McCarthyism West German-style

...device is for lines to be delivered from the total black-out of the frame...

...yet, latter are powerless without legions to implement their barba- being an ex-Nazi or neo-Nazi is, in itself, not sufficient to rous policies...

...Communist Party or other far-left political groups is the most The lack of faith in the future leads to overreaction to any typical litmus test, but perhaps forty percent of Berufsverbot manifestation of disorder...

...Any antisocial word or deed is not victims are unaffiliated leftists who signed the...

...knaves, claimed dress the problems raised by these examples of abuse...

...Moreover, prominent shown a capacity for democratic politics and we cannot allow Nazis would rarely be under 60 years old, the normal retiretotal political liberties because of that...

...It was argued, with considerable merit, that leftists anxiety when he stated that "unlike the American constitution greatly outnumber right extremists among youth, those likely ours is based on a lack of trust in our people...

...authoritarian policies, must be buttressed by another element They work quietly and efficiently from 9 to 5, have dinner, and that surprised me...

...In addition, laws have been created or newly enforced to sponsored trip to meet primarily with government leaders and permit the arrest of those who produce or disseminate literature examine "human rights and democracy in the Federal Repub- advocating violent overthrow of the constitutional order or lic...

...I have become used to foreigners maligning then go to their political meetings...

...And so it goes, the city sounding worse direction, are but a small step...

...Henceforth, automatic loyalty checks on all applicants and terrorists for their sharp criticism and past tendency to need not occur...

...The opposition's un- the words are going to work in counterpoint, one where a wavering hard-line attitude on political dissent is apparently certain visual drama will be played under a lot of funny supported by a solid majority of the citizenry...

...Reich with their jobs and ultimately their lives...

...This opening is a perfect little overture to the movie states, are under no obligation, and do not intend, to introduce that follows...

...got membership is enough for exclusion and what other kinds of to be more profound...

...in Italy, everything that is forbidden is Loyalty checks and job bans are not the only aspects of allowed...

...It makes us feel as if many's democratic tradition is of recent vintage and fragile...

...The criteria for job denial or loss are counterrevolution, runaway inflation and unemployment, vague, and different localities have employed widely diverg- Nazism and the division of their country into two states, can ing standards to evaluate political loyalty...

...THE PARADOXICAL GRIP OF THE PAST McCarthyism West German-style MILTON MANKOFF of repression cannot only be evaluated through body-counts...

...Woody Allen's Manhattan does...

...prior to age eighteen or more than three years before applicaOne conservative member of parliament justified the removal tion to the civil service is to be ignored...

...To him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemThe changes in the implementation of Berufsverbot brought porary culture . . . no, too preachy...

...They are asleep by 9. They the "German character," seeing Nazism reviving in every are like baby lambs...

...entire scene is done in a long shot from a fixed camera set-up, American McCarthyism showed that even a country with thus creating a disproportion between the way the scene looks strong democratic traditions can at best count on but a small and the way it sounds...

...West Ger- right next to us, but see them as distant...

...German soul...

...While offered partly as self-mockery it reflects the desire slandering the state...

...Police have raided bookstores, confiscatof German officials to create a democratic state without per- ing books and pamphlets which would hardly be noticed mitting unfettered political expression...

...Eternal vigilance coexists with eternal Although the number of Berufsverbot victims may appear fear...

...and Italian toleration of high levels of social conflict and Why should the Federal Republic, so prosperous, stable and disorder has, unfortunately, led toward policies which, some progressive in many areas of economic and social policy, feel believe, threaten to edge the Federal Republic closer to a the need to resort to such authoritarian measures...

...But as soon as contained such a beautiful visual poem to New York as she and Yale break up, Isaac allows himself to fall in love...

...I was unprepared for how deeply mistrustful of The purge of leftists from the civil service has not been each other the Germans are as well...

...Western European criticism, coupled authoritarianism is cited as comparable to the fascist subver- with increasing disaffection from young voters, has led the sion of Weimar institutions...

...In January 1979, the Sothe right, and many social democrats as well, from viewing cial Democratic-Free Party governing coalition announced its socialist criticism as preparing the moral foundation for ter- intention to liberalize Berufsverbot practices in the federal rorists...

...But again discretionary powers in determining whether organizational he breaks off, rebuking himself, "No, no...

...its showers of sparks over the city in perfect time to the closing This would stigmatize people who had positions which did not chords of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue...

...More importantly, policies of the postwar era...

...Despite low unemployment and inflation, clean and job-ban, by its growing number of critics...

...We hear the characters as if they were minority to defend dissenters in times of crisis...

...There is scarcely any awareness that laws create as many problems as they resolve, nor that even perfect MILTON MANKOFF is Dean of Faculty for the Social Sciences, Queens laws get implemented and often perverted by imperfect College, CUNY...

...civil service for only one reason: to get jobs and earn a living...

...In a sense the left course, to be confirmed democrats now, as witnessed by their is paying twice for the sins of the Nazis: first, during the Third strong support for purging the civil service of radicals...

...It is impossible for Germans over forty to thousand persons, virtually all young leftists, have been de- believe that a country whose first fifty years in this century nied jobs...

...What it suggests is a film in which the images and any modifications of current practices...

...He recently returned from a government-sponsored people...

...Only through the passage of a new law regulating a new small in a country of 60 million people, comparable instances behavior can calm be restored...

...a country three times as not something which first emerged to cope with the problems populous as the Federal Republic...

...A fireworks display against the same skyline explodes which require loyalty to the Constitution and those that don't...

...On a date they go to the Hayden Planetarium and wander around in a giant model of the solar Screen system, drifting aimlessly against a background of intergalactic void...

...Nearly every conversation involved reference to "bur ,variant of American McCarthyism, called Berufsverbot, or past...

...A skeptical civil service can render dictatorship disqualify one for public service...

...Only those candidates who are seriously conmount militant demonstrations against state and university sidered for an opening and about whom severe reservations authorities, the miniscule German Communist Party is per- exist should be subject to investigation...

...For leftists, mere memberauthority are more dangerous than a few demagogues...

...The voice we hear is Allen's own in his new guidelines are also not helpful in developing criteria for role as Isaac, the film's hero, who is trying to get started on the what can be understood as a serious indication of unsuitability novel he wants to write...

...The so rhapsodic, however...

...A naive belief exists that social conflicts can be legisvisit to the Federal Republic of Germany...

...emerged was a world view based on fear of the past and the In the past seven years West Germany has experienced a future...

...civil service and in those states where a SPD-FDP coalition If graduates oaf the German new left are equated with Nazis rules...

...Actual misdeeds are necesimpotent, whereas obsequious bureaucrats can turn far less sary to create difficulties for far rightists...

...To keep what we see and what we hear separate so all Social Democratic politicians are sympathetic to liberaliza- that the film can function in this way, Allen has thought out his tion, because of ideological conviction, a fear of being red- shots carefully and made a highly stylized film...

...in Germany, everything that is not allowed is or association...

...tranquillity...

...A double standard is used in dealing with leftists in Nazism...

...When Professor Uwe Wesel, a law professor at the Free occupations require more careful scrutiny of applicants than University of Berlin and prominent critic of Berufsverbot was others...

...from the past has been one-sided...

...Unease at American elsewhere...

...No one would know whether to trust them...

...In addition, youthful ceived as a haven for East German spies and fifth columnists "indiscretions" will not be held against candidates...

...Yet, such learning ment age for civil servants...

...was the parliamentary election of Karl Carstens as President...

...A good deal of Isaac and Mary's relationship seems to take place in the dark...

...Up to two million safe streets, extraordinary affluence, and extensive social welapplicants and tenured civil servants have undergone loyalty fare provisions that should shame American politicians, there checks designed to purge the civil service of those "antagonis- seems to be a pervasive disbelief in the durability of the tic" to the Constitution...

...During this which was the one to pioneer location shooting in New York phone conversation Allen frames the shots of Yale, Mary and back in the late 1940s, Allen's current black-and-white hit Isaac so that each character appears at the extreme edge of the opens with a montage of images which are run against a screen...

...After sion, a respect for social order without violence, and a continu- he chats with Mary (Diane Keaton) at a lunch counter, they ing commitment to balance the two goals within a democratic both move off-camera while she asks him about his writing...

...a legacy in the creation of new statutes restricting aspects of This observation was made by a senior jurist to me and three traditional laywer-client relations and expanding police powforeign journalists visiting West Germany any on a recent Bonn- ers...

...Once more he tries, "He adored New data might be used in employment decisions...

...too corny...

...It's the ideal setting for their love affair...

...This unbalanced framing introduces tension into the voice-over commentary...

...Membership in the live for the next fifty in peace, prosperity and tranquillity...

...When our political culture where "everything that is allowed is forbid- hosts tried to explain themselves to us, what invariably den...

...It our relationship with them is both intimate and estranged at the developed during thirty years of unusual prosperity and civil same time...

...Most ex-Nazi politicians claim, of political expression, but attack only leftists...

...There the East Germans never recruit spies from the West German has been insufficient discussion of whether some civil service party...

...Behavior who join the civil service to prepare the way for revolution...

...wrong" peti- simply an incident, but an attack on The Constitution, The tion or participated in the "wrong" demonstration...

...The student movement of the sixties and the At other times, Isaac seems to take a verbal pratfall right off terrorism of the seventies have provided the first major tests of the screen...

...Chapter One," he says, ". . . He for the civil service...

...A recent case in point dangerous leaders into social menaces...

...forbidden...

...Since 1972 perhaps as many as three German "miracle...

...While Isaac's best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is having an affair with Mary, Isaac NOT SINCE The Naked City has there been a film that scrupulously avoids getting involved with her...

...They ignore the equally vital Nazis in high places, particularly among political conservalesson to be drawn from the record of bureaucrats under tives...

...When we raised the question in a meeting with four asked about local Communists' penchant for subverting the members of parliament, a Christian Democrat declared, "It 3 August 1979: 437 would not be correct to classify civil service jobs into those dusk...

...Yet a tough Berlin the West...

...of a tenured Communist railroad conductor of thirteen years The Federal Republic has suffered much derision at home from the civil service on the grounds that "in a revolutionary and abroad because of loyalty checks on sixteen-year-old situation control over a train could prove critical...

...Civil servants who are discouraged from questioning relation to ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis...

...It makes visible the disruptive quality of what Yale is on the side of a building in the dawn light...

...A panorama of the doing...

...Terrorism has left allowed is forbidden...

...Moreover, even these changes and worse with each new attempt despite the fact that, in the will be limited because the Christian Democrats and the Chris- images flashed on the screen, New York looks more and more tian Socialist Union, which control six of the eleven German beautiful...

...accompanied by a comparable campaign against Nazis and . One of the chief judges in the country exemplified this neo-Nazis...

...Taking advantage of the latitude which his approach afON THE TRH fords, Allen begins using the composition of his shots to put a A VISUAL POEM TO NEW YORK CITY little english on the emotions in his film, letting the laughter fall silent from time to time...

...A neon sign spells out "Manhattan" scene...

...A variation on this struggling to irrevocably break with it...

...He moves out of camera range before he delivers the new nation's willingness to reconcile freedom of expres- the punchline toward which the scene has been working...

...framework...

...Different jurisdictions still have wide romanticized New York all out of proportion...

...require loyalty...

...now, they are lumped together with Nazis...

...The traumas of history and the faith in legal remedies for At work they are indistinguishable from conservatives and social problems, while significant factors in accounting for would never dream of not performing their expected duties...

...For every person whose job is threatened untold others become ##N AMERICA, everything that is not forbidden is al- fearful and unwilling to exercise freedom of speech, assembly, lowed...

...York City...

...The ship in certain organizations can jeopardize one's career...

...The commentary that is read against these images isn't quite Thus, to be investigated is to be considered a privilege...

...and in the Communist countries, everything that is political repression in West Germany today...

...This figure includes about three hundred already have been characterized by defeat in two wars, revolution and tenured civil servants...

...apprentice gardeners and railroad conductors, as well as The specter of East German spies is not purely invention, for bizarre cases such as that of the army cook who was fired for threre appear to be a steady supply who specialize in seducing . remarking that East German athletes were superior to those in lonely secretaries of government officials...

...In addition, not dialogue...

...Like Dassin's film, Then Yale calls up Mary on the sly to lure her back...

...State, The Society...

...Yet in a film where we have been laughing at lines skyline is seen from across the park under lowering skies at spoken off the screen altogether, we don't feel manipulated to Commonweal: 438...

...That virtually every organized Social Democratic Party to reexamine its attitude towards the group on the left has denounced terrorism has not prevented Berufsverbot policy it inaugurated...

...Rudi Dutschke's decade-old call THE SITUATION in West Germany, while deeply disturbing, for a "long march through the institutions" to destroy German is far from hopeless...

...We wanna make some about by the recent reforms, while clearly a step in the right money on this book...

...Sometimes an baited by CDU/CSU rivals, or both...

...of job loss in our McCarthy era probably involved less than German legalism is, of course, a long-standing tradition, 6,000 public service employees in...

...Sadly, those who make policy in the Federal from beyond the edge of the empty frame we hear him tell her Republic have responded to the disorder inherent in democ- as they walk away, "The first story I wrote was called `The racy by reaching back into the authoritarian past rather than Castrating Zionist.' It's about my mother...

...Today's leaders fear that Still, even if time has largely accomplished what people Germans will follow demagogues and wish to remove them would or could not, there exists an alarming insensitivity to from positions of influence...

...The presidency is basically a ceremonial office, but one that AN IRONY of the Berufsverbot policy is that its proponents the majority of legislators were willing to give to a selfinvoke the horrors of Nazism to justify restrictions on confessed former Nazi...

...lated out of existence, that if only the Weimar Republic had Commonweal: 436 had stronger laws against extremism Nazism would not have civil service he laughed and said: "Our Communists join the triumphed...

...Yet the 1979 reforms conspicuously failed to adpolice official, whose job it is to catch such...

...They have not to be applying for the civil service...