Reunification and National Identity in Germany: A Return to Normality?

This chapter suggests a four-fold typology of normalities of nationalism—ontological normality, territorial normality, ideological normality, and historical normality. It argues that the German mainstream and political leaders have articulated an ‘ontological normality’ of nationalism, which holds that state and society naturally would have to be organized as a nation. Post-war Germany, however, has always struggled to achieve any kind of ‘normal’ nationalism; not only because of the geopolitical structures that held sway over Europe during the Cold War era, but also because the memory of Nazism tainted the representation of Germany internationally and domestically. The reunification process occurred within the European and transatlantic frameworks that is the West, which allowed the Germans to also achieve a kind of ‘ideological normality.’ During the first German unification of 1871, under conservative Protestant and Prussian hegemonies, national identity was highly contested, territorially and ideologically, and modern nationalism was required to forge national unity.