How Does One Explain Germany 2011 Knowing About Germany 1941?

How Does a Country Transform Itself

Seventy years ago Germany was in the process of unleashing a horror upon the world that even today causes rational people to wonder how such a murderous people could have existed in the 20^th Century.  Today, Germany is a different country.

On the political front in Germany the news is that a third party has grown steadily in influence.  German politics for decades was dominated by two main parties, the Social Democrats, a center left party and the Christian Democrats, a center right party.    Smaller parties also exist in Germany, and in fact the Christian Democrats rule Germany only because they are in a coalition agreement with a small “liberal” party. (In Europe “liberal” means favoring  free markets, lower taxes and less government regulation and intervention into the economy)

The third party that has grown to become a force in German politics is the Green Party.  In the city-state of Berlin,

The Greens are on course to win roughly 20% of votes in Sunday's election of a new state legislature in the capital, a result that could see them rule Germany's biggest city in coalition with the incumbent Social Democrats

The Greens used to be exactly what a person would have thought them to be

The Greens grew out of Germany's loose antinuclear and peace movements of the 1970s. Many activists had roots in 1960s student protests and counterculture. They remained iconoclasts when they began winning seats in parliaments in the 1980s. When former student radical and street fighter Joschka Fischer became environment minister of the state of Hesse in 1985, he famously took his oath of office wearing white sneakers and a threadbare tweed jacket.

But today, things are different, and radically different from the Germany of 1941

it is the Greens who have best caught the mood of Germany's trendy and liberal capital. That is partly because the environmentalists have grown up—its former sandal-wearing activists are now in sharp suits and hold increasingly moderate views on economics.

But it also is because Germany's educated, urban middle class is moving steadily toward the Greens' beliefs: Environmentalism, peace, and stronger rights for consumers, women and minorities.

So yes, the Green Party has changed, but much more importantly it looks likes Germany has changed.  The country that supports environmentalism, peace, and stronger rights for consumers, women and minorities cannot have descended from the country that supported Nazism.  So where did Nazi Germany come from, was it transported from a parallel universe?  That's as good an explanation as any.