Article of “What’s wrong with Germany”
Benjamin Klasche
- German pacifism
Open Letter: very popular intellectuals signed a letter for the end of the war with no explanation. They are mostly associated with left-thinking politics and some have even taken pro-Russian takes.
Germans have a generational trauma of starting world wars – killing jews. “Never again” so all violence is bad to them. Germans have grown up with guilt. In the 70s and 80s there were many anti-military protest and nuclear war – this constitutes the Anti-Americanism, they were critical of holding military power. The whole German left came from there. People started not going to military as well and started doing social service. And in 2011 it was paused. Pacifism is spread out in Germany.
N. Chomsky- Iraq war was imperial; Ukrainian war is not as bad because Iraq was worse.
The chancellor in the early 2000 saying that they are not going to support USA in Iraq to Bush.
The open letters still come out every month – nobody thinks about what happens in east Ukraine. So how can they really be pacifist?
J.Gauk says that you can be pacifist but political pacifism is not excusable- it isn’t ethical and aren’t justified feeling moral superiority.
- “Wandel Durch Handel” – German-Russian relations, Germany went past the iron curtain to talk about the unified Germany again because it worked before with France (even though they were arch-enemies). In 2023 it seems unthinkable to see France and Germany as enemies. Jeltsin is the new president with who Franch and Germany bonded “sauna friendship”, start of the male friendship – Männerfreundschaft
“Putin-Versteher” – Putin lived in Germany, he was close with the politicians. German president said that we need to make sure that Russia doesn’t fall behind, Russia is a baby elephant. They are huge but don’t know what to do with themselves.
Last year Scholz gives a speech where he declares that they do not need to invest into Russia anymore because it is not working.
“Die Moskau Connection” is a new book about the friendship between Putin and German politicians. Schroider didn’t want to become friends but then loses the election and then becomes a supportive member of Gasprom- still is. (He is also in the social democrats). All these politicians go to trips together with Putin.
Merkel was friends with Putin, she signed Mordstream two and that Germany shouldn’t change politics etc. even though now she says that she didn’t like him.
In Germany it is normal to see soviet symbols (Soviet Union is not bad to them, it was better than Nazism).
“We are not afraid of Putin, we are afraid of the government”
- Empires, colonialism and german blindness
German blindness-
Scholz- “imperialism is back in Europe” Scholz says that this is Putin’s war but he wants to continue a relationship with Russia but not with Putin. Putin’s Russia has neocolonialist features – he dreams of building a new empire on the model of the Soviet Union and the Tsarist Empire.
Shnaider- Germany fought for colonies until the country was defeated and so did other European countries. Integration allowed Germans to forget the colonial aspect, it allowed other other Europeans as well – they don’t see themselves as colonist – they don’t understand Russia in this sense. Hitler’s point was to go to Ukraine, that’s where the war started (that’s also where most of the jews were) – different look on history. There is no quilt towards Ukrainians – they didn’t see Ukrainains as a real nation. That is not innocent. They think that eastern Ukrainains are Russian, the culture is Russian etc. – this is how colonisers talk.
Auferbeitung – working through your history. In Germany they teach a lot about the holocaust but they don’t talk about the fact that Germany was also an empire with colonies before (the third biggest).
The Baltics- Hanseatic League and Baltic Germans.
There was German rule in the Baltics- the culture was supressed. Never had a chance of power – the othering of people. Generation memory is long of oppression and in Estonia there is no free history. Germans have no understanding that they are colonisers.
German foreign policy-
Neo-Liberal- economic gains over everything else, can’t lose relations with Russia (and china) (can’t they see that it is bad for them as well)
Civilizational – Economic growth can modernize and democratize, they will become part of the west. (Coloniser talk)
Masculine- “Strong” leaders of strong countries play their own game, Russia and Germany don’t care about small countries
(German) pacifist- conventional violence needs to be stopped, even though they have a big military and sell guns to other countries.
Feminist foreign policy – maybe the future!
Kaja Kallas did a good job in changing all of Europe’s view!!
