. ibid., pp. 107-114. 10 grounded in cooperation between nations and an ever closer union of European states, including a higher degree of political integration in the European Union. There were many reasons for the failure of such aspirations. But if there was one politician who never shared such hopes, it was Margaret Thatcher. By setting her party and her country on an ever more pronounced path of Euroscepticism, one of the most influential players, which could have contributed to shaping a Europe different from the one we have today, remained at the sidelines right from the start. If Thatcher is being vindicated in her scepticism about further European integration, her prophecy may also be seen as self-fulfilling because her policies did not support the success of wider European aspirations. So her legacy is being felt in the current state of Europe, less in terms of her being a prophet but as a historical figure whose successful slowing-down of European integration exerts a lasting influence on our present. What impact did Thatcher have on Anglo-German relations? I think the awkwardness of the unification period has slipped happily away, being so closely associated with the personality of the prime minister that her opposition to German unity was but a passing hiccup in the relation between both countries. And in the turmoil currently engulfing Europe from inside and outside, binational relations only seem remarkable if they are particularly close and directed to constructing a common future for Europe. There is not very much of that to be seen anywhere anyway. Even in Germany, tendencies are growing to put national interests before common European aims, and Britain is trying to figure out whether it has a better future outside the European Union. If she succeeds in going alone, it will be seen by some as another vindication of Thatcher’s historical vision, but this outcome would only have little connection to the question of Anglo-German relations that haunted her so much in her last year in office.