eclipse in twenty nineteen. and a quick reminder now of our top story. german chancellor angela merkel and french president and i don't like france say they hope to sign a new treaty of friendship and cooperation between their countries in january it comes after my counterpart for closer ties at a ceremony marking germany's day of remembrance. you're up to date at the w. thanks for watching. from. i'm secure that volume work that's hard and in the end this is the me you're not allowed to steal and more we will send you back. are you familiar with this. with the smugglers were alliance of. what's your story. on what numbers of women especially are victims of violence in rooms and take part and send us your story we are trying in all ways to understand this new culture. another visitor another guests you want to become a citizen. in for migrants your platform for reliable information. and until yesterday it is one of the world's leading contemporary historians and today we want to discuss a potential fear of germany with him mr herder during a recent speech in brussels a polish politician said he fears a germany that doesn't lead more than one that does is there a new fear of germany. get to these annoying angst what. as keep the law there is a new fear of germany which is also an old fear of germany where the new demands are being made of the country and these demands are pushing germany into dilemma. the quote by poland's foreign minister you just mentioned you would never have heard anybody particularly not somebody from poland say that before nine hundred ninety. there's this new demand for germany to lead within europe but that puts germany in a dilemma because if it assumes a position of power old fears about germany wanting supremacies and europe will rise again this is the new fear which is actually a fear dating back to the nineteenth century or before. and which germany's european neighbors have felt for at least two hundred years or. so i mean the since five hundred beneath the healing i parked the cannon how can germany resolve this tense relationship with germany mistake other european countries position into account and also take their perception of germany and to account germany must also not look like the power politics necessary for europe to be a powerful global player. and chido in darfur automatically this is a necessary balancing act and one of the greatest challenges for political leaders . the i'm trying to hold forth on through political furor. minister had another minister speaking in brussels actually addressed precisely that challenge and said germany will have to lead from the center how could that work really because that by the to be honest i'm not quite sure what this leadership from the center main wants germany has to learn to be respectful of its neighbors while at the same time carrying out the necessary leadership duties. i'm not sure where the center comes in. design but and also you say germany must carry out its leadership duties but also that it would be problematic. if it did so to assertively almost all top level officials and brussels pulling the strings of german that greatly upset some member states that i know. is that what germany wants to be a sort of behind the scenes puppet master that includes defense something you would have thought they flee the and i would absolutely say that the most important level at which germany is showing political leadership lies beyond national interests in fact it even extends beyond the european union. or because the big question is how will europe treat the u.k. after breaks it would be for this isn't an e.u. issue we need to see germany as a nation probably together with france negotiating with the u.k. you fucked off this far i need to crudely because the u.k. is not going to disappear from europe. rather europe can only be a strong global player if it has a constructive relationship with the u.k. construct he was for this to cause put up in that type and back when germany was politically more peripheral that it tried to convince the benelux countries of its interests so that they would push them on the agenda of that strategy worked back then is that the right concept for the future or is germany allowed to be self-confident in expressing its wishes and setting its agenda as the time that i get into setting dacha and the half north towards germany is not only allowed to be confident it has to be confident. but you can be confident without being inconsiderate towards this notion that germany must always be subtle and can't just be forthright in its demands no one in europe still thinks that the use of force or the globe to or. about us good it leads to trouble take the two recent examples when germany su and political leadership within europe and the eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis in the summer of two thousand and fifteen both times upon. little course was taken that was set by germany and both times that caused big big trouble and massive anti german sentiment quickly flared up so how can this work. and india well germany made a grave mistake during the refugee crisis and that was to vote by majority in the european council to force countries to accept a quota of refugees against their will i don't think. that was seen as dictatorial . for the european debt crisis situation is more complicated. there are two very different versions of what happened to exist within europe which are both logical but to contradict each other. but on the one side there's the story told by mostly but not exclusively southern countries which says that germany reacted far too late. that it didn't want to risk it strayed someplace and the germans are geopolitical nationalists. on the other side we have the german version of exactly the same political decision is to go to. the door german say that they were not liable for other countries debts but that they helped greece anyway because they're such a good european it's all you have are. it's right it has some die hard but to add to what you said we also very quickly began seeing pictures of angela merkel with the head the mustache coming from greece how big must the fear of germany be and what does it feed on for such poignant images to be produced that are of a patient the whole of germany's neighboring countries or almost all have had some form of military conflict with germany far with dog. for greece that conflict was the world war two occupation by germany or how the studio to put that was when those stereotypes started a violent germans with their pickle how about helmets all thora tarion and militaristic his face and the odd thing about stereotypes is that they can resurgent any time like a volcano you thought was dormant which erupts again if you go and work hard for the market that's how stereotypes generally work and it's exactly what we've seen happen these last years no one in the house that's obviously and that's neon ali. patient it seems as if other european countries are no longer used to a germany that shows the same self-assurance as say france or britain and is this a test for europe of death i know. it's globin if that's the stomach that would hurt but i don't think that this has anything to do with cold war experiences manifesting themselves in the present day outside of food or the noise so where does the fear come from well in france and france is the key partner in this context that fear dates at least as far back as the eight hundred seventy seventy one war when france became painfully aware of the fact that it's not eastern neighbor germany or was structurally stronger. that he's talked to and then france had to experience that bitter truth again in both world wars. because although france was on the winning side the french knew that if they had to face germany alone they would have lost. you can dodge land just regular give you what was it their child a goal said in one thousand nine hundred forty six germany stays germany more recently in the eighties francois mitterrand spoke about the german nuclear bomb but he was referring to the don't mark in the german central bank which shows that other countries are no longer worried about germany's military strength but about its economic power gaff. as it is does that mean germany is scary because it functions too well for europe. that. east germany is and will stay europe's strongest economy in a time when economic strength is more important than military strength. so germany is the strongest party and it can't shake that role which is why it has to find a way to use its strength constructively and strategically within europe. when they explore the international recent study asked europeans whether they find their country's culture superior to their neighboring countries cultures forty five percent of germans said they find their culture to be better than other europeans yet are we seeing a rising feeling of german superiority. you know with this yes we are and that's a german trait that dates back to the romantic era. in the early nineteenth century when europeans began to see themselves as nationals the french state already existed so the french could perceive themselves as a nation state. however there was no unified germany at that time meaning germans initially had little choice but to find unity through culture who told us they saw selves as a cultural nation if you will and this self image has always brought with it a tendency among germans to view themselves as culturally and morally superior for that tendency can be traced throughout the nineteenth century right up to the end of the first half of the twentieth century when you know that and although the content of the old self image has changed the mechanism of perceiving oneself as culturally and morally superior remains. a good example is germany's welcome culture in autumn two thousand and fifteen that sense of being morally correct was so strong you can almost touch it it's harder of the best on side to side with him and for that account we recently had the chancellor announced that she's begun what could be called a step by step political withdrawal what political legacy will under medical leave for europe. i'm glad merkel has hopefully on a european level angela merkel's main political activity has been crisis management from cleveland she has also always try to unite the european institutions with varying degrees of success about her efforts were constant or patient institutes all about and wondered how did she divide all unite europe and. the other off the islands she's been able to unite at least in part she managed to avoid the european institutions dismantling and separating particularly during the euro zone crises how about in part she has also caused european division with regard to the refugee crises but i guess we'll never know the extent but several people in the u.k. said that the political decisions about refugees made in twenty fifteen helped the banks it's win by part that's the part that's just for two so this breaks it is now that i've become mr heard and i as always i'd like to end our interview by asking you to complete three sentences germany yes i know a large and important power within europe which needs to lead constructively and with empathy part of. europe is. more than the european union all it is shaped by the e.u. but also by the great diversity that goes beyond it. get on and history is. there's spiegel in the america we look at without saying our own reflection clearly but that shows as backgrounds which help us to better understand our present selves have it mr herder thanks for speaking with us thank you. chasing the album done out of. city contains the publicly and many more and in one thousand nine hundred they were founding figures of the balls movement fine art design and architecture balls became a pioneer off modernity. has much more to offer. and also the. next billion. enter the conflict zone confronting the powerful. subir is pushing ahead with loose join the european union the brussels to soak up unimpressed with its reforms my guest this week visiting the serbian prime minister i'm not going to be. why so little progress on so many key issues. conflicts of. interest sixty minutes on g.w. . great yourself with d. w.'s interior design channel on. technology digital and then ensues transforming the model. to be seen to be ready