The incredible lightheadedness of being German

I Sleep in Hitler's Room: An American Jew Visits Germany by Tuvia Tenenbom

Reviewed by Spengler

Reading the news reports from the weekend party conference of Germany's Christian Democratic Union, it is hard to shake the feeling that Chancellor Angela Merkel has lost her grip on reality. "It is time for a breakthrough to a new Europe," she said, and added, "this Europe is a community of destiny in the globalized world," which is now "in its most difficult moment since the Second World War."

Really? The "most difficult moment since the Second World War"? Europe nearly got swallowed up into the Evil Empire during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Now, that would seem to
count as a difficult moment. I'll review that story later. Today's question is why Ms Merkel - a trained scientist, and a person of high intelligence and considered judgment - is acting like a lunatic in public. "The task of our generation now is to complete the economic and currency union in Europe and, step by step, create a political union," she told her party.

The problem is not that Merkel is crazy, but that an entire generation of Germans is crazy. That is the theme of Tuvia Tenenbom's report of his random (and sometimes not-so-random) conversations with Germans from all walks of life, from the political and business elite to bottle-throwing anarchists.
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