Angela Merkel speaks in the Knesset in Jerusalem in 2008.
Image: AFP
The identity of Germany is unique due to the crimes of the National Socialists. Can immigrants be required to share the self-image towards Israel based on this? A legal guest article.
NAfter October 7th, it seems remarkable how emphatically the Federal Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, the Federal Minister of Justice and the Defense Minister all emphasized that the security of Israel and its citizens was Germany's reason of state. The security of Israel is necessary for us as a state. “This is,” says Robert Habeck in his video from November 1, 2023, “a historical foundation of this republic.” And Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann calls this reason of state part of German identity. The sentence was “invented” by Angela Merkel primarily in her speech to the Knesset in 2008. But it can also be found in resolutions of the German Bundestag in 2019 and in the coalition agreement of the traffic light coalition in 2021.
The use of the colorful term, which Machiavelli founded with his theory of reason of state, does not seem very happy. In Europe, the reason of state was positioned against law and religion in order to found the modern state. It is a term “from the pre-constitutionalist period,” as Carl J. Friedrich means, a term from the early modern period whose historical role came to an end with the emergence of the constitutional state. It is therefore no coincidence that Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of an attack on our constitution instead of reasons of state in his statement of November 9, 2023.
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