A state at war?

My country of birth is Germany; Switzerland is my adopted country. I have more in common with Germany than just my birth. I grew up in the country, attended schools and studied there, lived there for decades, got involved and worked as a teacher until I retired. The relationship with my students, but also with many other people in the country was always important to me. I know about the country’s changeful history, appreciate the diversity of the landscapes and regions, the rich literary, artistic, and cultural traditions ... and much more.
  The fact that I have made Switzerland my adopted country has to do with the fact that this country is for me a place of freedom and democracy. A country where many people are very down-to-earth and think and act in a very practical way, usually without big-man attitude – even still among many politicians … and of course I also appreciate much more here. Above all, that this country has succeeded, through a clever policy, in not becoming involved in wars since its foundation as a state in the middle of the 19^th century, and that its armed neutrality has allowed it to become active in many places in the world in a humanitarian, mediating and peace-building capacity.

“Never again war!”

“Never again war!” – that’s how I grew up as a young German after the Second World War – and in a certain way it also connects my birthplace and my adopted country. But for 30 years this imperative has been antagonised by our “leading power”, also by those responsible in our own country. Not only in Germany, but very strongly there.
  Just as the war in Ukraine has a long history and global political dimensions, so too have Germany’s many steps towards becoming a country whose governments, whose politicians, whose media, whose social “elites”, yes, even whose intellectuals (but not all!) have lost “respect for war”.
  For me, as a German after the Second World War, they were a German counterweight to the country forced into line under Nazi rule: the many great names of German intellectuals who left the country after 30 January 1933, had to leave it and went into exile. Many of them called out from exile for another, a better Germany. One of them appealed to Germans to “awaken to reality, to common sense... to the world of freedom and justice”. Also today we need many upright voices.

History does not repeat itself, but …

History does not repeat itself, and most Germans would react indignantly if one were to compare today’s Germany with the Germany of Hitler’s time. They say: We are a liberal democracy, a constitutional state … And unlike the “evil” National Socialists, our wars are those of the “good guys” against the “bad guys”. Just like in the case against the Serbs in 1999 – there was no need to be concerned with international law. Same in Afghanistan. And Putin started the war, he is the “war criminal”, he wants to “destroy” Ukraine. And if he really succeeds, he won’t stop there... This or something similar is drummed into Germans day after day: my daily newspaper writes it, I hear it on the radio, and German television does nothing else. On top of that, what might happen if I still think differently?
  And anyway, until a few days the official line still was: “We are not waging war against Russia” – for that we had the Ukrainians, fighting for our “freedom”: also with German weapons, with German missiles, with German tanks, with German secret services, with German mercenaries – soon also with German fighter planes? Now, however, the German Foreign Minister has publicly stated that “we” – 80 years after Stalingrad – are at war with Russia. And that not only is connected with the fact that she knows very well how to draw attention to herself.

“Putin’s plan”

Thomas Röper published a new book a few weeks ago. The title is long and reads, translated: “Putin’s Plan. ‘The world does not end with Europe and the USA’. How the Western system is destroying itself and what Russia really wants”. Thomas Röper is a German who has lived in Russia for many years, first as a businessman, now he has been writing for his website Anti-Spiegel for several years. For official Germany he is a “Russian propagandist”, a “conspiracy ideologue”. Anyway – his new book is very interesting. Röper’s criticism of the West is not so far-fetched, and the speeches of the Russian president, which Thomas Röper has translated into German and in some cases quotes at length, are particularly interesting. Of course, I cannot say with certainty how serious the Russian President was and is about his words. But let’s take him at his word for once: then what he says is worth many discussions, also among Germans; because “Putin’s plan” is not “utopia”, but it is thoughts for a better world.

What to do?

It would be good not to allow oneself to be taken over, either now or in the future. Not for the daily propaganda, not for a policy of hostility against anyone, not for an escalating war against Russia.
  “Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be criminalised.” That is a good yardstick. But what a distortion is it when, on the basis of this article in the German Basic Law and its concretisation in the Criminal Code, people are prosecuted in Germany today – just because they publicly say:

“It is incomprehensible for me that German politics is again supporting the same Russophobic ideologies based on which the German Reich found willing helpers in 1941, with whom they closely cooperated and jointly murdered.
  All decent Germans should reject any cooperation with these forces in Ukraine against the background of German history, the history of millions of murdered Jews and millions and millions of murdered Soviet citizens in the Second World War. We must also vehemently reject the war rhetoric emanating from these forces in Ukraine. Never again must we as Germans be involved in any form of war against Russia.
  We must unite and oppose this madness together.
  We must openly and honestly try to understand the Russian reasons for the special military operation in Ukraine and why the vast majority of people in Russia support their government and their president in it.
  Personally, I very much want to and can understand the view in Russia and that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
  I have no distrust of Russia, because the renunciation of revenge against Germans and Germany has determined Soviet and later Russian policy since 1945.”¹

A just peace

“To serve the peace of the world”, for which the “German people” are “inspired by the will” according to the preamble of the Basic Law, is no simple matter. To simply shout incoherently: “Lay down your arms”, that can lead astray. “Just peace is a guiding principle for peace ethics and peace policy in Christian ecumenism. The basic idea of the guiding principle is that peace is more than the absence of violence.” This can be read on Wikipedia. What about “justice” before 24 February 2022? Was it “just” that NATO had extended to Russia’s borders? Was it “just” that more than 10,000 people, including women and children, had been killed in the Donbas by Ukrainian soldiers and Nazi worshippers since spring 2014? Was it “just” that the West, including German politics, turned a blind eye to this – and only misused the negotiated agreements for a peaceful solution to make Ukraine ready for war? Was it “just” that the government of Ukraine, together with its “allies” in NATO, prepared a war against Russia? Was the “world order” as we have had it since the end of the Soviet Union “just”? One never runs out of questions.  •­​​​​​​

¹ On the basis of the statements quoted above, on 3 January 2023, a Berlin district court issued a penalty order (fine of 2,000 euros, or 40 days’ imprisonment) against the speaker who had spoken at last year’s Berlin peace rally on the anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. In its reasoning, the court referred to section 140 of the Criminal Code, according to which the “rewarding and approval of criminal offences” is itself also punishable. The speaker, the court said, had endorsed Russia’s “crime of aggression” against Ukraine and thus incited “the psychological climate in the population”. Cf. for details www.nachdenkseiten.de of 25 January 2023.