Süddeutsche Zeitung: Germany has “fatherly responsibilities” in Europe

“German leadership in Europe is often like trying to square the circle,” commented the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in today’s article. “For decades, everyone agreed that Europe is safer when Germany does not have too much power. Now the country must arm itself and take its responsibilities.” The question, according to the newspaper, is whether this is a good idea.

“Some want more German leadership, others less. Some find German leadership good on one issue but not on another.” But this does not change the fact that at a time when war has returned to Europe and the continent is facing its biggest crisis since the end of the Second World War, in many countries the impression is spreading “that Germans think only of themselves and they do what is best for themselves.”

This is not entirely wrong, the paper concludes. “Because of their guilt, the Germans have completely forgotten how to think geopolitically. They preferred to think about cheap gas and money.” Now instead of taking action, Germany is “like a departed father and abandoned his family and now does not dare to be a father again,” the Munich newspaper gleefully comments. Likewise, “the European Union exists because after two major wars, Europeans have concluded that everyone is safer when Germany is not only defeated, but integrated, enclosed and domesticated.”

Of course, Europe expects Germany to take a leading role. “But the Germans themselves do not yet know how to deal with this expectation and their guilt. It doesn’t help that Germans have always felt more guilty towards the Russians than the Ukrainians, even though they suffered equally from Hitler’s war of extermination against the Soviet Union, Süddeutsche Zeitung concludes.

DW – Efthymis Angeloudis

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