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Anti bush outrage eases among germans { February 23 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-022305germany_lat,0,5168518.story?coll=la-home-headlineshttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-022305germany_lat,0,5168518.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Anti-Bush Outrage Eases Among Germans
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer
1:18 PM PST, February 23, 2005
BERLIN — A cold wind blew through Andreas Luedecke's beard as he conceded that, although he had plenty of complaints about Washington, the outrage against President Bush had softened from the days when Germany tried to stop the Iraq war.
"Bush is an aggressor and we must push him back or we're all doomed," said Luedecke, standing in a light snow in Alexander Platz, not far from where the Berlin Wall once stood. "But people forget fast. Images that once stuck in our minds fade away. Bush doesn't stir up intense passion in most people anymore."
Bush's visit to the city of Mainz in southern Germany today provoked a range of emotions across the country. But, perhaps, the one that lingered the most was a sense of resignation. Germans turned out by the hundreds of thousands to protest the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. They stewed in anger as the war was fought and were bewildered at Bush's reelection last fall.
Now, they say, bitterness must give way to pragmatism, much the way one navigates around an overbearing in-law.
"U.S. and the European businesses are intertwined," said Luedecke, an economist. "International concerns are forcing us to work together. Relations will improve because ultimately Germany and Washington have shared interests."
Talk of Bush is often imbued with suspicion. But unlike two years ago, German critics are less likely to compare him to Hitler.
"I hope Bush has recognized that he needs to cooperate with this 'old' Europe," said Ralf Skutnik, a tram supervisor. "But I don't believe him. What can we do? People have contemplated that maybe Bush has learned something so, OK, he should get a chance to repair things."
Tight security around the president's stop in Mainz, a medieval city on the Rhine River where he held talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, did little to endear Bush to residents there. Kindergartens were shutdown and river traffic was halted, local authorities said by telephone. Garbage bins were hauled away and 1,300 manhole covers were welded shut because of fears of bomb threats.
The city was under what one newspaper called "house arrest," and people were advised not to peek out their windows at Bush's motorcade.
Police estimated that 6,000 protesters stood in the snow in Mainz, chanting slogans and waving signs that read "Bush: Number 1 Terrorist" and "You can bomb the world into piece but not into peace."
The leftist newspaper, Die Tageszeitung, caricatured Bush as a popular television gnome and ran the headline: "Bush Comes, Kentucky Fried Chicken Closes." One prankster stuck tiny American flags in dog droppings around the city.
The Opel plant north of Mainz closed for the day and shifted the production of 750 cars to Saturday rather than chance its workers going through checkpoints. Hundreds of employees at other companies had to settle for a forced unpaid holiday if they couldn't make it to work. The mayor of neighboring Wiesbaden said he would bill the German government for economic losses resulting from the visit.
One businessman, delayed at the Frankfurt airport after flights were interrupted because of Bush's arrival, asked the German media why the president and Schroeder couldn't "just pick up the phone or meet in Iceland."
Even after Bush's reelection, he remains unpopular in Germany, judging from public surveys. A recent poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund in Washington found that 3% of Germans "very much" approve of the president's policies and 59% "very much" disapprove.
Many Germans today remembered a gentler, more euphoric atmosphere in 1989 when Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, traveled to Mainz at the end of the Cold War and called for a special bond between the two nations.
That relationship has been tested over the last 16 years as Germany, Europe's largest economy, has emerged as a more confident voice. The country is lobbying for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and is an influential player from Beijing to Moscow.
"The visit shows that Bush cannot force everything he wants through," said Carl Ordnung, a Methodist preacher. "Now both sides must really approach each other and the U.S. needs to fit in with Europe, instead of the other way around."
The evening before Bush arrived in Germany, a protest rally was held in Alexanderplatz in Berlin. A handful of people showed up, including a gang of punkers and a man with a plastic horn. Some said they worried Washington would instigate a war over Iran's nuclear program. Others weren't sure.
Stefan Zwingel, a law student, stood in the cold. He said he was still angry over Iraq, but that time had moved on. Other matters, he said, such as a disturbing rise in popularity for right-wing political parties, had become more galvanizing for protesters than U.S. relations with Germany.
"Five hundred thousand of us protested against Bush in February 2003," he said, "but that's not the case today."
Petra Falkenberg and Christian Retzlaff of The Times' Berlin bureau contributed to this report.
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