Here we also find one of the principal strands of German civic culture, which was later repeatedly pushed back by the forces of the authoritarian state. Such a person can no longer be a citizen of the community, but is reduced to a servant of the new bureaucracy. The fact that we even have to raise this question reveals the depth of our present political dilemma. Nothing about the development of recent decades has anything to do with civic culture, civilization, or individual dignity. We must recognize this: It is a long way from Hanseatic Lübeck to the present and to the hoped-for renewal in the spirit of civic culture.