BERLIN LETTER:Ireland's economic difficulties seem to have revived a resentment in certain circles about a perceived German virtue . . . or vice, writes DEREK SCALLY
FOR YEARS, the Germans have been the gentle buffoons of Irish life. From the trying-too-hard traditional music fans to the raincoated tourist in love with “the nature”, Germans in Ireland have been seen as harmless figures of fun.
Judging from the media of recent days, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking hostilities with Berlin had already broken out.
The prospect of an EU bailout has set nerves on edge since a loan from Brussels is, in effect, a loan from Angela Merkel. As the largest contributor to the EU budget, any loans or guarantees to Ireland will be on the chancellor’s terms.
So what exactly is the problem, and would it be so bad if they came to our rescue?
Pádraig Pearse seemed sure Ireland could benefit from the Teutonic touch. Hunkered down together in the GPO during the Easter Rising, Garret FitzGerald’s father, Desmond, said later that Pearse insisted it would be “good policy . . . to establish an independent Ireland with a German Prince as King”.
We’ll never know how serious Pearse was about his plan for a German monarch in Ireland: executed days later he never had a chance to court his prince of choice, Kaiser Wilhelm’s youngest son, Joachim. It was probably for the best.
“Joachim wasn’t the brightest and, of all the Kaiser’s sons, he would have been the most unsuitable,” says Jörg Kirschstein, a leading historian of Germany’s last Kaiser and his family.
After one lucky escape, another followed a decade later when Ireland, almost uniquely in Europe, was spared the attentions of the Third Reich.
In postwar Europe, EEC accession in 1973 ushered in an era of West German largesse towards Ireland that saw Bonn financing indirectly most of our modern infrastructure long before East Germany came knocking.
And let’s not forget that we have Siemens to thank for Dublin’s Dart, one of those rare Irish public projects completed on time and on budget.
Despite relatively unburdened bilateral relations, Ireland’s economic difficulties seem to have revived a resentment in certain circles, best illustrated by a phrase that is an endless source of Irish shock and awe: German efficiency.
The national characteristic that results in punctual trains and powerful cars has, in Ireland, a pejorative ring.
“German efficiency could be a problem for the Irish,” says Gillian Martin, head of Germanic Studies at Trinity College Dublin, “if there was a sense that this efficiency was missing the human factor, if it was very clinical.”
Mix that with Ireland’s deep-seated mistrust of rules – and of Germanic rule-abiders – and you have a ready-made cloud of cultural suspicion that can be seen all the way back in the political debate over Ardnacrusha, the hydroelectric power station built by Siemens in 1929 that helped kick-start Irish modernity.
“We all know the thoroughness and efficiency of the German nation,” remarked Sir John Keane in the Seanad at the time. “If we can win to ourselves these qualities, and the Germans in exchange win some of the kindly qualities of our race, I think we shall both benefit from the exchange.”
A common cliche is of the punctilious and pedantic Prussian, a character with an admirable work ethic but with what Irish writer Monk Gibbon once described as a “tragic and basic defect”.
But there are other kinds of Germans besides pedantic Prussian paper-pushers.
Silvana Koch-Mehrin was born in Cologne, is MEP for Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP) and is married with three children to a native of Boyle, Co Roscommon. As a Rhinelander, she says the similarities to the Irish outnumber the cultural differences, even if the differences are what stand out.
“Myself and my husband sometimes joke about being living national cliches: he’s always sure things will work out while I’m always the pessimistic one,” says the 39-year-old, who believes the economic crisis can be a learning experience for Germans and Irish.
“I think the Germans could learn from Ireland’s humour and optimism. But the German habit of imagining the worst-case scenario possible has a purpose, too, because it encourages responsibility thinking. I think that combined our two mentalities can go far.”
Apart from Rhinelanders in the west, there are many other Germans who fit well with the Irish temperament. Munich, capital of Catholic Bavaria, is Germany’s Irish capital and hosts a large St Patrick’s Day Parade.
West of Bavaria, meanwhile, are the Swabians, whose no-nonsense approach to money won Angela Merkel's heart at the height of the banking crisis in 2008. She said in a speech that she was not looking to Keynes or other economists for advice, but to the "Swabian Hausfrau".
In her ode of praise to the Swabian housewife, Dr Merkel said: “She can give us all some succinct advice, namely: ‘You cannot live beyond your means in the long run.’” The Swabians are prosperous because they work hard for their money – and because they know how to hold on to it.
The contrast could scarcely be greater between careful Swabian ways and Ireland’s decade-long debt-fuelled binge. Despite that, few experts in Germany expect that an EU bailout of Ireland will generate anything near the level of scorn Germans piled on the Greeks last May.
“Unlike with Greece, economists in Germany don’t question the path Ireland took; they just think things went too far,” says Kai Carstensen, chief economist at Munich’s Ifo institute and occasional holidaymaker in Ireland. “Unlike Greece, there are no cliches about Ireland in Germany except positive ones.”