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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. .........................................


Tenenbom comes off as a Jewish Hunter S Thompson, and his book would sell better under a title like "Fear and Loathing in Germany." Every encounter with an interview subject is an experimental drama, redolent sometimes of Pinter or Beckett, more often of Brecht or the Marx Brothers.

Much of it is in execrable taste, and some of it makes the reader cringe. But that is literary collateral damage in the context of a highly directed plan of attack. The book is a record of spontaneous street theater provoked and directed by Tenenbom. He is not interested in reporting as much as in manipulating his subjects into an on-the-record catharsis.

What emerges from his peregrinations is that World War II and the Holocaust have left the Germans with a terminal case of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was self-published because Tenenbom's German publisher demanded that he sanitize some of the more startling incidents which, of course, would defeat the purpose of the book. It would be like Macbeth without a murder or Hamlet without the Ghost.

As a Jew, Tenenbom has a distinct advantage as provocateur. A Jew with a sense of humor is a predator with no natural enemies in today's Germany. When I lived there, I would bring up the sticky topic of Germany's demographic decline and add, "Germans don't breed in captivity," or, "If you Germans were as clever as we Jews, you would have gotten your own national homeland right after the war like we did," or (my favorite), "What a shame! There's no way Hitler could have lost that war, if only he had gotten us on his side."

Germans hate Israel because if the Israelis can be represented to be as bad as the Nazis, then perhaps the Nazis weren't so bad. That is a common observation, but Tenenbom portrays it in a set of theatrical encounters that strip away the veneer of sanity from his subjects. Among many such incidents is the matter of the "Wailing Wall of Cologne," an installation next to the city's famous cathedral, Germany's leading tourist attraction:
This, of course, is a reference to the holiest shrine of the Jews in Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall. What a name. Cologne's Wailing Wall. Stick it to the Jews, why not? This wall exhibits posters, pictures, flyers, political statements, and news. These are Peace and Love Germans. The only problem is, wouldn't you know, the Jewish state of Israel stands in their way. Israel, they make it clear, is engaged in "Massacre", "Land Grabs", "'Ethnic Cleansing", and other gems. This Wailing Wall showcases photos of dead little Palestinian children in pools of blood.
Tenenbom confronts the fellow manning the setup and asks, "So, you love the Palestinians and you hate the Israelis? Yet another surreal conversation ensues:................................