RSS

I returned to Berlin to conduct a few more interviews and tie up loose ends. After three days there, I took a train to Bonn. There, I had the privilege of spending an evening and a day with a former West German diplomat who was in East Berlin when the wall fell. Our conversations were not for attribution, so I cannot be specific in much of what he said. I was surprised, however, that a diplomat who had experienced life in Soviet East Germany was willing to accept Russia in its current state. The former diplomat, a good friend of the United States, echoed the view in Berlin that Washington overstates the threat that the new Russia presents. This diplomat said the United States had badly misplayed its hand in world affairs with its democratization agenda, an agenda that would continue to bring bad consequences into the next administration. This was disappointing, the diplomat said, considering the high esteem in which Germans held Americans after the Cold War. Those days, the diplomat said, are gone – no new U.S. presidential administration will change that.

The diplomat, on a walk through the old federal section of Bonn, told me about the Hanseatic League, which existed from the 13th to 17th centuries. The league was comprised of trading guilds, which held a monopoly over all commerce in the Baltic and North Sea regions and into Russia. The league stretched from northern Germany into Russia and brought prosperity to all the cities along its trade routes. The diplomat compared the Hanseatic League to what was happening between Germany and Russia today. Both sides again understand that more money can be made as partners than as enemies. A new league is forming and will thrive, no matter the opinion of the United States. A modern-day Hanseatic League is growing strong.

As often happens in Europe, history is repeating itself.

David Francis is a journalist based in Washington, DC. He recently traveled through Europe as a John J. McCloy Journalism fellow to report on energy securty issues. He can be reached through his Web site at www.dcfrancis.com.