Germany

If there were a Statue of Liberty medal, postwar western Germany would be a frequent winner.It began taking in "guest workers" in the Fifties, mostly from Turkey and southern Europe, to man the factories that were part of the German economic "miracle." Approximately 6.5 million of these "foreigners," some unto second and third generations, live in the country today. Germany is becoming a "nation of immigrants," a phrase of exquisite torture for Hitler's pure Aryan ghost.As a gesture of thanks for the refuge granted elsewhere to 70,000 opponents of Nazism, the Bonn government also inscribed in its 1949 basic law the provision that "persons persecuted on political ground shall enjoy the right of asylum."

It is strictly coincidental that for the first time in 18 years Germany is experiencing both a general strike by public employees and a change in the top post at the foreign ministry. Strictly coincidental, but not unconnected.Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher, the West's senior statesman, is by far the most fervent advocate of a truly extraordinary transfer of wealth from west Germany to east Germany to finance the nation's reunification. And the cost of this bailout, now reaching $120 billion a year, is behind the shrinking living standards that sent thousands of west Germans out on the picket lines this week.

Germany has no monopoly on hate, violence, xenophobia in a Europe showing signs of its old madness, but when it erupts in the anti-foreigner riots that have shaken Rostock and other cities in the past ten days, all the world shudders. Ghosts of the Nazi past are always prowling, placing a terrible burden on millions of young Germans innocent of Hitler's crimes and inciting a tiny militant minority -- mostly skinheads -- to the use of fists and stones and, yes, arms raised stiff in salute.

The following appeared Monday in the New York Times: GERMANS WILL have to overcome their traditional discomfort with immigration if their nation is to remain an economic power over the next half-century. A high-profile bipartisan commission appointed by the government recognized this reality when it called recently for a new immigration policy, one that would allow the entry of 50,000 foreign qualified workers a year. The ruling Social Democratic Party plans to draft new legislation based on the commission's findings.

Not since World War II have Germany and Japan found themselves bracketed in so unflattering a way before the bar of world opinion. Having refused to commit troops in support of the anti-Iraq coalition, the two former Axis partners now are branded as "checkbook powers" for trying to fulfill their international obligations with cash reluctantly placed on the barrelhead.They are discovering that this is not enough. They are finding that their status as economic superpowers no longer allows them to prosper behind a defense cordon erected by other nations.

Germany's descent from euphoria to despond since the glorious days of reunification in late 1989 goes on and on. Some might attribute this to the usual German angst -- this, despite the fact that the country is the envy (and central banker) of Europe. But Germany's current problems are real and serious and of concern to its American allies.Simultaneously, the nation is being wracked by recession, strikes, neo-Nazi violence, friction between its western and eastern regions and, most important, a sharp decline of public confidence in the political establishment.

Paris -- The racist violence in Germany during the past week results from the clash between a high-minded German determination never again to be implicated in political persecution and the deep nationalist and exclusionary instincts of any people suffering a crisis of jobs, prospects and identity.Skinheads are a peculiarly unattractive manifestation of the problem, joyfully attacking the hostels holding Gypsy, Vietnamese, African and East European foreigners who claim to be political refugees from their own countries and ask to be allowed to stay in Western Europe to do the hard and demeaning work Europeans themselves no longer care to do.But in East Germany, where unification has brought something like 50 percent unemployment as well as collapse of the social, economic and political structures of the communist state, these foreigners, who are provided with housing and subsistence money by the German state while awaiting judgment of their asylum demands, seem perversely privileged rivals to the former East Germans' own survival.

BONN, Germany -- The German government has outlined a proposal to tax income from interest-bearing investments.The plan is a modified reprise of a controversial withholding tax on interest income imposed and repealed in 1989. That tax caused huge capital flight and severely weakened the mark against the dollar.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Phoenix Suns, who have become Western Conference favorites to reach the finals since the addition of All-NBA forward Charles Barkley, will represent the NBA in the 1993 McDonald's Open in Munich, Germany, Oct. 21-23.NBA commissioner David Stern made it clear that Barkley's charismatic personality was a principal reason for choosing the Suns.Phoenix will compete against the top club teams in Europe in the annual tournament co-sponsored by the NBA and FIBA, Europe's ruling basketball body.

Berlin.--It's a shame Americans are paying so little heed to Europe, especially to Germany. The president's summer tour was merely a blip on the screen. Crisis journalism since has had little time for political events that in calmer times would be followed with great anxiety.For what happens here will shape the future of Europe, and thus of the United States, and thus of much of the present and would-be developed world.Only a few nations meet that standard: The U.S., of course; Britain, France, Japan, China, Russia, maybe Ukraine.