Harsh criticism of its leadership policies Germany In recent years, on the occasion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Politico has been pursuing a catapult article entitled “Putin’s useful German idiots.”
“Germany is well aware that it is on the wrong side of history” is the phrase with which the article begins, accusing Berlin of insisting on dealing with Putin until the start of the war in Ukraine, despite the invasion of Georgia, the occupation Crimea and the killings of dissidents.
Politico speaks of naivety that left no party untouched in Berlin.
Notes that for 16 whole years Germany made tragic mistakes in its dealings with Russia, allowing Putin to proceed unhindered in the implementation of his plans, until recently he changed line in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine by putting Nord Stream 2 on the ice, participating in Western sanctions and announcing an armaments program – mammoth.
A change of line that had not been successful for so many years under pressure from the United States and other allies to Berlin.
Merkel’s political innocence
At Germany’s insistence on pursuing an economic diplomacy with Putin’s Russia, Angela Merkel “won a seat in the pantheon of political innocence alongside Neville Chamberlain” (the British prime minister from 1937-1940 who pursued the well-known policy of appeasement). against Hitler’s Nazis until the eve of World War II), the article notes.
Slowly but surely, the German political leadership realized that Merkel’s policy toward Russia – culminating in the approval of the construction of Nord Stream 2 a year after the annexation of Crimea – not only opened the door for Putin to pursue his plans, but in practice encouraged him to do so.
“The whole German political class is guilty”
But it was not just the iron chancellor, but a whole generation of German politicians from across the spectrum, blinded by the nostalgia for Ostpolitik’s policies and Change through Willy Brandt’s Trade, who made these mistakes.
That’s why changing German politics is so difficult, because, as the article states, “there is no figure in German politics like Churchill who has warned for years about the dangers of trusting Putin. “And if Merkel – who held the reins of government for 16 years – bears most of the responsibility for falling into the trap of the Russian leader, the truth is that the entire political class of the country is guilty.”
Merkel’s successor in office, Olaf Soltz,’s party, whose party was outspoken in favor of Nord Stream 2 and embraced the idea of an endless dialogue as the best way to deal with Putin, also bears responsibility.
The responsibilities of the Liberals and Greens
Although they do not have the same share of responsibility as the CDU / CSU and the SPD, the minority partners in the governing coalition in Germany are not excluded.
The Greens opposed Nord Stream 2 – primarily for ecological reasons – but also the German arms shipment to Ukraine, a stance that changed after the Russian invasion.
The Liberals were divided over the gas pipeline, and many – including FDP deputy leader Wolfgang Kubiki – favored trade with Russia, while the party leader and tsar of the German economy, Lynn Krie, the day the war began – he opposed the sending of German weapons to Ukraine or the blockade of Russian banks by SWIFT as he believed that a Russian victory would be imminent. In the same vein, the current leader of the Christian Democrats, Friedrich Mertz, a few weeks before the Russian invasion began, warned that excluding Russia from SWIFT would be like an “atomic bomb to the capital markets.”
“They went back to their daily routine as if nothing was running”
“I was wrong, we were all wrong,” Wolfgang Schieble, the finance minister and speaker of the German parliament for many years, admitted in Sunday’s edition of the conservative newspaper Die Welt.
What he did not say, however, was that allies had been warning the German leadership for years about its stance on Putin, and now that it was faced with the new facts, it ignored how to react.
After the harsh accusation of Volodymyr Zelensky in his recent speech in the Bundestag, where he blasted Germany for using its business with Russia to help Putin finance his war, German lawmakers applauded him for not standing up, but shortly afterwards. nothing had mediated – they returned to their daily lives and their social obligations and even wished “happy birthday” to two of their colleagues who were celebrating their birthday.
The “useful idiots”
During the Cold War, “useful idiots” were called the naive moderates in the West who based their arguments on the ideological opponents behind the Iron Curtain.
And now, says Politico, the term fits the German politicians who acted as Putin’s “useful idiots” with Berlin’s veto of Ukraine and Germany joining NATO 14 years ago, doing business with Russia on gas and refusal to send weapons to Ukraine.
All this time, the so-called Russlandversteher [αυτοί που γνωρίζουν τη ρωσική πολιτική], the complacent Russian sympathizers in the German political establishment, rejected the criticism of their course, insisting that they knew better, while (literally) mocking Washington. “Nobody laughs anymore,” the article comments. And it concludes:
“Although the allies welcome the change of course in Berlin, they are not deceived. Ukraine, which was plundered by Germany during World War II, at the end of which it had lost more than 15 percent of its population, will certainly not forgive and will not forget.
Germany will have no real credibility even within the transatlantic alliance (no matter how many billions it is committed to spending on defense) until it has an honest account of the history of the Merkel-Putin years. As Germany knows very well, even if it is possible to hide from history for a while, there is no definitive escape “…
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