Life Imitates Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea

The German defense minister has visited Israel.

In Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, a subplot is Germany's relationship with Israel and the concept, not of guilt, but memory and reconciliation. A taste:

 The study was dark except for the dead light cast by the computer screen on Chancellor Hoppe's desk. Mr. Hoppe walked into the study. As he approached his wife he saw her computer screen. She was staring at the Drudge Report which carried a photograph of a Turkish naval ship and the headline "ON TO GAZA."
Mr. Hoppe came up behind his wife and put his hands on her shoulders. He lovingly rubbed them. The Chancellor leaned back in her chair and looked up at her husband's face illuminated by the computer light.
'It is past midnight,' he said.
'Yes.'
'And you have that speech tomorrow in Leipzig.'
'I know.'
He pointed to the computer screen. 'There is nothing you can do, you know.'
'Is that really true?'
Mr. Hoppe sat on the edge of the desk and folded his arms. 'Isn't it?'
'There is something I can do.'
'But you are not sure.'
The Chancellor took her husband's hand. 'No. I am sure.'
'Then why wait?'
'Because if I do this thing it will set a new course of history for Germany.'
Mr. Hoppe thought for a moment. 'Is it the right thing?'
'It is.'
'How often has Germany done the wrong thing?'
'Too often.'
Mr. Hoppe reached across the desk, picked up the telephone and handed it to his wife. 'Then make the call.'
The Chancellor nodded. She pressed a button patching into the residence's night secretary. 'Get me the Minister of Defence.'​

 

I once read about a German youth movement that featured young people making a pilgrimage to and working in Israel for a summer. This is of course similar to the Kibbutzim that many thousands of Americans passed through. 

An American, of course, can pick through his heritage and find ancestors who fought in any number of wars. Both my grandfathers were in WWII. My grandfather's stepfather was in the 77th Division in the Great War. Interestingly, my grandmother's father flew in the Luftwaffe during the Great War. What must a young German think knowing a grandfather or great grandfather fought on the side of unspeakable evil?

Of course, an 18 year old German bears absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the crimes of his/her nation or even family. But is this German youth movement not an attempt to cleanse the family name, to make right a wrong rendered by a relative?

Here is an image of German Chancellor Willie Brandt laying a wreath at the Warsaw Ghetto:

This was an important event that has been memorialized with a plaque and a term Warschauer Knieffel-refers to a gesture of humility and penance by social democratic Chancellor of Germany Willy Brandt towards the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Even today the photo is powerful. Today a square in Warsaw is named for the late Chancellor.

Here is a video of a German women meeting an Israeli youth group at Auschwitz:

In a weird way the Holocaust binds the German and Israeli people. Israel would not exist without Auschwitz. Even for Americans my age, Germans are associated almost completely with the war. When I was a child in the 80's just by watching old war movies you could pick up enough German to man a road block. When does that end for the Germans?