Recently the now 95-year-old Helmut Schmidt was (once again) voted by Germans the most admired living German male. This book, written by a British correspondent who observed him closely for many years, appeared shortly after Schmidt's coalition government was toppled in 1982. The portrait it paints, admiring yet critical, goes a long way to explaining the respect in which he is still held, more than thirty years after leaving office. In less than 200 pages, Carr gives a quick overview of his childhood, his experiences in the Wehrmacht in World War 2, and his political rise. It also touches on his deep appreciation of art, especially the twentieth-century German expressionism denigrated by the Nazis, and his love of music.
Much of the book focuses though on his political career. Few have risen to the top position in government as well-prepared as he. Frustrated in his hopes to be an architect or town planner, he took a degree in economics after the war as the most straightforward way to support his young family. From the start of his parliamentary career, he focused on defence policy, a subject few others in his party, the Socialists, wanted to be associated with. When his party finally came to power for the first time after the war, he was, in succession, parliamentary whip, defence minister, and finance minister. As chancellor, his strength was to see that military and economic issues were intertwined, and his common sense approach, combined with his intelligence and diligence, made him a crucial figure both in detente between the superpowers, and the efforts to keep some semblance of order in world markets reeling under the deterioration of the dollar and two massive rises in oil prices.
Some of the convictions that guided his efforts are cited as well. In a speech to the UN general assembly in 1978, he stressed the need for "predictability and calculability of political and military conduct" (something he felt especially lacking in the Carter White House), as well as for both superpowers "to avoid provocation; to make one's own options unmistakably clear; to defuse dangerous situations through readiness to compromise; and to enable those concerned to save face" (p. 150). And speaking to diplomats the evening before his government was toppled, he delivered what Carr calls his political testament: "Today we all face a dual crisis - involving both the world economy and the hardening of fronts in East-West relations. I want to ask you never to allow the dialogue between governments and statesmen to be discontinued, especially in a crisis - however good your reasons may be for reproaching the other side. In this time of great danger for worldwide economic and financial cooperation, I warn against thinking that one can solve one's problems by a policy pursued at the cost of others. . . . To ensure peace remains our primary task. Peace is not a natural state but one that must be ever re-established, as the German philosopher Kant put it" (188).
One comes away from the book with the feeling that the decade of the seventies, as bad as they were in world history, would have been much worse without this capable, dutiful public servant at the helm of an economic power slowly growing into a commensurate political role only thirty years after causing, then losing, World War 2. The "great person" view of politics and history has been unfashionable for the past few decades, but perhaps it needs to be reconsidered. A good read, highly recommended. ( )