Reflections on a trip to Germany
January 03, 2012
Before Christmas I sat in the departure lounge of Munich airport having read another concerning article in the Daily Telegraph that was delivered to my Kindle. Germany's deficit stands at 1% of GDP, whilst Britain's is 8.8%. German economic growth is projected at close to 4% over the coming year at, whilst the British figure is 0.6%.
These figures do not make enjoyable reading. My trip to Germany, which encompassed visits to Christmas markets, an evening eating Schweinsaxe in the Hoffbrauhaus to the sound of a traditional Bavarian Beer Hall band, and a brief visit to a Round Square School in the Bavarian mountains, reinforced my view that the Germans are an extremely impressive people.
We stayed in a lovely Hotel in the centre of Munich - an older building among the concrete jungle of post-modernist drudgery. Pictures in the restaurant depicted the hotel in 1945. It was destroyed by allied bombs. Its walls had caved in, and guests had been crushed by falling masonry.
Seventy years ago Britain was at war, determined to ensure that the Nazi menace was eradicated. Germany, by 1945, had been bombed to the dark ages. The country’s infrastructures were desolated, communications systems destroyed and political and moral compasses annihilated after embracing extremism and undertaking the most devastating holocaust that humanity had ever known.
Europe, after 1945, needed to ensure that Germany was rebuilt. The Marshall plan not only provided an economic victory over communism, but also ensured a legacy of investment that enabled Germany to grow.
This growth was not only impressive, but was swift. The Fascist creed enabled private businesses to flourish, and the intellectual powerhouse of German business determination rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Third Reich. The entire economy was re-built on the foundation of manufacturing. And so it continues to this day.
On our flight in to Germany, we taxied on the runway and were then driven to the terminal in a German manufactured bus. We transferred to the Hotel in a German manufactured coach. We took a taxi to the other side of the city in a German manufactured car. Indeed, on the roads in Bavaria Nissans or a Citroens are rarities. Every car is a VW, a BMW, a Mercedes Benz or an Audi. Germans are fanatically loyal to their Siemens phones or their German manufactured products. They buy these products not only because they are German; they buy them because they are the best.
Each year millions of Euros are invested by Germans in Germany through purchasing high quality, beautifully designed and exceptional German products. Each year millions of Pounds are lost to Europe, and more specifically Germany, through British citizens with high standards purchasing quality German products.
Guilty as charged. We drive a VW.
What Britain needs is a re-embracing of a manufacturing culture of which we can be truly proud. I'm not just talking of building Hondas in Swindon, Minis in Oxford or Hyundis in Scotland. I'm talking about exceptional British designed and British manufactured products that are run by British companies with British investment that the British will buy and export with alacrity.
I would encourage Miltonians to use their exceptional entrepreneurial spirit and become leaders in a UK manufacturing revolution. We can no longer simply rely on our European brethren to provide us with the best whilst we focus on a quickly diminishing financial sector. In short, we must start to build things ourselves. Visiting other countries, especially Germany, through the Round Square organisation is a superb start in enabling our young men and women to realise just what opportunities there are in putting the British manufacturing industry once more upon the European map.