TV REVIEWS : ‘The Germans’ Tells a Superficial Tale

The world, we’re told, is getting smaller. So how come TV continues making a hash of world news coverage?

Did you know, for instance, that Polish President Lech Walesa recently hinted at an upcoming war with Germany if the reunified giant did not stop efforts to absorb parts of “German Poland” into the German nation? You couldn’t if you just followed American TV news coverage, and you won’t hear it in the elegantly made but superficial hourlong report, “The Germans: Portrait of a New Nation.”

Broadcast nearly five years to the day from the momentous joining of West and East Germany into one, “The Germans” is a typical American TV gloss of an incredibly complex international subject. The multiple layers of political, cultural and social conflict arising from German reunification are impossible to sandwich into an hour, so producers Jeffrey Gedmin and Andrew Walworth take the personal approach.

Instead of real analysis, they profile Germans from the east, west, north and south regions on how they’re reacting to the marriage of one of the West’s most advanced, liberal countries with an ex-Communist regime heavy on industry, pollution and citizen surveillance.

Well, for the Wilfarts, life in southeast Germany is a lot better than being hounded by East German Stasi agents, as they once were. For the Lobners, life in eastern Germany now means two cars in the garage, when before it meant one. For Frankfurt record sales rep Birgit De Long, who’s upset that eastern Germans want her tax money to rebuild their part of the country, life in the big city means having to put up with a lot of nonwhite people (Frankfurt being a big travel hub and an entry point for global refugees). For Cologne-based writer-businessman Werner Peters and his son, Guido, life is “nice and liberal”; they think the new political perspective should be less German and more European.

Whatever that means.

These people speak in fine generalities--Christel Lobner says westerners can’t understand the easterners’ massive culture shock--but can offer only their private point of view. Gedmin and Walworth, though, give short shrift to observers with a view of the big picture, while Gedmin’s pointless interview with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl takes up a big chunk of time with the blandest generalities of all.

* “The Germans: Portrait of a New Nation” airs at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.