Charles S. Maier

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de diciembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

(Eingeschränkte Rechte für bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) Germany, Weimar Republic Elections to the Reichstag 1932 General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife Elisabeth are leaving the polling station after casting his ballot (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

EuropaUnión Europea

The recent setback to coalition talks in Berlin has heralded Germany’s most intractable political crisis in modern times. The deadlock created after the Free Democratic Party quit talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc (composed of the Christian Democratic Party and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria) and the Greens has left only what the main protagonists have previously ruled out as unacceptable alternatives: for the chancellor to try governing with a parliamentary minority, and for the Social Democrats to agree to enter a “Grand Coalition” once again; or for Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to call new elections. Germany owes its difficulty to the results of September’s election for the Bundestag, in which a party of the nationalist far right won seats for the first time in decades.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate

European leaders seemed to understand, at least until recently, that even a partial breakdown of the euro zone would have a devastating economic and political impact on departing countries and on the European Union as a whole. But while they have repeatedly committed to providing emergency aid, they haven’t yet accepted that saving the euro is more vital than clinging to the constraining rules that govern the European Central Bank. They are debating their future with a diminished sense of history and of the alternatives available to them. They should recall Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s grave warning, upon returning from Germany in early 1947: “The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate.”…  Seguir leyendo »