Kaja Puto: Why the German Left's fondness for Russia?
Reinhard Bingener: In Germany we have 4 leftist parties – the Social Democratic organization of Germany (SPD), the Left (Die Linke), the Greens (Die Grünen) and the fresh Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Each has a somewhat different attitude towards Russia. In the case of the SPD the key to his education were the 1960s and 1970s, times of pacifist development. Young social democrats then dragged the organization towards Marxism. This generation included the most celebrated of the pro-Russian SPD politicians – Gerhard Schröder.
Greens grew from the same perfect climate, but in their case, the concept of human rights yet developed. This led them to set themselves up against Russia, and thus more sympathy for transatlantic cooperation. The Left is simply a mostly post-communist project. Marxist theoretical concepts and anti-Americanism play an even greater function in it than in the SPD. This is akin in the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.
The SPD is the largest and oldest of these parties, co-founded many governments, and has besides led the ruling German coalition since 2021. She has played the biggest function in shaping German abroad policy towards Russia in fresh decades. How is it that there's inactive this naive pacifism?
Markus Wehner: This naive policy has been shaped, as shown in the book, by 3 factors. The first is the widespread anti-Americanism in Germany, which is present peculiarly strong on the left, and whose consequence is pro-Russianism. It grows stronger erstwhile the right-wing president comes to power in the United States. In the first decade of the fresh century, erstwhile the president of the United States was George W. Bush, and Russia was Vladimir Putin, leading SPD politicians proclaimed that we needed equal distance, i.e. as close relations with NATO as with Russia.
Poland's left is besides critical of the US and NATO's various interventions, yet it does not go pro-Russian.
R.B.: Yeah, but Russia never colonized. German as it has been for a long time in Poland. In Germany, this experience was limited to the GDR, or forty-five years and 1 4th of the population. In addition, there is simply a conviction rooted in the past of German culture about the shallowness of the United States and the West, which is opposed by the deep soul that unites Russians and Germans. Hence, cultural pride besides plays a role.
M.W.: Another origin affecting German policy towards Russia is German guilt for crimes committed in the USSR during planet War II. Among many Germans, especially those of the older generation, there is simply a belief that we owe Russia peace. In this logic, over 20 million russian citizens who died during the war were Russians, though there were Ukrainians, Belarusians and many another nations among them.
And the 3rd factor?
M.W.:Ostpolitik [Eastern politics – adverb.]. It was designed in the 1970s by the SPD under Willy Brandt. She was originally motivated by the desire to approach the GDR, yet becoming a policy of reconciliation and rapprochement with the full east bloc. It was then that the border on Oder and Nysa was recognised, that trade began with the USSR and another countries of the region. russian gas began to flow to the West Germany. At the same time, the RFN spent 4–5% of GDP on defence – cooperation was accompanied by cold-war deterrence.
If first phase Ostpolitik I am positive, the second was a prelude to naive cooperation A German with a dictatorship that became independent of Russia. In the 1980s, the SPD focused on safety partnerships with communist regimes. Social Democrats treated oppositionists in Poland or Czechoslovakia as troublemakers – it is adequate to say that Willy Brandt did not want to meet Lech Wałęsa during his journey to Poland. Many of them besides opposed the unification of Germany.
Why?
R.B.: Partly due to the fact that they did not want Germany to become a big, hegemonic country in the centre of Europe again. religion in the stableness of socialist regimes and their proximity to them may have besides played a role.
M.W.: Definitely. erstwhile the process of unification began, I watched the study from the SPD bureau meeting. The party's left wing politician, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul then said that if the consequence of the unification is to strengthen NATO and win capitalism, she would fight against it with all her might.
And today, the SPD boasts that the wall just went down due to them. Ostpolitik...
M.W.: When German unification began to be widely seen as success, the SPD decided to attribute it to itself. For ideological reasons, they did not want to see the function of Republican president Ronald Reagan and his military policy towards the USSR or e.g. Conservative Pope John Paul IIwhich contributed to the transformation in Poland. So they created a story of influence Ostpolitik.
In 1990 – the same time that Germany unites – the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony becomes Gerhard Schröder – 1 of the main characters of your book. He was a Marxist erstwhile he was young, and in the 1990s he blundered himself and his SPD organization with a big, in addition, dirty business. How does that happen?
R.B.: Part of this is the specificity of the Lower Saxony Land, which has shares in large companies, for example Volkswagen. Or Salzgitter AG is simply a immense steel maker who has been producing gas pipes for the USSR since the 1970s, later besides for the pipeline. Nord Stream. The Prime Minister of Lower Saxony sits on supervisory boards of specified companies.
Schröder besides enjoys the Ma pure business world. He enters the universe of successful older men, impresses him with a tendency to risk, common loyalty and money. Starts with relationship with motorcycle gangs, ends with autocrats. He respects Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, respects Vladimir Putin due to the fact that they are strong men who succeeded.
However, while Schröder's views on economical policy are changing, he remains consistent in his abroad policy vision. In the 1970s and 1980s, he travels to the USSR, in the 90s – as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony – to Russia.
M.W.: Money has always played an crucial function for Schröder, even erstwhile he was already Chancellor [i.e. from 1998 to 2005 – cars.] While traveling with business leaders, he felt afraid that everyone was making more money than he was. most likely due to the fact that he was born poor. His parent was a cleaning lady, his father died in the war erstwhile the boy was a fewer years old. In the planet of power and money, he was a novice.
Vladimir Putin utilized this fact from his biography to get closer to Chancellor Schröder. He had a circumstantial intent in this: a fewer years earlier he defended his doctorate of utilizing gas exports as an instrument of abroad policy.
M.W.: Putin, erstwhile asked in his youth about what he actually does in the KGB, replied that he was an expert on human relations. And in fact, he's very good at it, he can learn a lot about the object of his interest, about his good and bad pages. Putin besides comes from poverty, from the Leningrad territory – as he says himself – of broken glass, as Schröder did in his youth sports and brushed against the criminal environment, but yet went into politics and gained power.
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In addition, Putin can give people the feeling that they are peculiarly important. He gave Schröder much to realize that he – an older and experienced politician – could learn from him. He invited him privately to Moscow, spoke to him in German without an interpreter. The gentlemen went to the sauna together, sled to the park, and for Schröder Putin's sixtyth birthday brought him to the theatre in Hanover a Cossack Choir that performed the anthem of Lower Saxony. Putin even got his German friend 2 Russian children into adoption. Schröder utilized to say that German-Russian relations had reached depths they had never had before. But it was actually his individual relationship.
How did this relationship translate into the interior politics of Chancellor Schröder?
M.W.: Schröder presented the interests of the German energy manufacture as the national interests of Germany. erstwhile speaking of buying Russian gas, Schröder did not say that it was in the interests of the German energy manufacture or the German economy, but that it was in the interests of Germany. In this way he argued, for example, to accelerate the construction of Nord Stream. It got even more interesting erstwhile he ceased to be Chancellor, but he continued to direct German politics towards Russia from the back seat.
After Schröder, Angela Merkel becomes a candidate. Her organization – CDU – ruled Germany in the SPD coalition for 4 terms.
M.W.: Schröder then becomes part of the Russian energy manufacture as president of the Nord Stream Supervisory Board. At the same time, he plays the function of erstwhile internationally recognized chancellor. And it affects the form of the German government. It places its close associates – first Frank-Walter Steinmeier as abroad Minister, then Sigmar Gabriel as Minister of Economy.
For a very long time there was a limit in the German energy sector – no more than 30% could be imported from 1 supplier. Under Minister Gabriel's rule, it was increased to 55 percent. It's over. Crimea annexationWhich is inexplicable to me.
The Germans were convinced by politicians that Russian gas was the cheapest. In your book, you prove it wasn't true.
M.W.: LNG terminals were not built, which would let the acquisition of gas from another sources, or at least to negociate financial supply conditions with Moscow. Thus Germany became dependent on Russian gas and allowed suppliers to dictate prices. Russia was believed to be a safe supplier and that we had nothing to fear.
R.B.: In addition, the German gas warehouses were sold to Russia. It can be said that Russia has utilized the European liberalisation of energy markets for its own purposes. Gazprom became not only a maker but besides a owner of gas infrastructure, pipelines and gas retention facilities. He built his position on it. Germany believed that Europe's safety was not possible without good contacts with Russia. And erstwhile the full-scale war broke out, they discovered with surprise that the gas warehouses were empty.
Gerhard Schröder then became a villain. A discussion began about his removal from the SPD, his erstwhile Chancellor's office in the Bundestag was taken from him, and he lost honorary citizenship to Hanover. No 1 else felt guilty?
R.B.: I would describe this as a immense political accomplishment of the SPD. Schröder became the main culprit and another politicians liable for pro-Russian politics remained in their positions.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, presently president of Germany, and Sigmar Gabriel, who is the head of the Atlantic Bridge, an association promoting German-American relations, did not resign. The prime minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is inactive Manuela Schwesig, who contributed to the establishment of the infamous Climate Protection Foundation, set up to circumvent American sanctions against Russia.
Some tried to justify, others disappeared for a fewer weeks. And erstwhile the conflict dust subsided, they slow returned to their roles.
M.W.: However, it should be added that this was at the expense of their credibility. At the beginning of the war, president Steinmeier offered Ukraine a visit to Kiev and was rejected. Prime Minister Schwesig is not the SPD's large hope anymore.
What changed to the German Left 2022?
R.B.: The SPD highlighted the function of energy policy in defence, as well as the countries of east Europe – not only Ukraine, but Poland and the Baltic States. More money has been spent on arms – Germany has yet achieved the goal of defending 2% of GDP. Chancellor Olaf Scholz himself has been critical of Russia since 2017. However, there are inactive people in the organization who speculate about reconnecting with Moscow.
The Greens hardened their pro-Ukrainian position, and began to advocate for strengthening defence and greater openness to military structures, including, above all, NATO. Die Linke, on the another hand, inactive has the primacy of the alleged peace policy and a strong criticism of NATO and arms.
M.W.: As far as the SPD is concerned, the speeches of organization president Lars Klingbeil, erstwhile a policy linked to Russia, seem significant. After the outbreak of the war, he repeatedly stressed that Germany should have listened more attentively to its east partners in NATO and that present there was no longer talk of safety with Russia, or alternatively of safety in the face of Russia. However, many elder SPD members do not necessarily like this narrative.
How long is this transition of social democrats lasting? Chancellor Scholz now gives the impression of a brake on military aid. He refuses to deliver Taurus long-range missiles, and in addition publically commented on NATO's undisclosed engagement in handling akin rockets in Ukraine.
R.B.: It cannot be ruled out with certainty that the alleged russlandverstehers [understanded for Russia – ed.] will come to the vote again. The polls clearly indicate that society is afraid of confrontation. Most citizens do not want to annoy the Russian bear, they think it is better to leave him alone and that this will be achieved without expanding the supply of weapons. Chancellor Scholz has no uncertainty supported Ukraine, but takes these sentiments into account.
M.W.: The opposition to the armed Ukraine is peculiarly strong in east Germany. Although this area experienced russian occupation, sympathy for Russia, but besides respect for its forces, are inactive very strong. Scholz has another problem: the situation of the German economy is not best, and citizens are experiencing an increase in the cost of living. In this situation, the SPD's left wing is sceptical about a extremist increase in defence spending. Politicians of this faction fear that there will be no money for education, social spending or climate protection.
In fresh times, the Cremovian propagandists have begun calling for rejection of the findings of the German unification conference. The resurrection of GDR is of course unlikely, but it is possible that Russia will attack NATO countries in the future – tiny but real. The Germans are not afraid of specified a scenario?
R.B.: From the position of Germany, this threat is far more distant than for Poles, even because, unlike you, we are not bordering Russia. I agree with Markus that the emotional core of the German approach to Russia is fear of annoying the bear or any kind of shyness.
At the same time, all sensible politician present is aware of the importance of a deterrent policy. Both Poland and Germany trust on transatlantic support in this respect, Germany is part of NATO's agreement to share tactical atomic weapons. Spectrum Donald Trump's win However, it should prompt us to reflect on whether it is time to build European deterrents.
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Reinhard Bingener (born 1979) – writer "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". He studied Evangelical theology in Halle-Wittenberg, Chicago and Munich. As of 2014, he has been reporting political events in Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen. Co-author of the book Moscow liaison. Schröder's network and Germany's road to dependence, which was published in Polish in the translation of Joanna Czudec by the publishing home of the Western Institute.
Markus Wehner (born 1963) – historian and journalist. He studied the past of east Europe, political sciences and Slavics in Berlin, Freiburg and Moscow. As of 1996, associated with ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’. From 1999 to 2004 correspondent for this diary in Moscow. He presently mainly writes about German national policy. Co-author of the book Moscow liaison. Schröder's network and Germany's road to dependence, which was published in Polish in the translation of Joanna Czudec by the publishing home of the Western Institute.
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