{"id":3095,"date":"2023-04-04T19:45:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T16:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsr.ut.ee\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2023-08-31T21:47:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T18:47:14","slug":"german-foreign-policy-through-the-prism-of-the-war-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/loengud\/2023\/german-foreign-policy-through-the-prism-of-the-war-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"German foreign policy through the prism of the war in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article of \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with Germany\u201d
Benjamin Klasche<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. German pacifism<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Open Letter: very popular intellectuals signed a letter for the end of the war with no explanation. They are mostly associated with left-thinking politics and some have even taken pro-Russian takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Germans have a generational trauma of starting world wars \u2013 killing jews. \u201cNever again\u201d so all violence is bad to them. Germans have grown up with guilt. In the 70s and 80s there were many anti-military protest and nuclear war \u2013 this constitutes the Anti-Americanism, they were critical of holding military power. The whole German left came from there. People started not going to military as well and started doing social service. And in 2011 it was paused. Pacifism is spread out in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    N. Chomsky- Iraq war was imperial; Ukrainian war is not as bad because Iraq was worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The chancellor in the early 2000 saying that they are not going to support USA in Iraq to Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The open letters still come out every month \u2013 nobody thinks about what happens in east Ukraine. So how can they really be pacifist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    J.Gauk says that you can be pacifist but political pacifism is not excusable- it isn\u2019t ethical and aren\u2019t justified feeling moral superiority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • \u201cWandel Durch Handel\u201d \u2013 German-Russian relations, Germany went past the iron curtain to talk about the unified Germany again because it worked before with France (even though they were arch-enemies). In 2023 it seems unthinkable to see France and Germany as enemies. Jeltsin is the new president with who Franch and Germany bonded \u201csauna friendship\u201d, start of the male friendship – M\u00e4nnerfreundschaft<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      \u201cPutin-Versteher\u201d \u2013 Putin lived in Germany, he was close with the politicians. German president said that we need to make sure that Russia doesn\u2019t fall behind, Russia is a baby elephant. They are huge but don\u2019t know what to do with themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Last year Scholz gives a speech where he declares that they do not need to invest into Russia anymore because it is not working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \u201cDie Moskau Connection\u201d is a new book about the friendship between Putin and German politicians. Schroider didn\u2019t want to become friends but then loses the election and then becomes a supportive member of Gasprom- still is. (He is also in the social democrats). All these politicians go to trips together with Putin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Merkel was friends with Putin, she signed Mordstream two and that Germany shouldn\u2019t change politics etc. even though now she says that she didn\u2019t like him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      In Germany it is normal to see soviet symbols (Soviet Union is not bad to them, it was better than Nazism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \u201cWe are not afraid of Putin, we are afraid of the government\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      • Empires, colonialism and german blindness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

        German blindness-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

         Scholz- \u201cimperialism is back in Europe\u201d Scholz says that this is Putin\u2019s war but he wants to continue a relationship with Russia but not with Putin. Putin\u2019s Russia has neocolonialist features \u2013 he dreams of building a new empire on the model of the Soviet Union and the Tsarist Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Shnaider- Germany fought for colonies until the country was defeated and so did other European countries. Integration allowed Germans to forget the colonial aspect, it allowed other other Europeans as well \u2013 they don\u2019t see themselves as colonist \u2013 they don\u2019t understand Russia in this sense. Hitler\u2019s point was to go to Ukraine, that\u2019s where the war started (that\u2019s also where most of the jews were) \u2013 different look on history. There is no quilt towards Ukrainians \u2013 they didn\u2019t see Ukrainains as a real nation. That is not innocent. They think that eastern Ukrainains are Russian, the culture is Russian etc. \u2013 this is how colonisers talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Auferbeitung \u2013 working through your history. In Germany they teach a lot about the holocaust but they don\u2019t talk about the fact that Germany was also an empire with colonies before (the third biggest).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        The Baltics- Hanseatic League and Baltic Germans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        There was German rule in the Baltics- the culture was supressed. Never had a chance of power \u2013 the othering of people. Generation memory is long of oppression and in Estonia there is no free history. Germans have no understanding that they are colonisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        German foreign policy-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Neo-Liberal- economic gains over everything else, can\u2019t lose relations with Russia (and china) (can\u2019t they see that it is bad for them as well)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Civilizational \u2013 Economic growth can modernize and democratize, they will become part of the west. (Coloniser talk)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Masculine- \u201cStrong\u201d leaders of strong countries play their own game, Russia and Germany don\u2019t care about small countries<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        (German) pacifist- conventional violence needs to be stopped, even though they have a big military and sell guns to other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Feminist foreign policy \u2013 maybe the future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Kaja Kallas did a good job in changing all of Europe\u2019s view!!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Germans have a generational trauma of starting world wars \u2013 killing jews. \u201cNever again\u201d so all violence is bad to them. Germans have grown up with guilt. In the 70s and 80s there were many anti-military protest and nuclear war \u2013 this constitutes the Anti-Americanism, they were critical of holding military power. The whole German left came from there.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loengud","category-86"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rsr.ut.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}