The Message of the Rose

Let’s have no crowds this time; no flood of photographs depicting Obama’s visit to Cairo, Normandy or Germany. These don’t belong in an election campaign.

The press conference lasted much longer than planned, but Barack Obama made a point of taking time to view the Church of Our Lady in Dresden. He put no stock in the “wild speculation” that discord in the trans-Atlantic relationship would overshadow his brief visit to Germany. Nonetheless, his third visit here within a year was marked by totally different images than in previous visits: no huge euphoric crowds as there had been at the Berlin Victory Column. No elegant evening clothes as at the NATO summit in Baden-Baden. No colorful little American flags and handshakes with selected fans. The popular politician didn’t even use his sparkling smile as much as he had earlier.

There are several reasons for this more sober atmosphere. One of them is the fact that Obama can’t fulfill all the hopes he awakened in the German people that he was the anti-Bush. That was borne out in the bumpy negotiations with the U.S. government over the future of General Motors’ Opel subsidiary and the wrangling over the possibility of Germany accepting any of the Guantanamo inmates. The relationship between Obama and Chancellor Merkel is based more on respect than on personal friendship. Merkel’s refusal to allow Obama to speak at the Brandenburg Gate during his campaign has far less to do with any friction than does the nature of their personalities: the charismatic political star versus the pragmatic natural scientist.

The purpose of Obama’s trip overshadows these explanations as well. Germany was a natural stopover point for Obama in his journey from Egypt to France. The U.S. president didn’t come to Germany with any particular message. The purpose of the trip was to convince everyone of the need for peace in the Near East. He extended a hand to the Muslims in his landmark Cairo speech. In Normandy, he walked on the land where the liberation from fascism began. He spoke symbolically about how democracy and freedom could be brought about by a “just war.”

It was for that reason that a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp was important to him. His great-uncle had participated in liberating the camp when he served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. The white rose on the memorial at Buchenwald became the symbol of the day. No one should try to superimpose a flood of Baroque pictures from the Dresden Opera or the Weimar Amalia Library over the image of that rose.

Obama was disposed even less toward being dragged into the coming German elections. That’s why he denied Merkel any possible made-for-TV crowd scenes. He didn’t meet with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) at all because the Chancellor (CDU) had already relegated him to the status of supernumerary. Thus Germany was reduced to being little more than a backdrop for Obama’s visit. Substantial progress in relations between both countries will only happen after it has been decided who will be calling the future shots in Berlin.