ABSTRACT
Germany has paid a high price for Hitler's war and its consequences—so high, in fact, that Germans tend to repress it. The impression that Germany is becoming increasingly German is strengthened by the addition of East German populations, who arrive with their own parochialisms. As Germany provides no special education or training for an elite, the political parties have stepped in to fill the gap. The consequences of this intrusion are conspicuous in the case of the Foreign Office. The situation in the foreign service is very different from that which prevails in the defense establishment. The political class of Germany must learn the virtues of competition; it must learn that the shift from the public sector to the private, and back again, is a desirable thing that is happening in many places in Europe today, that it ought to happen also in Germany. German unification has destroyed the "postmaterialistic" dreams of many veterans of 1968.
