#kondylis

Just as the philosopher [Kant] believed, it is exactly the 'mixing' and 'merging' of peoples which puts peace in danger. But even if the democratic peoples remained separate like good neighbours, as Kant preferred, again they would not be lacking war-mongering arguments in the event they are needed: Nobody will deny the principle that 'democracies do not wage war against each other' - only that he will add that the opponent is not a 'genuine' democrat.

The French and the English therefore grasp, with such self-understanding, the problem of European unification not least as a question of hegemony and as a question of the "integration" of Germany, because they are old imperialistic peoples with considerably longer world-political traditions and correspondingly richer experiences as well as a finer diplomatic instinctive feel than the Germans. As for the Germans, on the other hand, it is possible that the ungainliness in respect of power politics of the past will now be superseded by a moralistic ungainliness which will likewise necessarily lead to dead ends. Qualities, which could protect from that, do not exactly belong to the merits of the German national character. The Germans indeed possess, as has been proved, the virtues of the plebeian (industriousness, thrift, ethical earnestness, action in accordance with orders or instructions and a plan); however in general they lack the virtues of the aristocrat: ironic and self-ironic sovereignty (i.e. the irony and self-irony of the sovereign), composure in the event of the failure of orders or instructions, the superior way of dealing with all sorts of norms.