Why Germany Moved Beyond Nationalism—and America Hasn’t. 

The Lesson America Dodged 

When Germany's domestic intelligence service flagged the Alternative for Germany party as a threat to democracy in 2021, few Germans questioned the agency's authority to monitor elected politicians. When America's FBI investigated January 6th participants, half the country cried persecution. The difference isn't cultural, it's institutional. The country that gave the world Hitler now has stronger guardrails against authoritarianism than the one that defeated him. 

In political theory, three main ideas center around nationalism. Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism where membership in the nation is defined by shared ancestry, culture, language, or religion. The country is an ethnic community bound by bloodline or heritage, not simply political choice. Nazi Germany was a classic case of this, where being German was about belonging to the Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) based on Aryan descent. 

Civic nationalism is based on shared political values, citizenship, and allegiance to civic institutions, rather than ethnic background. The nation is a political community defined by laws, rights, and participation. The United States has long embodied this model, where belonging is grounded in the Constitution, citizenship, and the promise of the “American Dream.” 

Post-nationalism is the practice where national identity is deliberately subordinated to, or complemented by, broader frameworks. It doesn’t abolish national identity; instead, it culturally shifts toward reducing the dominance of nationalism in politics. This is where post-war Germany sits, where the 1949 Grundgesetz (Basic Law), drafted under Allied supervision, grounded citizenship and rights not in blood but in democratic participation. 

Post-war Germany deliberately constrained nationalist politics through law. The United States essentially didn’t, and the consequences are visible today. 

After Catastrophe: From Ruin to “Never Again” 

Germany’s Nazi era (1933–1945) became the negative founding myth of the modern German state. The catastrophe gave political leaders the legitimacy to expose the flaws of the old order and rebuild a government designed to prevent the return of extremist policies. 

The United States was founded on a heroic myth: a people rebelling against the tyranny of British rule. From this narrative emerged the figure of the American patriot, one who exalts liberty and defends it at all costs. This triumphant self-image seeded a tradition of American nationalism, rooted not in remorse but in pride. 

Post-war Germany made many early decisions that were imperative in the long term. The denazification of the state was a forced reset of institutions and political narratives. The Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) is a concept referring to the collective effort to confront, process, and deal with the legacy of Nazism and the atrocities of the Third Reich after 1945. It isn’t a single policy, but rather a long, multifaceted societal process. They began the process of demilitarization, decentralization, and re-education. 

Lacking such a negative founding, American nationalism often defaults to triumphalism, “America is the best,” which can serve to excuse harmful actions rather than restrain them.

The Basic Law: Guardrails by Design 

“Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authorities.” These are the first words in Article 1 of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law), representing all that the new German government would be built upon. Rights were foundational, not derivative.

Amendments to the Grundgesetz are usually possible; however, Articles 1 and 20 can never be amended under Article 79(3), nicknamed the eternity clause. This protects parts of the German government from ever being changed. These include the federal structure of Germany, the Länder (states) and their role in lawmaking, the basic principles of democracy in Article 20, like popular sovereignty, separation of powers, federalism, rule of law, and the protections in Article 1. Essentially, fundamental rights cannot be amended away. 

When drafting the Grundgesetz, the idea of Wehrhafte Demokratie (militant democracy) became a central idea in drafting the document. This guaranteed rights to free speech, but not without limits.”. Groups that aim to abolish democracy can have these rights reduced. Political parties with extremist ties can be declared unconstitutional and banned if they seek to undermine or repeal the democratic order. This has successfully occurred twice. Once in 1952 with the Sozialistische Reichspartei (Socialist Reich Party,) a direct successor to Hitler’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party,) and again in 1956 with the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany). The country also has a domestic intelligence system for monitoring extremist threats. 

The framers had the foresight that even with these protections, small, splintered, extremist groups could still become a problem; thus, they introduced the 5% rule. It states that a party cannot hold seats unless they win at least 5% of the Zweitstimme (second vote) which determines how many seats a party gets in the Bundestag (federal parliament,) or win three seats outright. 

The United States poses a stark contrast to the German government. It has no eternity constraints, meaning any part of the Constitution can be amended or abolished. There are few structural tools against anti-democratic actors, and due to the sheer power of the President, one of these actors in office could cripple the country for decades. First-past-the-post forces two massive parties to outcompete each other with little protection against extremist actions.

Civic Identity over Blood: Redefining Belonging

After the war, it had to be decided what belonging in Germany meant. Before 2000, Germany had jus sanguinis (right of blood) heritage rules. This meant that a person born to two German citizens was automatically a German citizen. The reform in 2000 introduced a conditional jus soli (right of the soil). In response to increasing immigration, the new policy states that children born to non-German parents can still acquire citizenship if at least one parent is a German citizen. Initially, children born under this jus soli clause had to choose whether to keep German citizenship or retain their parents’ nationality by age 23. This was the Optionspflicht (obligation to choose). Later, the government eased these restrictions in 2014 so that children raised in Germany could keep dual citizenship permanently. 

Without nationalism, a crucial question arises: if not nationalism, what is supposed to unite a country? The framers of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) laid the groundwork for a new kind of patriotism, Verfassungspatriotismus (constitutional patriotism). This creates loyalty to democratic principles rather than ethnicity. It’s this principle that unifies the people of Germany, binding them together on the belief in equality under democratic law. 

Foreign integration into Germany follows the Fördern und Fordern (support and demand) principle. Immigrants are provided with services and support, including language training, orientation, and job access, but are also expected to make efforts such as learning German and engaging civically. This further diminishes ethnic nationalism, creating a society where everyone is welcome and accepted. Kommunale Integrationsbeauftragte (Municipal integration offices) are local office officials tasked with coordinating integration at the municipal level. They assist with outreach, coordinate language & orientation services, facilitate interactions between immigrants and regional administration, and occasionally support immigrant associations. 

Even the military was reshaped to fit this post-national order. The doctrine of Innere Führung (inner leadership) redefined the role of the armed forces to prevent the emergence of a separate, nationalist warrior caste. It introduced the principle of the Staatsbürger in Uniform (citizen in uniform): every soldier remains first and foremost a citizen, with rights and responsibilities intact. Military service does not strip them of civil rights, nor place them in a separate social class, but embeds them firmly within the democratic state. 

The United States stands in sharp contrast. Despite birthright citizenship, national myth and identity politics continue to dominate American life. From the American Dream to Manifest Destiny, narratives of national exceptionalism cultivate pride that still unites the country. Yet this pride often serves a darker function: it allows actors with ill intentions to justify harmful policies and actions in the name of patriotism. 

Binding the Nation to Europe (and Law) 

In Europe, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was created to place coal and steel, the raw materials of war, under a shared supranational authority. In West Germany, joining meant voluntarily limiting national control over its most strategic industries. Naturally, this reassured France and other neighbors that German reindustrialization would not become militarization again, and was an early step in pooling authority. 

The Treaty of Rome expanded integration into a common market with free movement of goods, services, capital, and people. Germany accepted European legal supremacy in areas of economic regulation, such as that from the European Court of Justice’s doctrines of direct effect, which allows specific provisions of European la,w like treaties, statutes, and sometimes directives, to be invoked directly by individuals in national courts, and supremac,y which makes it so EU law takes precedence over conflicting national law. 

Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1955 and closely tied its military to the organization. Rather than building an independent national military identity, the Bundeswehr (federal defense) was explicitly tied to an alliance system under U.S. and collective Western command. Germany was a founding member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which created a pan-European framework linking security to political commitments like human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Germany used its OSCE membership to show that its security was not just military but embedded in cooperative European institutions. 

After WWII, West Germany built its economic credibility on the Bundesbank (federal bank), founded in 1957. The bank was incredibly independent and guided by ordoliberal principles: low inflation, monetary stability, and rules-based economic management. It became the center of the economic tenets throughout Germany. When Germany backed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, it agreed to pool monetary sovereignty in the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB was deliberately designed to replicate the Bundesbank model, acting independently from politics and focused narrowly on price stability. Once adopting the euro, Germany couldn’t adjust monetary policy to serve short-term domestic goals, and politicians couldn’t swing toward nationalist deficit spending or protectionist financing without breaching EU treaties. 

The United States has no such rules, and contrasts with Germany in almost every dimension of law, security, and economics. U.S. law is supreme within its borders, and no supranational court can override the Supreme Court. International treaties are binding only if ratified by the Senate, and even then, Congress or the Court can limit their effect. While a NATO member, its security identity is self-reliant. The U.S. military is globally dominant, with nuclear deterrence, global bases, and unilateral intervention capacity. Its alliances reinforce power, but they don’t constrain its identity. The government keeps full control of the Federal Reserve and fiscal policy. Congress can expand deficits, adjust taxation, and run debt far beyond EU-style thresholds. The dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency insulates the U.S. from external monetary constraint. 

Memory Culture and Education as Policy 

In Germany, education about World War II, the Holocaust, and dictatorship is ever-present. Memorials across the country, particularly in Berlin, mark the Holocaust as the national tragedy it was. Sites like the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) and the Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum Berlin) keep the atrocities of the Nazi regime visible in public life. 

To prevent the resurgence of extremist narratives, Germany also turned to law. Section 130 of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code), known as Volksverhetzung (incitement of the people), criminalizes incitement to hatred, attacks on human dignity, and the approval, denial, or trivialization of Nazi crimes in ways likely to disturb public peace. Penalties range from fines to five years in prison. By limiting speech and association around Nazi symbols and incitement, Germany reinforced a political order grounded in human dignity and equality. 

Memory culture extends beyond monuments and law into archives and education. Records of dictatorship and persecution, including Stasi files and the Arolsen Archives, which preserve over 30 million documents on Nazi persecution, forced labor, and displaced persons, were opened broadly to the public, with large portions digitized since 2007. These archives ensure that both Germans and the wider world can learn from the past in detail, reinforcing a civic identity built on remembrance and responsibility. 

In the United States, memorialization is fragmented. There are powerful sites, such as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., or the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery. Still, these are fewer, geographically scattered, and often products of private or local initiative rather than centrally mandated. The First Amendment protects even hateful or extremist speech unless it directly incites imminent violence. White supremacists can operate legally so long as they don’t commit crimes. Education standards are set at the state and often local level. This leads to deep fragmentation where some states mandate detailed teaching of slavery, civil rights, or the Holocaust, while others dilute or sidestep them. Culture wars over how to frame slavery, racism, or even the causes of the Civil War produce an inconsistent national memory. Civic identity leans more on ideals of liberty and exceptionalism. While there are efforts to address slavery, segregation, and Indigenous dispossession, there is no comparable nationwide ritual of guilt, remorse, and responsibility. 

The Cracks: Germany’s Ongoing Nationalist Temptations 

In 2013, the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) party was formed in response to the Eurozone bailouts, which it opposed. It quickly became an anti-immigration and nationalist political party during the 2015 refugee crisis. The party is strongest in eastern states, and in some regions, it has become the leading party. Shortly after the founding of the AfD, the Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident, PEGIDA) was formed. It was a protest movement against immigration, particularly Muslim immigration. While small outside the East, PEGIDA captured frustrations rooted in feelings of cultural loss and political marginalization. 

In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Three days after the full-scale invasion, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz marked the day as a Zeitenwende (turning point). He advocated that Germany should sharply increase defense spending and break from dependency on Russia, particularly for energy. He proposed a Sondervermögen (special fund) of €100 billion off-budget for strengthening the Bundeswehr. To permit this, Germany amended the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) so that this fund would be exempt from regular borrowing limits. This marks Germany turning away from long post-Cold War inertia, embracing higher spending, readiness, and willingness to deploy military force more assertively. 

Nationalist impulses are a part of every society, including Germany. After the war, Germany was a leading country in fighting extremist politics and nationalism. It manages nationalist impulses, but it hasn’t transcended them. 

What America Can (Actually) Learn 

First and foremost, the United States needs to ensure rights that apply to every individual on American soil. Germany has the “eternity clause.” America needs to make its core rights truly unalienable and beyond partisan tampering. These must apply to voting rights, redistricting to prevent gerrymandering, government spending, and fundamental human rights like freedom of expression.

Transparency in campaign finance and public spending is essential. Public media must be shielded from political interference, and election administration must be professional, independent, and secured against tampering. 

Above all, America must learn from history. Germany only built its guardrails after a catastrophic collapse. The United States has a chance to reform before such a crisis. Besser spät als nie.