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Date: Wed,  15 Sep 93 0:01 +0200
From: RWERMAN@vms.huji.ac.il
To: Ken McVay 
Subject: IS-GERMANY-NATIONALISTIC-OR-JUST-XENOPHOBIC?
Status: RO

              May be reproduced in hard copy only with credit to
                            Reuters News Service.


Tuesday 14-Sep-93 10:22 AM

KOHL SAYS U.S. PRESS HAS TWISTED VIEW OF GERMANY


    BONN, (Reuter) - Some United States newspapers present their
readers with a twisted picture of [GERMANY] that has nothing to do
with reality, Chancellor Helmut Kohl has said in an interview.
    Kohl, asked by the Jewish weekly Allgemeine why reunited
[GERMANY] had a fearful nationalist image around the world, said
not everybody saw his country that way.
    ``Of course, if you only read certain American newspapers
from the East Coast, you have a picture of [GERMANY] that has
othing to do with reality in our country,'' he said.
    Allgemeine released the interview on Tuesday ahead of
publication later this week.
    Asked why Jews around the world feared a resurgent German
nationalism, Kohl said he could understand ``psychological
burdens that do not make an objective judgement easy.''
    But he said the facts showed a different story.
    ``It is absurd to speak of German nationalism in a country
where the people hardly know their own national anthym,'' he
argued.
    ``There is no country in the world in which the people deal
with the symbols of their state in such a tortured way as
here.''
    The chancellor said some controversies, such as the charges
of German arrogance that flew after the Bundesbank (central
bank) precipitated a European monetary crisis by refusing to cut
its relatively high interest rates, were artifical.
    ``That had nothing to do with German history, it was all
about cold cash,'' he remarked.
    ``Some are also pleased to see the problems we have right
now,'' he said, referring to the unexpected financial burdens
presented by unification.
    ``Whoever says that [GERMANY] is a nationalistic country is
totally twisting reality,'' he said.



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