ABSTRACT
In the life of nations as of men there occur moments of crisis which jolt people into greater awareness of self and into greater recognition of earlier, barely noticed subterranean changes. The prospect of deploying new American missiles of intermediate range on German soil — in accordance with the double-track decision of 1979 — constituted such a crisis for the West German polity. The debate over deployment brought so much to the fore: the prominence of the peace movement and the fear of so many West Germans that an uncontrolled arms race could lead to the incineration of both Germanys, a fear fed by a growing distrust of America’s capacity for leadership; a recognition of uniquely German, of uniquely national, interests, of which one felt less and less inhibited to talk. Deployment stirred up thoughts of national destiny, and West Germans lived through what Freud called “the return of the repressed.” In 1983, the German question reappeared — in all its intractable complexity.
