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Matteo Salvini, the head of the Northern League, posted the comment on Twitter just hours after the Italian coastguard launched a huge operation to rescue more than 2,000 migrants in difficulty between the Italian island of Lampedusa and the Libyan coast.

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Leave migrants on boats, says Italy's far-Right party leader

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Matteo Salvini, the head of the Northern League, posted the comment on Twitter just hours after the Italian coastguard launched a huge operation to rescue more than 2,000 migrants in difficulty between the Italian island of Lampedusa and the Libyan coast.

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Whizzing mopeds, chiming church bells, vibrant piazzas and bustling cafes. Quintessential images of Italy as many of us believe it to be.

But walk through Rome's Piazza Vittorio these days and you could be forgiven for believing you were in London.

You hear Arabic here and Punjabi there. Romanian, Chinese and Afghan voices fill the air.

Cheap Korean, Indian and Egyptian eateries try to entice you with flashing neon signs.

Multicultural Italy is a relatively new phenomenon but it's a growing one.

Shipwreck survivors look to Italy, not Greece

Bewildered migrants await fate on Lesbos

Charting Europe's migrant crisis

Syrian restaurant owner Mohidyn Oudstwani tells me that conquering Italian hearts and palates is easier than you might think.

Syrians and Italians have much in common, he says. Both spend much of their time eating or talking about good food, and the lives of both peoples revolve around their "mamas".

But co-existence - coesistenza as it is known here - is delicate and hard-won.

When Imam Sami Salem, originally from Egypt and now a well-known figure across Italy - founded a mosque in a graffiti-covered, working-class district of Rome 20 years ago, Italian neighbours pelted the congregation with tomatoes, cigarette butts and dirty water.

But Imam Salem decided to fight prejudice with openness. He threw open the doors to his mosque and became involved in local charities and community work.

One of the reasons Italy has fewer Islamist radicals than many other European countries, he believes, is because it doesn't have ghettos or isolated Muslim neighbourhoods like France's banlieues.

Familiarity breeds tolerance, says Imam Salem.

But Italian tolerance is now thinning, following the jihadist attacks in Brussels and Paris, combined with Italian fears over the influx of migrants arriving in Italy via north Africa.

Three hundred thousand new arrivals are expected here this year, most crossing in dinghies from Libya.

But smugglers are increasingly heading to Italy from Egypt too and, with the Balkan route from Greece now firmly shut to migrants, there's talk of the desperate trying to access Italy after crossing mountain paths in Albania.

Italians feel under siege. There is talk here of a looming national crisis.

"Of course we are worried," says Italy's Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan.

"We are worried first of all from a humanitarian point of view, from a security point of view, and then of course from a financial point of view. The cost of migration has been substantial."

Mr Padoan complains that the EU left Italy alone with its migration crisis for too long.

He points out that Italy was faced with mass arrivals long before Greece and that the EU refused to acknowledge until recently that Italy's coastal borders were in fact Europe's common southern flank.

Now he is calling for a common EU migration strategy and a common EU migration fund to help front-line countries like Italy.

In the meantime he wants more flexibility in eurozone financial rules, to compensate for the losses Italy has suffered due to mass migration.

The country's finance minister has been struggling to speed up growth after a record long recession. Italy's public debt measured against GDP is the biggest in the eurozone after Greece.

Italians feel that the EU owes them.

A strong air of resentment began to waft down the corridors of power in Rome as soon as the EU signed an agreement with Turkey to deter migrants from trying to reach Greece.

The man dubbed Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's "Mr Brussels" believes the EU has to commit itself to a new relationship with Africa, to help deter migrants trying to reach Italy.

Sandro Gozi, Italy's Secretary for European Affairs, told me that in the long term there had to be less incentive for people to risk everything to come here to Europe. But in the shorter term, a cash deal had to be drawn up with North African countries similar to the EU-Turkey agreement.

Turkey has now been offered up to €6bn (£4.75bn; $6.8bn) by the EU to stop migrants coming to Greece.

Italy says the total of €1.8bn so far put forward by the EU for the whole of Africa is laughable.

What Italy is keen for is the EU to push for bilateral deals with African countries, to make it easier to send economic migrants and failed asylum seekers back home.

For the moment, most migrants choosing the people-smugglers' route to Europe via Italy come from sub-Saharan Africa.

But Syrians and others refugees are now expected here too, with other routes to Europe closed.

Gianluca Pini, an MP whose increasingly popular opposition Northern League party is widely associated with anti-immigration sentiment, told me simply that Italy was full.

Italy has no more money, no more space, no more facilities to help these people, he insists.

Like Greece, Italy is a gatekeeper to Europe along its southern shoreline.

Like Greece, Italy in the past waved migrants onwards and northwards towards richer neighbours.

But with northern borders now firmly shut, migrants still streaming in and difficulties deporting even failed asylum seekers back home, Italy says it is not waving, but drowning.

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Mass migration threatens national crisis in Italy

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Whizzing mopeds, chiming church bells, vibrant piazzas and bustling cafes. Quintessential images of Italy as many of us believe it to be. But walk through Rome's Piazza Vittorio these days and you could be forgiven for believing you were in London. You hear Arabic here and Punjabi there.

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Italy National Soccer Team Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

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Find the perfect Italy National Soccer Team stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. Select from premium Italy National Soccer Team of the highest quality.

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And nowhere is the question put more angrily than in the pocket of ice-capped Dolomite mountains and forested valleys that make up South Tyrol.

"Many people want South Tyrol to leave Italy altogether and rejoin Austria," said Ruth Kaufmann, 35, a shop assistant, as she strolled down Rauschertorgasse, a cobbled alleyway in Bolzano, the Germanic-looking provincial capital. "They're sick of being told they should speak Italian, and they've never felt part of Italy."

Alex Corso, a hotelier who has an Italian father and a German mother, recalled how during the 1960s and 1970s German speakers threatened violent action against the Italian state.

"They were preparing a revolution - they wanted to kill all the Italians," he said. "They said South Tyrol was taken by force and that they were assimilated against their will. Speaking German was almost forbidden - the Italians even tried to ban black bread!"

In South Tyrol, where wurst sausuage is a popular street snack and mustachioed men drink Bozner beer in cavelike cellars, bitterness towards the Italian state reaches the highest levels of politics.

Luis Durnwalder, the president of the province, caused national outrage earlier this month when he said that South Tyrol - handed to Italy as a reward for supporting the Allies during the First World War, and renamed Alto Adige - should take no part in the unification celebrations.

"I hold nothing against Garibaldi but for us the anniversary represents something else and recalls the separation from the motherland of Austria," he said. "German speakers have nothing to celebrate. In 1919 we were not asked if we wanted to become part of Italy."

Uncertainty over whether Italy has really managed to forge itself into a viable nation-state goes wider, recalling a famous remark by Massimo d'Azeglio, a 19th century statesman, who shortly after unification said: "We have made Italy. Now we have to make Italians".

Metternich, the Austrian master-diplomat, was scathingly dismissive in his assessment of the young country: Italy, he said, was nothing more than "a geographical expression".

A century and a half on, the cultural, linguistic and political fault-lines exposed by the 150th anniversary of unification are evidence that Italy is still a work in progress.

It has been said that the only things that can unite Italians are war and football, and people take more pride in being Milanese, Tuscan or Genoese than Italian. They may all carry the same bland, EU-designed passports, but Italians seem as wildly divergent in temperament, culture and language as ever.

Those in the north-eastern region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia have more in common with their Slovenian neighbours than with their political masters in Rome, while mountainous Piedmont in the north-west has a strong French influence.

Sicily's Saracen past is still much in evidence in its Moorish architecture, passion for couscous and Arabic place names such as Marsala (originally Mersah-el-Allah).

In contrast to Britain's swing towards linguistic homogeneity, Italy still boasts almost as many dialects as types of pasta. Romans find it impossible to understand Neapolitans when they speak in dialect, despite the fact that the port city is just over an hour away on the train.

Sardinians speak "Sard", recognised as a distinct language, although around the town of Alghero a 15th century form of Catalan is still spoken.

Other pockets of the country converse in variations of Greek, Albanian, Croatian and, in the remote valleys of the north-east, Ladin - a combination of Celtic dialects and Latin from the time of the Roman legions.

The debate about the success of the Italian experiment has raged for months in newspaper editorials and on television, but the country could not even decide whether Thursday should be declared a national holiday.

Some government MPs agreed with business leaders that closing offices and businesses for the day would cost too much when Italy is struggling to recover from a recession.

For Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, the festivities will be a welcome distraction from accusations that he slept with an under-age prostitute, a charge on which he will face trial in Milan on April 6.

But the uncomfortable truth for him is that his struggling conservative coalition is kept in power by a political partner that is deeply suspicious of the idea of Italy as one nation.

When the Northern League was founded 20 years ago the party - then known as the Lombard League - wanted to secede from Italy and set up an independent state called Padania.

It has scaled back its demands but is still pushing for a fiscal reform package which would enable rich northern regions to keep more of their taxes rather than help to subsidise what it sees as the indolent, corrupt and mafia-plagued south.

The party goes from strength to strength and recent polls suggest that in the event of an early election its share of the national vote would increase by 50 per cent.

The League's outspoken leader, Umberto Bossi, shows open contempt for the Mezzogiorno, as the south of Italy is collectively referred to.

Last year he infuriated Romans when he said the city's motto, SPQR - which in Latin means the Senate and the People of Rome - in fact stood for "Sono porci questi Romani" - Romans are pigs.

The latest north-south battleground is the Alpini, an army corps of mountain troops who were traditionally recruited from northern Italy.

To the horror of the League, 60 per cent of the corps' soldiers are now southerners. In an attempt to redress this, the party tried to push through a new law last week under which northern recruits would have been paid €500 more a month than their southern counterparts, but it was defeated in parliament.

Mr Bossi and his supporters have for years railed against "Roma ladrona" or "thieving Rome", accusing the capital of taking funds from the wealthy north and squandering them on the unproductive south.

He once said that instead of uniting Italy in 1861, Giuseppe Garibaldi had "divided Africa" - playing on a racist stereotype held by some northern Italians that the south has more in common with North Africa and the Arab world than with the Mitteleuropean industriousness of cities like Milan and Turin.

Last week a group of League supporters in the Veneto region burned an effigy of Garibaldi.

"There's not much to celebrate in terms of Italian unification when the second most powerful party in the government intellectually rejects the idea of a united Italy," said David Gilmour, a British historian and the author of a newly published book, The Pursuit of Italy.

"The League can make or break the government - Bossi is a kingmaker and could take out Berlusconi at any time. There are far fewer things for Italians to cheer compared with the 50th and 100th anniversaries of unification.

"In 1911, Italy was swept with nationalistic fervour and was about to invade Libya. In 1961, they could celebrate the post-war economic miracle and a growth rate of six per cent a year."

In his book, Mr Gilmour recounts how a distinguished former minister once told him, in conspiratorial tones: "You know, Garibaldi did Italy a great disservice. If he had not invaded Sicily and Naples, we in the north would have the richest and most civilised state in Europe." After looking cautiously round the minister added: "Of course, to the south we would have a neighbour like Egypt."

There are nonetheless aspects of Italy's progress since unification to celebrate. In 1861 just 2.5 per cent of the population spoke standard Italian - all the rest used regional dialects. Radio and television mean that most can now speak what foreigners would consider Italian.

From an agrarian society of impoverished peasants and exploitative landowners, Italy has developed into a leading economy, notwithstanding the slowdown of the last decade.

Its population has increased from 22 million in 1861 to more than 60 million. Italy has won the soccer World Cup four times, and to envious outsiders it seems to be a permanent winner in the lottery of life, its people enjoying a "dolce vita" of good food and wine, jaw-dropping art and architecture and long lunches on sun-dappled terraces.

The next decade could prove crucial in determining whether the country can maintain its already fragile cohesion. Northern Italy's demand, articulated through the League, for much greater powers has drawn parallels with Scottish devolution and Catalan autonomy.

"Unless it concedes a greater degree of federalism, I expect Rome will lose the north," said Mr Gilmour. "The desire for it is so strong - it's a gut feeling that goes across the social scale. I think Italy will survive only if it becomes what it should have been all along - a federal state."

As the spring sunshine glinted on the snow-capped peaks surrounding Bolzano, Mr Corso, the hotelier, agreed. "I don't want to chop Italy into two parts but a lot of what the Northern League says makes sense," he said.

"Taxes which are raised in regions like South Tyrol should stay here. We have plenty of our own problems. The south needs to learn to look after itself."

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And nowhere is the question put more angrily than in the pocket of ice-capped Dolomite mountains and forested valleys that make up South Tyrol. "Many people want South Tyrol to leave Italy altogether and rejoin Austria," said Ruth Kaufmann, 35, a shop assistant, as she strolled down Rauschertorgasse, a cobbled alleyway in Bolzano, the Germanic-looking provincial capital.

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On Thursday, Italy will mark the 150th anniversary of its unification at a time when the country has never seemed so fragmented. Italy's image is at a low point, with its prime minister mired in sex and corruption scandals.

Now, the powerful Northern League - a partner in the conservative coalition that has at times espoused a separatist agenda - is refusing to join the commemorations. Northern League disdain for Italy is such that League members walk out when the national anthem is played in public.

At a recent rally, League supporters hailed "a free Padania," their idealized independent statelet, named after the Latin word for the River Po. Supporters also hailed the recent burning in effigy of unity hero Giuseppe Garibaldi.

"Garibaldi was a mercenary," one man said, "financed by English Freemasons."

"He was not a saint," another broke in.

Northern Italy is one of Europe's richest regions, and League leader Umberto Bossi did not hide his ultimate goal. "The Northern League is the political force of the north, and we can defeat anyone who tries to block us," he said.

Before 1861, Italy was a patchwork of city-states and regions ruled by the pope or foreign monarchs. The Austrian statesman Metternich famously described Italy as a "mere geographical expression," convinced it could never achieve nationhood.

Historians say unification was the work of a small intellectual elite backed by the Kingdom of Piedmont, and its theme music was written by Giuseppe Verdi.

Last weekend, tens of thousands of Italians gathered in city squares sang Verdi's chorus from Nabucco as they waved the red, white and green.

Writer Dante Matelli said the idea of Italian nationhood was steeped in its culture long before it became a political reality.

"Italy was a nation, a cultural idea before being a nation, the notion of Italy - Dante had it, Boccaccio had it, Ariosto had it," Matelli said.

But 150 years ago, 80 percent of the population was illiterate, and unification was accompanied by civil wars in the south with tens of thousands of victims. The Catholic Church - deprived of its temporal power - excommunicated the entire national movement and forbade Catholics from voting. At the time, a statesman said, "We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians." Many today wonder whether the experiment has been successful.

The divide between the wealthy north and the poor south is still strongly felt, and local and regional loyalties have prevailed over national sentiment. Patriotism was largely confined to the right wing. But not anymore.

Screenwriter Marcello Izzo wrapped himself in the Italian flag.

"It's the first time I've worn the flag other than at soccer games," he said. "But the time has come. I will take to the streets if necessary to defend our constitution and Italian unity."

Historian Paul Ginsborg says more and more Italians are convinced the political establishment shows contempt for the democratic process.

"So there is obviously a strong groundswell of public opinion talking not about nationalism, but about patriotism and defending democracy," he says.

No one exemplifies the new patriotism more than Oscar-winning comedian Roberto Benigni. At last month's San Remo song contest, Benigni won a standing ovation with his unadorned performance of the national anthem, which starts with the words, "Brothers of Italy, Italy has awakened."

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A Divided Italy To Mark Unification Anniversary

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In a period when local interests trump national identity and the country's image is at a low point, Italy will mark the 150th anniversary of its unification this Thursday rather than celebrate it. Ministers from the Northern League, a partner in the conservative coalition, voted against making Thursday a holiday.

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Germany's Extreme Right Challenges Guilt Over Nazi Past (Published 2017)

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DRESDEN, Germany - At a chandelier-lit beer hall on Tuesday evening, the lean blond man's voice boomed out over a crowd of hundreds - some middle-aged and working-class, but with a contingent of polished young professionals.

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BERLIN - A leading member of Germany's rising rightist party Alternative for Germany will be disciplined but not expelled after having caused widespread alarm with a speech challenging the national atonement for the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes.

Party leaders decided that the member, Björn Höcke, leader of the party in the eastern state of Thuringia, would face unspecified disciplinary measures, but not expulsion from the organization, according to a statement relayed on Monday by an aide at the European Parliament office of Marcus Pretzell, who sits in the legislature for the German party.

The German public broadcaster ARD, citing unidentified sources, said the decision had been made after a three-hour conference call among senior party leaders.

Last week, Mr. Höcke gave a speech in Dresden in which he particularly lamented that a memorial to Europe's murdered Jews had been erected by the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Germans were "the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of its capital," Mr. Höcke said. The Germans, he added, had the "mentality of a totally vanquished people."

Mr. Höcke has a reputation for provocative statements, particularly about the Nazi past. His speech drew condemnation from Frauke Petry, who is a leader of the Alternative for Germany nationally. She and her husband, Mr. Pretzell, reiterated at a weekend rally on Saturday in Koblenz that they were not happy with Mr. Höcke's statements. Ms. Petry has called Mr. Höcke a "burden on the party."

But Monday's decision appeared to leave Mr. Höcke free to attract support from his sympathizers for the already far-right party, a relatively new threat to German politics. The Alternative for Germany now has seats in 10 of the country's 16 state legislatures, and is expected to enter the national Parliament after fall elections.

The party started life as an anti-euro party in 2013, when it almost cleared the 5 percent hurdle to enter Parliament in national elections. Since then, Chancellor Angela Merkel has allowed more than one million refugees, many of them Muslims fleeing war in the Middle East, to enter Germany. The Alternative for Germany has benefited from opposition to the influx to become perhaps the strongest right-wing force in the country since the Nazi defeat in 1945.

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German Party Won't Expel Rightist Who Assailed Holocaust Apology (Published 2017)

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BERLIN - A leading member of Germany's rising rightist party Alternative for Germany will be disciplined but not expelled after having caused widespread alarm with a speech challenging the national atonement for the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes.

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The Interpreter

The Alternative for Germany party held a rally in Dresden on Tuesday commemorating the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of the city. Credit... Filip Singer/European Pressphoto Agency

POTSDAM, Germany - As the far right rises across Europe, its ascent in Germany has seemed among the most alarming and puzzling.

For decades, Germany was thought to be inoculated against far-right politics by its history with Naziism and the Holocaust. But today, Germany is experiencing a resurgence of the right - driven, at least in part, by its effort to overcome past misdeeds by suppressing any vestige of nationalism.

Since World War II, trying to define the German national identity, much less celebrate it, has been taboo. Doing so was seen as a possible step toward the kind of nationalism that once enabled the Nazi regime. Flags were frowned upon, as was standing for the national anthem.

But spurred by a sense of lost control over the country's borders, economy and politics, many Germans are reaching for a shared identity but finding only an empty space. Into that vacuum slipped the Alternative for Germany, known by its German initials, AfD, the nation's fastest-growing party with recent polls showing support at 12 percent, ahead of some mainstream parties.

Only the AfD, whose populism puts it far outside of mainstream political norms, is openly promising to fulfill a desire for patriotism that would be routine in most other countries.

The result is that a social and political norm intended to stifle the far right is now empowering it. That focus on identity has allowed the AfD, even if it is unlikely to win enough votes to govern, to shape the national conversation to its advantage, and to present itself as the champion of ordinary Germans.

The AfD rally in a snowy square in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, was scheduled to last precisely 30 minutes. It started promptly, ran like clockwork and ended with an instruction to the crowd to pick up any litter on the ground.

Such respect for rules and punctuality is something Germans are good at, said several attendees, who clustered in the glow of the small stage, stomping their feet against the numbing cold.

But mostly the mood was one of frustration. A woman in a shearling coat, who asked not to be named out of fear of anti-right-wing discrimination, said that she hoped the AfD would help heal Germany's "broken self-confidence."

A chemist with a doctorate, she personified the way that Germany's identity gap has allowed the AfD to extend its appeal beyond the far-right fringe and into the middle-class mainstream.

"Only in Germany, I found it very strange, people don't want to say 'I am German,' " she said. Because the party was the only one willing to challenge that taboo, it was the AfD's message she absorbed.

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Björn Höcke on his way to the former concentration camp Buchenwald. Germans are "the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of its capital," he said in controversial speech in Dresden last month. Credit... Carsten Koall/European Pressphoto Agency

Immo Fritsche, a professor at the University of Leipzig who studies group identity formation, said, "There has never been a positive definition of German identity since the Nazi era."

"It is easier to say what you are against than what you are for," he said. "And this might be more true in Germany, where the national identity was built on 'never again.' "

For decades, German politicians worked to layer any sense of Germanness beneath a European identity.

"Germany has negotiated the European part very well, but the casualty has been Germanness," said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University who specializes in the legacy of European fascism.

That smoothed the country's path back into the community of nations after World War II. But Germans are increasingly concerned about the costs. A July 2016 Pew poll found that half of Germans had an unfavorable view of the European Union. As Euroskepticism rises, a growing minority of Germans are chafing at what they see as pressure to place European identity before national identity.

The influx of refugees into the country in recent years has caused particular stress, Professor Ben-Ghiat said. "In Germany, you're not even allowed to say you're proud to be German. You have to say you're European," she said. "So when these people come in, what are they left with?"

When people feel a loss of control, they seek a stronger connection to a group identity, and also become more interested in making their group more powerful, Professor Fritsche said he had found in his research. Germany's traditional political parties have been reluctant to indulge that desire because of political taboos. But the AfD has proved adept at exploiting it.

That strategy was on full display the night of Jan. 17 at a beer hall in Dresden, ground zero for Germany's far-right movement. Hundreds of AfD supporters had gathered for a speech by Björn Höcke, one of the party's fastest-rising figures.

Addressing the crowd, Mr. Höcke looked every inch the ordinary German politician, besuited and with a white-toothed grin and an unseasonable tan. But what he said went far beyond the norms of German politics.

Germans are "the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of its capital," he said, a thinly veiled reference to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Germans had "the mentality of a totally vanquished people," he argued, but it was time for the country to re-embrace its history and develop a positive relationship with its identity.

The crowd's applause shook the floors, a noisy manifestation of how thrilling transgression can feel in a rule-bound society.

"The foundation of being able to move forward is identity," Mr. Höcke later elaborated in an interview. "There is no people that has given more to humanity than Germany. It is a great and old people, and it would be sad if it were to sink."

Mr. Höcke is an extreme figure within his own party, and his speech provoked a backlash from AfD's national leadership. But his message demonstrates how the party has broadened its appeal: by telling Germans they should have a proud national identity, a message that in Germany could come only from the political fringes.

That has resonated with middle-class supporters like Julian Wälder, 21, a law student who had helped to organize the event in Dresden. He said that his journey to the AfD began with his frustration at the identity taboo.

"The definition we have right now of tolerance in the German political landscape is self-deprecating to a degree that it's actually self-destructive," Mr. Wälder said. "Everything will be tolerated except for being a German."

Focusing on identity allows the AfD to present itself as a protector of ordinary people - punching up against the nation's political elite, rather than attacking vulnerable refugees portrayed by the party as a threat to the nation.

That approach, accusing the elite of stifling debate over German history and culture, could be especially appealing to Germans desperate to restore a sense of control over their country.

"This will be very attractive to people who perceive their own lives as without control," Professor Fritsche said.

The AfD, despite its rapid growth, remains a minority party. Its support reached a high of 15 percent according to a survey by Ipsos in late 2016, but slipped to 12 percent in a Feb. 7 poll by the same firm.

But as mainstream parties become more focused on defending against the far-right upstarts, the AfD's populist agenda is trickling into their policies and messaging - raising the possibility that the party's political influence could outpace its electoral gains.

Frauke Petry, the party's national chairwoman, said that the AfD's ideas were already shaping the national conversation, even if they were not yet able to shape national legislation.

Professor Fritsche's research suggests that Ms. Petry could be correct, as right-wing parties become more visible. "What would really be dangerous is to have a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in which people feel a likely right-wing shift, and this leads to a perceived norm shift," he said.

There are signs that is already happening. Chancellor Angela Merkel opened her re-election bid in December by announcing a more populist agenda. She took a harder line on immigration and called for a ban on Islamic veils that cover the full face, saying they "do not belong to us" and should be "forbidden wherever that is legally possible."

And although she did not name the AfD directly, she expressly tried to reclaim the identity issue, saying that who "the people" are was something for all to decide, "not just a few, no matter how loud they are."

Mr. Höcke was unmoved by her rightward shift. He called Mrs. Merkel a "chancellor-dictator" who had broken German law by opening the country's borders to refugees, and he demanded an end to her "regime."

"We Germans have to be self-aware," he said in the interview. "We can see our state falling apart; it's falling apart before our eyes. It's about survival."

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Germany's Taboos, Once a Bulwark Against the Far Right, May Now Be Enabling It (Published 2017)

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The Interpreter POTSDAM, Germany - As the far right rises across Europe, its ascent in Germany has seemed among the most alarming and puzzling. For decades, Germany was thought to be inoculated against far-right politics by its history with Naziism and the Holocaust.

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Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, itself facing a tough election challenge this year, is taking steps to speed up deportations after some terrorism suspects were found to be immigrants who had been designated to be sent home.

"Nobody is sent back to their country of origin," said the French nationalist Marine Le Pen, who has set herself up as an advocate for deportation as she enters the homestretch of France 's presidential race as a leading contender.

"Everybody stays. Everybody settles down," she said last week on French television. "Seven million unemployed, nine million poor, our health system is saturated, and we continue to accept those who arrive."

Figures from countries across Europe suggest that, while governments are scrambling to restrict arrivals, closing off migration routes as in the Balkans and defanging nationalist arguments, there is still a steady flow of arrivals.

The French government body that handles asylum requests, for example, reported 85,244 requests in 2016, up 6.5 percent from the previous year. Over 40 percent were granted.

At the same time, France's highest administrative court ruled against a request from human rights groups to remove Albania, Armenia, Kosovo and Senegal from a list of safe countries to which unsuccessful asylum seekers may be deported.

The deportation debate has flared in Germany since December when Anis Amri, a young Tunisian asylum seeker, drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 50. He had been expelled from Italy, had registered under at least 14 aliases for welfare and other benefits, and had been listed as a terrorist threat who should be deported.

Yet he could not be deported because his native Tunisia failed to provide identity papers. After his attack, he fled first to western Germany, then to the Netherlands and finally to Italy before being killed in a shootout with the police.

Ms. Merkel, under pressure from both the right and the left as she seeks a fourth term in September elections, cited Mr. Amri's attack as she pressed Germany's 16 states - which are responsible for deportation - to stop "this considerable danger to life and limb." She then pointedly urged the visiting Tunisian prime minister to redouble his country's battle against terrorism.

Still, human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and a number of national and regional organizations, have accused Europe's governments of being too harsh on migrants who they say are simply seeking a better life or striving to escape war and persecution.

When the French authorities broke up a settlement near Calais that had for years had hundreds of migrants, officials "failed to genuinely consult migrants or asylum seekers or provide them with adequate information prior to the eviction," Amnesty International said. Many were minors trying to reach Britain, where, they said, they had relatives, the group added.

In Britain itself, the debate over deportation has been somewhat subsumed by the louder discussion over immigrants from Europe who helped spur Britain's vote in June to leave the European Union. Controversy also envelops the question of how many people in Britain should be deported.

In Italy, Marco Minniti, a security expert, became interior minister in December and has pushed through long-awaited measures aimed at curbing immigration by processing asylum applications faster. Asylum requests totaled 123,000 last year - a steep rise from 26,000 in 2013, when Italy was seen more as a transit country for migrants heading north to Central Europe.

The new decree eliminates the right to appeal an asylum rejection, and adds staff to process requests faster - something Germany is also grappling with after Ms. Merkel threw open her country's borders in fall 2015.

For migrants who are denied asylum or other forms of international protection, Italy will create "centers for repatriation" in all of its 20 regions. Similar centers were closed a few years ago after complaints about conditions, but the government now says these will be closely monitored.

Shortly after Mr. Amri was killed outside Milan, Italy's police chief, Franco Gabrielli, ordered all police stations to check the status of migrants in their areas.

In Central and Eastern Europe, European Union countries have fiercely resisted taking in migrants, particularly Muslims, arguing that they are ill equipped culturally and economically to shelter many strangers.

In 2015, Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, was the first European Union leader to resist mass migration. He built a fence along his country's borders with Serbia and Croatia to block refugees fleeing the war-afflicted Middle East via a Balkan route; that route largely shut down last spring after the union persuaded Turkey to stanch the flow, and governments along the way shut their borders for the most part.

But Mr. Orban apparently still sees political capital in taking a hard line on migration. He takes a broad view of what he sees as its inherent perils - and is one of the few leaders actively aligning with Mr. Trump. "We believe a change in perspective in the U.S. helped others to respect the Hungarian position," Mr. Orban's spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, said in London this month.

Hungary's defense minister, Istvan Simicsko, said, "The goals of the new government of the United States confirm the correctness of Hungarian security policy thinking." He was referring to a speech made by Vice President Mike Pence at last weekend's annual security conference in Munich.

"The U.S. and Hungary also have very similar views with regard to reinforcing NATO and the fight against radical Islamism," Mr. Simicsko said.

New measures likely to be passed by Hungary next month foresee the closing of camps where migrants who have been rejected for asylum have effectively waited while planning new attempts to cross into Austria and beyond. Migrants would instead be held in much more restricted conditions, possibly in violation of European Union law and international conventions on refugees.

Amnesty International and the Hungarian government are locked in a war of words over the proposals.

"Rounding up all men, women and children seeking asylum and detaining them months on end in container camps is a new low in Hungary's race to the bottom on asylum seekers and refugees," Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe, said in a statement.

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Migrants Face Deportations and Walls in Europe, Too

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Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, itself facing a tough election challenge this year, is taking steps to speed up deportations after some terrorism suspects were found to be immigrants who had been designated to be sent home.

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Jestìte, ca sta sentu friddu jo pi te/ Già sta 'mpilu cu ti esciu, sai/Pi l'arma tua ma jestite ...
As I stroll under the scorching sun in Nardò, a town in Puglia on the heel of Italy's boot, I hear music from an open window. The melody sounds like the Lennon-McCartney classic "Yesterday," but the lyrics are not in English - or Italian. Then I see a leaflet announcing courses in Neretino, a dialect spoken only in Nardò. But that's not unusual: Each whitewashed village in this gorgeous region of olive groves and Baroque churches has its own tongue.

And it's not just in the deep, primitive Italian south where ancient languages are lovingly preserved and promoted. All of Italy is seeing a renewed interest in dialects, a revival linked to a national - and greater European - identity crisis. "It's a matter of territorial belonging," says Andrea Maniero, a linguistics expert and resident of Nardò, where everyone understands the local lingo even if they don't speak it. "The ones most lured to learning it are the youth, who are fascinated by the old speech of their grandparents."

Given that dialects are far older than the Italian state, it's like a back-to-the-future trip to preunification days ...

According to national statistics, half of all Italians prefer to speak in a dialect, whether it's picturesque Napulitano(Neapolitan), Siculo(Sicilian), Francoprovenzale (an ancient Gallo-Romance language spoken in Alpine valleys), Fùrlan (Friulan, typical of the Friuli region in northeastern Italy) or Ladino (an old version of Latin) - just to name a few. In fact, Italy's Union of Tourist Boards calculates that the country has some 11,000 dialects. The influence of Napulitanoand Siculois so strong that the iPhone offers them as language options.

To feed this demand, there are online courses; DIY books that teach archaic forms of Albanian and Greek that pirates brought to Italy centuries ago; and spontaneous get-togethers in crumbling castles to chat in Zeneize (Genoese, a dialect of the Ligurian language). A few kindergartens and middle schools in Naples have introduced courses on Napulitanamente("the Neapolitan way"). In Rome, some curricula feature Romanesco, the colorful vernacular of the great 19th-century Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli.

Given that dialects are far older than the Italian state, it's like a back-to-the-future trip to preunification days, which are quite recent by the standards of many nations. The Italian kingdom was proclaimed in 1861 by a Savoy king who spoke only French; the Italian republic was born in 1946 out of the rubble of World War II. True, the process of making the Italian language starts with Dante in 1300, but it was restricted to the elite. It wasn't until the 1800s that novelist Alessandro Manzoni helped spread "common" standard Italian to the masses. And as recently as the 1960s, people in Italy's impoverished regions had no idea what Italian was. The delay in the nation-state's creation is one reason why Italians have a poor sense of national belonging. It's the town bonding that rules. A famous patriot once said, "Now that we have made Italy, we need to make the Italian people." Tough job.

The popularization of dialects inverts the days when bourgeois families did their best to conceal "vulgar" accents behind proper Italian in order to attain a higher social status. Today, it's cool to speak a dialect. It makes people feel part of an exclusive, ancient microcosm "that battles not to lose itself in a world of 8 billion people," says Paolo Balboni, president of the World Federation of Language Teacher Associations and a professor at Venice's Ca' Foscari University. It's the denial of modernity and globalism, he adds. And the movement to go hyperlocal may be accelerating in Europe, as the big project of a united continent seems to be crumbling amid rising nationalism, populism and regionalism. Many Italians, before defining themselves as such, say they are Sicilian or Neapolitan. Islanders call the mainland boot "the continent."

Back in Nardò, on the heel of the boot, much brain-shattering research leads to the discovery that the song I heard from the open window is a parody in Neretino of "Yesterday" by local folklorist and songwriter Andrea Baccassino. It turns out that the lyrics have nothing to do with melancholy walks down memory lane but with getting dressed: Jestìte, pronounced JESS-tea-tay, as a soundalike for "yesterday," means "please get dressed" or "put your clothes on" in Neretino. ( Vèstiti in Italian.) Well, you get the idea ... "My dialect is real, richer than Italian, which is a fake construction," Baccassino says. "There are untranslatable words with no Italian equivalent." For him, opting to speak Neretino rather than plain Italian is like grabbing his favorite shirt in the morning.

Believe me, I'm Italian, and I have a hard time following the conversation when I visit my parents in northern Piedmont and join in their chats in patois dialect. If I do grasp a word or two, it's thanks to my French. But if I travel to Naples or Sicily, my Roman twang helps me pick up those dialects rather quickly. And then there's the island of Corsica, which is inhabited by fiery separatists who proudly cherish their language, a mix of mainstream Italian and Genoese. Lessons in Corsù are held in all schools, and Italians feel at home in what is officially a department of France. When I asked for an espresso during my most recent visit, I had to repeat the order in Italian. French was too foreign for the bartender.

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Why It Might Be Time to Stop Learning Italian

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Jestìte, ca sta sentu friddu jo pi te/ Già sta 'mpilu cu ti esciu, sai/Pi l'arma tua ma jestite ... As I stroll under the scorching sun in Nardò, a town in Puglia on the heel of Italy's boot, I hear music from an open window.

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German media wakes up to a nationalist resurgence

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On November 14, Martin Shmid headed to work in Munich, still ecstatic about the previous week's election of Donald Trump and what it would mean for the Alternative for Deutschland, or AfD, Germany's populist, right-wing party. Shmid, who works as director of the AfD's state headquarters in Bavaria, lost the bounce in his step as [...]

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EVERY summer, southern Europe's tourist spots look forward to the arrival of planeloads of Germans on holiday. But this year encounters between Germans and their hosts have become loaded. In Knossos, in Crete, Giorgios Papadopoulos, a tour guide, interrupts his explanation of Minoan matriarchy to ask a visitor from Berlin about the relationship between Germany's finance minister and its chancellor: "What's up between Schäuble and Merkel?" Like many Europeans after July's bitter bail-out negotiations over Greece, he has become intrigued by the internal workings of a country he sees as trying to "dominate" the European Union.

To Germans such outside fascination with their domestic politics is new, and it makes them uncomfortable. America, as a superpower, may be used to foreign scrutiny. But the rise of "Berlinology" frightens Germans. They have no appetite for becoming Europe's "leader" (the German word is Führer). Given their past, Germans do not want to seem domineering.
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Yet they often do. The anxiety stems from a summit on July 13th, when Germany led euro-zone countries in forcing Greece to accept tougher reforms and more austerity in exchange for a third bail-out-even though Greeks had just rejected them in a referendum. Wolfgang Schäuble, the finance minister, suggested a "temporary" Greek exit from the euro. Both he and Angela Merkel, the chancellor, ruled out a haircut of Greek debt, claiming it would violate euro-zone rules. Germany was thus seen to use the power of its purse to force its vision on weaker members.

The reaction was swift. Op-eds decried German bullheadedness. On social media, the hashtags #ThisIsACoup and #BoycottGermany began trending, while others revived accusations of a "Fourth Reich". It was a "public diplomacy disaster," thinks Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), a Berlin think-tank. "Germany is seen as the harsh, heartless hegemon of the euro zone, ready to bully small countries into submission."

Mr Benner's worries may be overblown: not all foreigners fear German strength. The negative view is sharpest among an odd alliance of Anglo-American economists and European leftists sympathetic to Greece's Syriza party. France, however sceptical of austerity, wants to preserve its position alongside Germany in the EU's "tandem". The Spanish and Portuguese governments took Germany's side regarding austerity, having survived it themselves. And northern and eastern Europe are in many ways more Germanic than the Germans. The Baltic states, Slovakia and Slovenia have had to cut their own budgets sharply, and think the Greeks should too. Threatened by Russian intervention in Ukraine, even Poland has yearned lately for a more assertive German role. Many Britons are hoping for Mrs Merkel's help in reforming the EU. In short, there is no crisis in Europe that can be solved without Germany.

Nonetheless, Berlin's ministries react to any suggestion of German hegemony with vehement head-shaking. Since the 1950s "all the EU's institutions were designed to assure that no country could dominate", notes one official defensively-especially not Germany. Germans observe that Mrs Merkel must constantly compromise with her counterparts-even on July 13th, when François Hollande, France's president, made her forswear Grexit to reach a deal. Their mighty Bundesbank gets the same single vote on the European Central Bank's governing council as every other euro-zone country, and often fails to impose its will. To its own citizens Germany is, at best, first among equals.

To many Germans this situation seems familiar. It is the same dilemma the historian Ludwig Dehio described after the country was first unified in 1871. Germany became "too big for a balance of power in Europe and too small for hegemony," he wrote; "not powerful enough to impose its will on the continent, but at the same time powerful enough to be perceived as a threat by other powers." After reunification in 1990, German historians worried that this pattern could repeat itself.

If it did not, it was because Germany under Chancellor Helmut Kohl still thought of itself as it had since its resurrection after the second world war: as a "post-national" society. Thomas Mann articulated this attitude in a famous lecture in 1953, arguing that Germany's young people must "dispel the mistrust" by coming out "not for a German Europe, but for a European Germany". In the 1980s Hans-Dietrich Genscher, then foreign minister, argued that (West) Germany had no national interest other than the EU's.

What has changed recently is that this "post-national mentality" has gone, worries Jürgen Habermas, a philosopher. During the July summit, the country "gambled away in one night all the political capital that a better Germany had accumulated in half a century," he thinks. Many on the centre-left fear that Germany is now "post-post-nationalist". Joschka Fischer, foreign minister from 1998-2005, laments that "from now on Germany will primarily pursue its national interests, just like everybody else."

Many Germans on the centre-right deny such a turn to realpolitik. They think they are just insisting on following common EU rules, and find nothing nationalist about that. Indeed, it implies that Germany and other countries should cede more sovereignty. Mr Schäuble, the German most vilified in Greece, has argued since 1994 that some member states should form a federal "core". He now advocates giving the euro zone a common finance minister and budget.

But others in his camp, the Christian Democrats (CDU), assert a more naked self-interest. Each time the party submits a Greek bail-out to the Bundestag, the number of defectors increases; one in five voted against the July compromise. Bild, Germany's largest tabloid, stokes German resentment that foreigners are exploiting their past guilt to "blackmail" them.

Germany is not imposing its will on Europe. If it were able to do so, Greece would probably no longer be in the euro zone. The question is just how happy Europe ought to be about this. Germany is back in its old dilemma: too weak for hegemony, too large for balance. No other country can think of imposing solutions, but Europe will not allow Germany to do so either. That may mean that the EU's biggest challenges-from immigration to preventing a British exit and fixing the euro-will continue to go unmet.

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EVERY summer, southern Europe's tourist spots look forward to the arrival of planeloads of Germans on holiday. But this year encounters between Germans and their hosts have become loaded. In Knossos, in Crete, Giorgios Papadopoulos, a tour guide, interrupts his explanation of Minoan matriarchy to ask a visitor from Berlin about the relationship between Germany's finance minister and its chancellor: "What's up between Schäuble and Merkel?"

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As Germany marched into the semifinals at the 2010 World Cup, the country's colors-black, gold and red-flooded the stadium. Pride filled the air, radiating from the faces of joyful fans singing the Deutschland national anthem.

Such a display of German patriotism would have been uncommon just a few decades ago, a time when flag-waving and chanting would have been viewed as potential birth pangs of war.

After decades of feeling ashamed of the past, Germans are slowly beginning to take pride in their history and long list of achievements. Its authors are celebrated, German songs are gaining popularity on the airwaves-and its economy is thriving as other nations struggle. An assertive and confident Germany is boldly speaking on the world stage-and others are looking to it for support.

Younger generations, having never experienced the country's more severe side, are optimistic about the future, adamant that their newfound sense of self-worth could never spark aggressive patriotism.

The Holocaust was generations ago, they think. This is the new Germany. One that is stable, giving, hardworking. One on which the world can rely.

Yet as national pride surges, some Germans are apprehensive about where this mindset will lead. After all, with its history mired in conflict, some fear a revival of the aggressive characteristics that have repeatedly led it into wars-often with devastating consequences-will quietly re-emerge and take its citizens by surprise.

Will Germany ever be able to escape its past?

Unexpected Position

In 2009, during the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, which formed after World War II, thousands flocked to the Brandenburg Gate, waving flags in support of their homeland. Patriotism resurged later that year at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and again in 2010 when Germany became one of the final four teams in the South Africa World Cup.

These nationalistic expressions demonstrate that the guilt associated with the country's checkered past continues to dissipate and a sense of unity is emerging in its place. Germans once again take pride in their country and its successes: Germany is the fifth largest economy in the world by GDP and the largest in Europe. The world's second-largest exporter, the country generates an annual trade surplus of $200 billion. Its brands-Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW, Puma, Bayer, T-Mobile, DHL-span the world. "Made in Germany" is widely seen as a mark of excellence.

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The country's financial prudence has positioned it as Europe's problem-solver. When the continent became economically ill, it was Germany that supported the trillion-dollar bailout package-taking responsibility for $652 billion of it-which saved several countries from complete collapse.

And it is Germany that continues to spearhead the effort to prop up the failing economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland-placing Deutschland among the most influential European powers.

Because of its fiscal stability and reputation as a nation that foments ideals of peace and human dignity, the country was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2010.

Clearly, Germany is ascendant, and many citizens and politicians believe its outlook is bright.

Rapid Recoveries

The German nation's revived optimistic attitude sharply divides those who want the country to be free from the shame of its tumultuous history, and those who never want to forget past mistakes-or else be in danger of repeating them.

During the 2010 World Cup, a Lebanese-born shopkeeper who fled to Germany 20 years ago hung a 70-foot German flag outside his store to support the national team. To his chagrin, instead of receiving support for his actions, the flag was repeatedly torn down.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

"Police suspect the culprits are members of Berlin's radical leftist scene," The Wall Street Journal reported. "For them, the enormous flag is nothing less than a provocation, a repugnant display of German nationalism."

Although Germany faces ideological challenges, the nation has never been known to take anything sitting down. Throughout its history, it has met and overcome whatever hardships that have come its way with efficiency and forthrightness. This has repeatedly allowed the Deutsch people to recover from devastating circumstances.

In the 1920s, the economy slipped into depression after defeat in World War I, but by the late 1930s, the nation had rallied to again become a major power. After the second world war, when its cities lay in ruins and its shattered citizens queued in long lines for food rations, it was widely felt that Germany would not rise again for a long time, particularly since it was divided into two nations: democratic West Germany and Soviet-ruled East Germany. Yet within 20 years, West Germany underwent a stunning revival, with Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Bonn becoming prosperous modern cities with little evidence of previous destruction.

At the end of the Cold War in 1989, the nation faced the daunting prospect of reunification, with many assuming it would take many decades for it to reintegrate beleaguered communist East Germany. Once again, skeptics are being proven wrong, as the once-bankrupt East has not stopped the nation from becoming a major world player.

In every instance, the industrious and efficient Germans prevailed. Unlike other war-torn nations, the country quickly found itself back on its feet. Stores were re-established, restaurants reopened, factories restarted, and national pastimes reinstated.

Turning Tide?

Yet Germany's ability to bounce-back does not tell the whole story. In almost all instances, the reason the country was in shambles was due to conflicts it had started.

Throughout history, the nation has repeatedly clashed with others, frequently using questionable means to achieve its goals-especially in times of economic crisis.

After each war, Germany said, "Never again." And for the past nearly 70 years, it has carefully avoided any hint of repeating the events of WWII. But as financial turmoil grips Europe, the country is being forced to take a leading role-a move which has caused some to worry that trends from Germany's harsher past will begin to re-emerge.

While the nation assisted its European counterparts with billions in bailout funds, it led to growing resentment from Germans fed up with shouldering others' fiscal mismanagement, prompting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to suggest that financially irresponsible countries be removed from the eurozone.

Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images

Germans are also becoming more vocal about once-taboo subjects, with some openly expressing hostility toward immigrants in their nation, clamoring for its 7 million foreign-born citizens-4.3 million of which are Muslim-to return home.

According to a survey by the Frederich Ebert Foundation reported in Der Spiegel, one-third of Germans think the nation "is in serious danger of being overrun by foreigners." One-third believe that "foreigners have come to take advantage of the welfare state" and that when jobs are scarce, "foreigners should be sent back to their own country." One-sixth feel "Jews have too much influence," while more than half want the practice of Islam to be restricted, even though it would violate the country's constitution. The poll also found that more than one-tenth would like a "Fuhrer" who would govern the country "with a firm hand"!

After years of grappling with immigration problems, Ms. Merkel recently said the concept of multiculturalism in Europe was dead, as printed in a Daily Mail article: "At the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country. We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone.' But this isn't reality."

The article later stated, "The ratcheting up in the political tone, allied as it is with the fears of the population about unemployment and loss of identity, triggered a sharp warning from Jewish leaders in Germany that democracy is under threat."

Tensions further escalated after a board member of Germany's federal bank released a controversial book arguing that the failure of immigrants to integrate into society is dumbing down the country-meaning that an unwillingness to identify with German culture has caused a language and education barrier that hinders economic and cultural progress.

"His message has struck a chord among a middle class fearful of declining educational standards and among unskilled workers who are nervous about lower-paid immigrant competition," Foreign Policy magazine reported, adding, "Since the World War II, xenophobic rhetoric has been barred, both by law and custom. Yet on the German street, resentment about foreigners smoldered, especially so during the Balkan wars of the 1990s when hundreds of thousands of Bosnians and Kosovars arrived in the country...Homegrown Germans, still reeling from the costs of unification, watched aghast, and some of their pent-up frustration is being vented now." Polls indicate that if the book's author formed a political party, it would get at least 15 percent of the vote.

Other politicians have entered the fray. Bavaria Premier Horst Seehofer called for an end to immigration, stating in the Guardian that Germany should "deal with the people who already live here" and "get tougher on those who refuse to integrate."

Familiar Stance

Nationalism, tough talking, fringe groups calling for foreigners to be deported, intolerance and xenophobia have been frequent throughout the nation's history. To address these and other social troubles, particularly during economic downturns, Germany often places trust in a strong leader to guide it.

Although this approach culminated in the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler, it has happened numerous times before in the nation's past, including during the eighth century, when a powerful Franco-Germanic kingdom was established. Leaders of this empire considered themselves "defenders of the faith," as they successfully stopped a Muslim incursion into the continent.

The empire gave way to the rise of Charles the Great-known to the French as Charlemagne and the Germans as Karl de Grosse. This powerful king immediately undertook several military campaigns, which united Western Europe.

Following Charles' death, Europe fell into disarray and economic despair. After years of chaos, German Otto the Great came to power in AD 936. He was asked by Pope John XII to restore order and defend the church. For his efforts, the grateful pontiff crowned him "Holy Roman Emperor." This officially united church and state, giving birth to "The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation"-the First Reich-which officially lasted until the renunciation of the imperial title in 1806.

It was not until several decades before the first world war, when Germany and Italy united from 1871 to 1918, that the Second Reich occurred.

In Wolfgang Benz's book A Concise History of the Third Reich, he states of this time, "The great power politics of Germany's second Reich led to the First World War, which Germany entered with illusions of winning a glorious victory...The general goal was to weaken France enough to prevent it from rising again as a great power, and to push Russia far eastward. Other goals included annexation of large tracts of French and Belgian territory, France's economic dependence on Germany, subordination of Belgium and the Netherlands to German rule, and annexation of Luxembourg."

"The collapse of the empire in the revolution of November 1918 became a national trauma, characterized externally by territorial losses, oppressive reparations, a loss of status, and military impotence. At home Germans failed to understand the defeat, regarding it as a humiliation and national disgrace. The military defeat and its aftermath triggered the longing for new German greatness in a Third Reich."

Following its defeat in WWI, Germany made its first attempt at democracy through the Weimar Republic. The system failed miserably, ultimately leaving a record 6 million people unemployed.

With its economy failing and its pride damaged, Germany's Nazi party and chosen leader, Adolf Hitler, seized the reins of the country promising to establish a 1,000-year Third Reich of peace and one world government. All hopes were dashed as the Nazis resorted to brutal means, sanctioning the deportation and execution of more than 6 million Jews, along with other "undesirables." At the end of the war, the German fatherland was again brought to its knees.

Perplexing Nation

This gifted, talented country has been somewhat of an enigma. On one hand, it is a nation of intelligent, high-spirited individuals known for their festivals, quality engineering, unparalleled organization and musical heritage. On the other, it has perpetrated some of the most heinous acts of cruelty and barbarity the world has ever seen.

This peculiar paradox was noted by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "I have often felt a bitter pain at the thought that the German people, so honourable as individuals, should be so miserable as a whole" ( The Life and Works of Goethe).

It has also often been illustrated through motion pictures and books, as well as mused upon by various world leaders trying to understand the nation's mentality.

In The Germans: Double History of a Nation, author Emil Ludwig writes, "The Romans no more than the Franks or the Italians-indeed, not a single neighbor of the Germans-could ever trust the Germans to remain peaceable. No matter how happy their condition, their restless passion would urge them on to ever more extreme demands."

Even in the 1943 British film, "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," one character, seeing WWI German officers in a prisoner-of-war camp quietly listening to orchestral music, observed, "I was thinking, how odd they are, queer. For years and years they are writing and dreaming of beautiful music and beautiful poetry. All of a sudden they start a war: they sink undefended ships, shoot innocent hostages, and bomb and destroy whole streets in London, killing little children. And then they sit down in the same butcher's uniform and listen to Mendelssohn and Schubert."

No doubt, history reveals that Germany has two personalities-one congenial, the other warlike and aggressive-which have alternated throughout time. What makes the country so capable of incredible ingenuity, yet so prone to destruction?

Why the paradox?

"Germani"

How neighboring nations have viewed Germany begins to reveal the underlying character of its people.

Throughout the Roman Empire, a number of disunited Germanic tribes terrorized Europe with tactics of raiding and pillaging. Julius Caesar led multiple military campaigns to bring them under subjection. He was the first to label this people "Germani."

In time, the Vandals, the Heruli and the Ostrogoths-all Germanic tribes-would rule Europe.

By AD 455, the Vandals swept through Northern Africa, and eventually attacked and defeated the city of Rome. Their efficient use of piracy, raiding and pillaging still lives on today in the word "vandalize," which is derived from the tribe's name.

Twenty-one years later, the Heruli officially occupied Rome-making 476 the official date of the Roman Empire's fall.

The kingdom of the Ostrogoths (AD 493 to 554), a subset of the Goth peoples, replaced the Heruli.

Many etymology dictionaries trace the word "Germani" to Gaulish origins, claiming it means "neighbor" or "to cry" as in, "one who shouts in battle." Others note that the most used weapon of these peoples was the spear, and attest that the term comes from the Old High German word for spear, "ger," which put together means "spear-man."

The book Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary promotes the idea that Germani is probably from the Old High German heri-man, which literally means "army-man."

Other than "neighbor," these definitions-one who shouts in battle-spear men-army men-can be summed up into one word: war -men.

Yet it appears that no tribe used this name to describe the whole of Germania, and instead used either Teuton or Deutsch-both generally meaning "people." To truly understand the German nation, one must dig deeper into the past.

Footnotes of History

British lexicographer Sir William Smith (1813-1893) described the early Germans "as a people of high stature and of great bodily strength, with fair complexions, blue eyes, and yellow or red hair [the Celts were likely living among them at the time]...their chief offensive weapon was the framea, a long spear with a narrow iron point..."

He continues, "Their men found their chief delight in the perils and excitement of war. In peace they passed their lives in listless indolence, only varied by deep gaming and excessive drinking."

Most historians believe the Germans originated in Europe along the Baltic Sea, but are unclear as to where their peoples derive their ancient roots. Therefore, it is necessary to rely on the footnotes of the past to continue delving into the history of this nation.

Smith reveals a clue to their origin: "The Germans regarded themselves as indigenous in the country; but there can be no doubt that they were a branch of the great Indo-Germanic race, who, along with the Celts, migrated into Europe from the Caucasus and the countries around the Black and Caspian seas [modern-day Turkey], at a period long anterior to historical records."

Anthropologist Sir Leonard Woolley records in his book The Sumerians a strikingly similar tribe living in the same region: "To the north cast of them, in the Zagros hills and across the plain to the Tigris, there lived a people of very different stock, fair-haired and speaking a 'Caucasian' tongue, a hill-people akin to the Guti..." (Some historians equate the Guti with the Goths.)

Woolley continues, stating that after an attempt to take over the Tigris River valley, they "remained in what was afterwards Assyria..."

British ethnologist James Cowl Prichard found that the Greek historian Strabo recorded the same people living south of the Black Sea, whom he labeled the Cappadocians.

"'The Cappadocians,' [Strabo] says, 'of both nations,' meaning the people dwelling on Mount Taurus under that name, as well as the Cappadocians near Pontus, 'are termed to the present day Leuco-Syri, or White Syrians, by which term they are distinguished from other Syrians, who are of swarthy complexion [darker skin], dwelling to the southward of Mount Taurus.'"

Greek historian Apollonius called these people Assyrians, saying that they lived near the Halys River (modern-day Kizilirmak River), just south of the Black Sea.

In light of this link, to understand Germany's national character-and its future-one must then look to the ancient Assyrians.

Past Meets Present

While historical evidence offers competing theories on the origins of the Germans, the Assyria-Germany connection can be furthered by examining this early people's accomplishments, character and culture. While reading, think of how each could apply to the modern-day Teutonic nation.

The 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica states: "The Assyrian forces became a standing army, which, by successive improvements and careful discipline, was moulded into an irresistible fighting machine, and Assyrian policy was directed towards the definite object of reducing the whole civilized world into a single empire and thereby throwing its trade and wealth into Assyrian hands." Note the words "irresistible fighting machine" aimed at "reducing the whole civilized world into a single empire."

James McCabe's The Pictorial History of the World thoroughly describes the Assyrians, revealing more similarities to the modern Germans. They were "a fierce, treacherous race, delighting in the dangers of the chase in war. The Assyrian troops were notably among the most formidable of ancient warriors..."

"They never kept faith when it was to their interest to break treaties, and were regarded with suspicion by their neighbors in consequence of this characteristic" (ibid.). In 1939, Nazi Germany entered into a non-aggression treaty with Soviet Russia-WWII began a month later. Also, Poland had a standing non-aggression pact with Germany when it was invaded by Hitler's army.

"In the organization and equipment of their troops, and in their system of attack and defence and their method of reducing fortified places, the Assyrians manifested a superiority to the nations by which they were surrounded" (ibid.). The design and engineering of German tanks and aircraft surpassed the allied troops in WWII. They pioneered missiles and the jet engine. Today, they continue to be on the front edge of weapons technology.

In the book The Course of Civilization Volume I, Joseph Strayer describes Assyria: "They enforced their rule by a deliberate policy of frightfulness, enslaving and deporting whole peoples, and torturing and killing thousands of captives." This statement could have easily been written about Germany in the early 1940s.

Carl Engel's The Music of the Most Ancient Nations points out that "the music of the Assyrians...appears to have attained to a degree of perfection which it could have reached only after a long period of cultivation." Perfection in music. Think of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms.

The Dictionary of the Ancient Near East states, "Assyrians excelled in road construction and maintenance. Their provincial system was built on good communication, and good roads enabled the Assyrian high command to send infantry and cavalry over long distances to promote stability or conquer new territories." Germans are also highly skilled engineers, as demonstrated by the world-famous Autobahn.

Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization reveals, "In Assyria there was a strong sense of participating in a common and native way of life which repeatedly proved persistent enough to survive military defeats and foreign domination. Who the carriers were who kept the political and cultural tradition and the Assyrian language alive through the eclipses of political power is extremely difficult to say. The right answer would reveal to us the very fountainhead of Assyrian strength and staying power."

Just as Assyria's resiliency perplexes historians, so too does the origin of Germany's mindset.

Key to the Paradox

Crucial early history of the Assyrian people, preserved in the Bible, sheds light on their national character. The book of Genesis records Asshur, father of the Assyrians, in the list of Noah's descendants ( Gen. 10:22).

The Assyrians repeatedly clashed with Israel. For instance, Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III (Pul) forced the nation to pay tribute to him ( II Kings 15:19-20). The same king returned to take captives ( I Kings 15:29; I Chron. 5:6). Later, Assyrian King Shalmaneser captured and imprisoned Israelite political conspirators who had switched allegiances to the king of Egypt ( II Kings 17:1-6). The Bible records that Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Esar-haddon also attacked Israel ( II Kings 18:13; II Chron. 33:11).

In the book of Isaiah, the Assyrian-German-national psyche is laid bare. Chapter 10 states: "For he [the Assyrian nation] says, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent" ( vs. 13).

Assyria and Germany have a long list of successes and accomplishments, which has led to an ingrained nationalistic pride. (Interestingly, the Hebrew root word for "Asshur" means success.) Look at Germany today: it is strong enough to carry Europe, and other nations come to it for answers because of its financial prudence.

The account in Isaiah 10 continues, revealing the nation's love for war and tendency to conquer surrounding lands: "...I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man: and my hand has found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathers eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth..." ( vs. 13-14).

But why is the German nation wired this way? The answer is found in verse 5, where God reveals His purpose for the nation: "O Assyrian, the rod of My anger, and the staff in their hand is My indignation." As seen above with ancient Israel, the Assyrian people have long been used by God as a means of punishment for rebellious nations.

Herein lies the paradoxical thinking of the German people: "Howbeit he means not so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few" ( vs. 7). Certainly, while its past is filled with war and violence, Germany "means not so, neither does [its] heart think so."

Yet the European nation, which is experiencing a renewed sense of nationalism, is not doomed to repeat the cycle of war for all time. The Bible reveals a bright future for it, but the country and its people must first learn valuable lessons, and lay aside deeply ingrained pride and stubbornness. The "rod" used to punish must itself be punished ( Zech. 10:11).

Only after this time will Germany be at peace with all other countries and be able to achieve true success as one of the world's greatest nations. Isaiah 19:24-25 states: "In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria"-one of the top three nations!-" even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance."

It is at this time that the German nation will be able to truly declare, "Never again!"

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As Germany marched into the semifinals at the 2010 World Cup, the country's colors-black, gold and red-flooded the stadium. Pride filled the air, radiating from the faces of joyful fans singing the Deutschland national anthem.