"The future was better in earlier days"

German conservatives in uproar

The harsh criticism of ex-chancellor Kohl of the German Government with regard to foreign policy beacons the direction controversy at the conservatives. Secretary of Defense de Maizière aids the chancellor, but the discussion started out whatsoever. The Social Dems see the inheritance of Kohl, Brandt and Adenauer endangered.

Federal Minister of Defense Thomas de Maizière (CDU) declined the criticism of ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl concerning the shape of the foreign and Europe-policies of the German govt: "There is no way back into the alleged security of earlier days" , de Maizière said. 'He's taking advice of older politicians seriously, but one cannot translate them 1 to 1 into present.' (de Maziere of himself in the 3rd person-Caesarean power player I guess).

" We live in the year 2011, in a highly complex, very difficult and unclear situation. I understand the longing for security. But for the moment we cannot promise (the future)" , the conservative politician said " Tagesspiegel". " Sometimes I ask myself also, what the former chancellors thought in their active time of pieces of advice of their predecessors ," de Maizière added. He regards the sentence of the comedian Karl Valentin in this connection " very interesting" , who said once: " The future was in former times also better."

Kohl had expressed Germany was "no more a calculable power - neither inward nor outward" in the magazine "Internationale Politik." Missing reliability led also abroad to disconcertion. "If one does not have a compass, if one does not know thus, where one stands and where one wants 2 b , and from it derives then also that there is no guidance and willingness to act, then one doesn't stick to the idea as well what we understand as continuity of foreign policy" , Kohl said. The Germans need again 2 "make recognizably clear for others, where we stand and where we want 2 b , that we know, where we belong 2, that we stick 2 values and principles, which r valid beyond the day."