Since the defeat of Nazism, Germany has self-consciously dedicated itself to promoting peace and integrating into a European and transatlantic security order in which the keyword has been “consensus”.
The war in Ukraine is now forcing Germany to rethink old ideas about its place in Europe, its relationship with Russia and the use of military force.
Germany built its postwar economy on cheap Russian energy and allegedly apolitical trade with Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China, believing that trade brings change that somehow moderates authoritarian regimes.
The Russian invasion of the Ukraine has called all that into question. For Germany it has been a psychological and political shock, undermining many of its assumptions about Russia; its President, Vladimir V. Putin; and the role of Germany in a Europe suddenly at war.
Nowhere has the disorientation been more apparent than in Germany’s reluctance to send Ukraine its excellent Leopard 2 main battle tank, or allow other countries to do so. The stance exasperated his allies before Germany relented.
Although the Germans overwhelmingly support Ukraine in its fight, there is deep ambivalence in a nation with a catastrophic record of aggression during World War II and which remains deeply divided over being a military leader and risking a direct confrontation with Russia. Opinion polls had shown that half the Germans did not want to send tanks.
“The German reluctance on this can be summed up in one word: ‘history,'” said Steven E. Sokol, director of the American Council on Germany.
“The Germans want to be seen as a partner, not an aggressor, and are particularly sensitive to sending weapons to regions where German weapons have historically been used to kill millions of people,” he said, citing Russia, Poland and Ukraine. “People don’t want German weapons on the front lines to be used to kill people in those regions.”
Still, Germans risk misinterpreting the lessons of their history, said Timothy Garton Ash, a historian of Germany and Europe at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. “The German position is very confused, with its old mentality dead and the new one still unborn,” he noted.
Despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s declaration early last year of a “Zeitenwende”, or historic turning point, for Germany, its Government and its Country have struggled to complete the expansion of its Army. The result has been what critics of the Chancellor see as Scholz’s overly tentative leadership at this time of crisis. Politics also plays a role. Both the Social Democrats and the Greens, the largest members of the ruling coalition, have strong anti-war factions.
German voters want their leaders to always “press for the so-called peace option, be the last to act, or move in coalition,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. “That shows you’re not a warmonger.”
The pattern for Scholz is to proceed slowly to try to win over voters, an attempt to circumnavigate historical memory in a country familiar with many of Ukraine’s battlefield names.
“Why do we know Azovstal?” Kleine-Brockhoff asked, referring to the huge steel plant in Mariupol that the Russians bombed for months. “Who occupied Azovstal last time? It was the Germans,” he indicated.
Heinrich Brauss, a former general now at the German Council on Foreign Relations, argued that defeating Russia is in Germany’s best interests because the Ukrainians are fighting for European security. If German reluctance turns into refusal, it would be disastrous for the country’s reputation, he warned. “And it will significantly reduce confidence in Germany as a NATO ally.”
By: STEVEN ERLANGER and ERIKA SOLOMON
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6545264, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-01-25 21:40:07
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