Chutzpah in a Germany that is supposed to become “fit for war”
by Karl-Jürgen Müller
The chutzpah of government politicians and their spokespeople in Germany today bending the truth to suit their own purposes is astonishing. The risk is that citizens will become accustomed to this. This will not be without consequences. To quote the title of a famous painting by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya: The sleep of reason produces monsters.
At the federal press conference on 29 October, Nachdenkseiten editor Florian Warweg asked German Foreign Office spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer for a statement from the German government on the Russian government’s latest offer of negotiations to NATO and the EU.1 At the Third International Conference on Eurasian Security in Minsk, Belarus, on 28 and 29 October 2025, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had stated2:
“It has been said repeatedly that we had and have no intention of attacking any of the current NATO and EU member states. We are prepared to embody this position also in future security guarantees for this part of Eurasia [...].”3
Ms Deschauer declined to comment directly on the Russian offer. Instead, she again called on Russia to agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine – which Russia does not accept, for reasons that have been stated many times before.
Ms Deschauer added that Germany would continue to side with the Ukrainian government in the war against Russia and would continue to provide military support to that government, because Russia had been waging this war “for some time without any cause or reason against a sovereign neighbouring country”.
That is chutzpah: “without any cause or reason” and “against a sovereign neighbouring country”.
With her statements, Ms Deschauer is reflecting what is supposed to be thought in Germany and what almost the entire political and social “elite” of the country and the mainstream media are trying to hammer into the citizens of the country day after day. Germany is to become “fit for war”.
Hence, most citizens are not aware that there is well-founded opposition to this. There are many German-language books and articles that refute Ms Deschauer’s statements in detail and with good evidence.4
Back in November 2022, the two German academics Ulrike Guérot and Hauke Ritz wrote in an article on the question “Who started the war?”5:
“One of the most common semantic constructs since the start of the war has been talking of a “Russian invasion” or “Russian war of aggression” against Ukraine. To date, no news programme has been able to avoid this phrase. This insinuates that both Ukraine and the West were taken by surprise by the war and did not see it coming, let alone prepare for it. However, a detailed analysis of the multitude of military activities that dozens of NATO countries, but especially the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, have been carrying out in Ukraine since 2014 clearly shows that this was not the case. […] Basically, the question of who really started this war needs to be re-examined. It is more a matter of Anglo-Saxon – namely American, British and Canadian – preparations for war against Russia, which were not discussed in the media but were and are accessible through public documents. […]
If one studies the Western preparations for war in detail, it becomes clear that Ukraine was assigned the role of starting a war with Russia on behalf of the West, which would then be supported militarily and logistically by NATO member states without directly involving the alliance as a whole in the war. This process was to be accompanied by economic warfare (sanctions), information warfare (anti-Russian propaganda) and a nuclear encirclement of Russia, which was to be ensured primarily by the missile shield in Romania and Poland as well as sea-based forces, in particular Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. All these measures were in line with the United States’ pursuit of ‘full spectrum dominance’ and aimed at weakening the Russian Federation on several levels to such an extent that the country would lose its balance and internal conflicts would lead to the overthrow of the government.”
Guérot and Ritz added to this analysis a long list of specific events in the year leading up to 24 February 2022, the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The events show how Ukraine was being prepared for war against Russia by NATO and the US in particular, and that – contrary to all statements by Western politicians – it was the Ukrainian government and military that greatly escalated the war against the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were striving for autonomy, in the decisive days leading up to 24 February. They had already been waging this war since spring 2014, with 14,000 casualties on both sides of the front, mostly on the eastern side (according to UN figures), with varying degrees of intensity. For anyone willing to look, everything pointed to the Ukrainian government having no intention of complying with the Minsk Agreements but instead launching a massive attack against the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine. This led to the evacuation of immediately threatened parts of the population of both regions to Russia, Russia’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, and a mutual assistance pact. And even after this mutual assistance pact, on 23 February 2022, the Ukrainian military intensified its attacks on Donetsk and Luhansk.
To this must be added the numerous operations directed against Russia by NATO and the EU since the early 1990s (NATO’s eastward expansion, etc.) and Ukraine’s increasing satellite status, at least since the coup d’état in February 2014, which was massively promoted by the EU and the US. As early as 1997, US political advisor and geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski emphasised in his book “The Grand Chessboard” the importance of Western access to Ukraine for decisively weakening Russia (see map).
“Without any cause or reason” and “against a sovereign neighbouring country”. That is truly chutzpah. Just as the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word: temerity, audacity, hardihood, effrontery.
PS. Those who do not have the truth on their side must fear their critics. But when the means of power are sufficient, massive action is taken against critics. In today’s Germany, this can even affect schoolchildren, as described in a report in the Berliner Zeitung on 31 October 2025 (https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/satire-oder-straftat-schueler-wegen-meme-ueber-bundeswehr-offizier-angeklagt-li.10003513) (see image). •
1 https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=141340 of 31 October 2025
2 An interview by the internet broadcaster Kontrafunk with retired Swiss Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Bosshard, who himself attended the conference, provides a good insight into the conference in Minsk and its significance: https://kontrafunk.radio/de/sendung-nachhoeren/politik-und-zeitgeschehen/kontrafunk-aktuell/kontrafunk-aktuell-vom-04-nobember-2025
3 The full text of Sergey Lavrov’s speech can be found in German translation on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry: https://mid.ru/de/foreign_policy/news/2056079/?lang=en
4 Here are just five book titles to get you started: Krone-Schmalz, Gabriele. Russland verstehen? Der Kampf um die Ukraine und die Arroganz des Westens. Westend Verlag 2023; Baab, Patrik. Auf beiden Seiten der Front, fifty-fifty Verlag 2023; Baud, Jacques. Putin. Game master?Max Milo Editions 2022; Ritz, Hauke. Vom Niedergang des Westens zur Neuerfindung Europas, Promedia Verlag 2024; Verheugen, Günter/Erler, Petra. Der lange Weg zum Krieg. Russland, die Ukraine und der Westen: Eskalation statt Entspannung, Heyne-Verlag 2024
5 https://gdrf.info/wer-hat-den-krieg-begonnen/ of 13 November 2022
A student at a secondary school in Freiburg was reported to the police by the German Armed Forces for posting this meme.
The German Armed Forces have no place in our schools. Young people will not be intimidated.
Full solidarity with Bentiki!
The meme:
“Defend democracy – but how?”
“So, children, who among you would like to die on the Eastern Front?”
History shows that many assertions of a threat were made to conceal aggressive intentions
km. It is nothing new for states or groups of states to generate outright hysteria about threats, as NATO, the EU and its member states are currently doing. A glance at the history books shows that such hysteria was used to conceal or justify aggressive intentions. This is probably best illustrated by Nazi Germany. Even Nazi racial ideology spoke of a threat from “inferior” races that had to be fought by any means necessary. The consequences are well known. The same principle applied to the justification of the war of conquest and extermination against the Soviet Union.
One of the many sources for this is Adolf Hitler’s secret memorandum of August 1936 on his four-year plan, which can be found in any good school history book. Hitler alleged Bolshevik Russian plans for destruction and assigned Germany a central role in defending against these plans: “As always, Germany will be seen as the focal point of the Western world in the face of Bolshevik attacks.” The country therefore had “a duty […] to secure its own existence against this catastrophe by all means”. It was therefore necessary to “develop the German army […] into the world’s leading army”. Without this, “Germany would be lost”. Hitler’s conclusion and demand: “The German army must be ready for action in four years.”
However, Hitler also wrote in his memorandum: “We are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves on our own soil. […] The final solution lies in expanding the living space and the raw material and food base of our people.”