Roots of German Conservatism

Nietzsche said, “the Germans . .be-long to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow—they have as yet no today.” To explain why there is hope for tomorrow Edgar Alexander has written Adenauer and the New Germany (Farrar, $5.25). To explain how it happens that the present does not belong to the Germans, Klemens von Klemperer has explored what he feels was the failure of Germany’s neo-conservative movement (Germany’s New Conservatism, Princeton, $5.00).

Adenauer and the New Germany was not written for an American audience. It bears all the earmarks of a German campaign biography defending the policies of Chancellor Adenauer and the Christian Democratic Party. As a consequence the book is tendentious, less than historical in its appraisal of Adenauer and his policies and less than understandable to the American who has no background in the day-to-day politics of postwar Germany. The author is far more interested in defending Chancellor Adenauer from the negative and silly attacks of the Social Democrats than he is in making his policies understandable to the American public.

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Stephen J. Tonsor

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Nietzsche said, “the Germans . .be-long to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow—they have as yet no today.” To explain why there is hope for tomorrow Edgar Alexander has written Adenauer and the New Germany (Farrar, $5.25). To explain how it happens that the present does not belong to the Germans, Klemens von Klemperer has explored what he feels was the failure of Germany’s neo-conservative movement (Germany’s New Conservatism, Princeton, $5.00).

Adenauer and the New Germany was not written for an American audience. It bears all the earmarks of a German campaign biography defending the policies of Chancellor Adenauer and the Christian Democratic Party. As a consequence the book is tendentious, less than historical in its appraisal of Adenauer and his policies and less than understandable to the American who has no background in the day-to-day politics of postwar Germany. The author is far more interested in defending Chancellor Adenauer from the negative and silly attacks of the Social Democrats than he is in making his policies understandable to the American public.