A Small Town in Germany [antikvár]

Preface to the American Edition There is no particular reason why Americans should be familiar with the vocabulary of Bonn politics, and the situation which I have described here does not presuppose such knowledge. It presupposes only this: that in what we may perhaps call the recent future, the two major political parties in the Bundestag have formed a Grand Coalition, a form of government which happens to exist at the time of writing. These two parties, the Social Democrats (not far removed in feeling from the American Democratic Party) and the Christian Democrats (Republican), either together or singly far outnumber the tiny Free Democrat Party which in this story, as at present, constitutes the only parliamentary opposition. And the Free Democrats, to say the least, have their own problems. Opposition to the rulers is therefore severely limited; yet the disenchantment of the ruled, the sense of political dishonor and political stagnation, of alienation between goverrmient and people, is intensified. It is against this background that the book makes its single assumption, and takes leave of the existing situation: an amorphous Movement of popular resentments, popular protest and occasional violence has come into being. The policies are immaterial: it is a Movement of the resentful mass; it is unified by its slogans, and fed by its dreams. It is without official representation in the Bundestag and (since the Movement is anti-parliamentary anyway) without anv great desire to achieve it. About five hundred years ago I served in the British