Timothy Garton Ash

Back in the now remote summer of 1990, when we were still celebrating the birth of a ‘new Europe’, a book was published simultaneously in several European languages. Written by Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and entitled, in the English edition, Europe: A History of Its Peoples, it is a classic example of the Whig interpretation of European history, a historical supplement to Jacques Delors. Already on page 21, Duroselle finds it ‘possible to discern in Europe’s history a general if halting growth in compassion, humanity and equality’. Discussing several different ways of viewing the post-1945 history of Europe, he writes: ‘one may, finally, see this phase of history in a European light’ – by implication, all other lights are somehow un-European – ‘and observe how many objective factors have combined with creative acts of will to make possible the first step towards a united Europe.’’‘

I recently received a letter from a German theatre director, objecting to a passage of my book The File in which I wrote that, back in the Stalinist Fifties, an East German friend of mine had been ‘denounced’ by one Dr Warmbier, then a lecturer in Marxism-Leninism at Leipzig University. ‘It’s the word “denounced” that is wholly inappropriate,’ the director wrote, in defence of his old friend Dr Warmbier. He gave three reasons for thinking it inappropriate. Dr Warmbier had not, he argued, decisively contributed to my friend’s dismissal from the university; the letter in which Dr Warmbier criticised my friend had not been addressed to an official body; and Dr Warmbier had no selfish motives in lodging those criticisms. He was a Communist and was merely acting on his beliefs.‘