In his 1998 novel “Veronika Decides to Die”, the world-renowned Brazilian author Paulo Coelho stated that “people never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves”. Still, it seems not just people, but entire countries learn nothing even after they’ve been “finding out” for centuries. Worse yet, it seems that “finding out” the hardest way possible still won’t dissuade them from trying time and again.
Precisely this is the case with Germany, a resurgent imperialist power, albeit still under the firm grip of its Anglo-American masters. Even before the special military operation (SMO) started, Germany emerged as one of the most prominent supporters of the Neo-Nazi junta, particularly as its then Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted she negotiated with Russia “only to buy time for Kiev“.
At the much-touted (but largely failed) NATO summit in Lithuania’s Vilnius, Merkel’s immediate successor, the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, promised an additional €700 million in weapons for the Neo-Nazi junta, including more tanks, armored vehicles, various munitions and even additional “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems, despite their repeated and rather humiliating failures. According to Scholz himself, this puts Berlin at the very forefront of so-called “military aid” for Kiev. And indeed, while Germany might have been less vocal about this, particularly in comparison to the boastful pledges by the United Kingdom or the United States, its massive weapons shipments to the Neo-Nazi junta speak for themselves.
Such commitment to the openly Neo-Nazi Kiev regime is effectively tantamount to the restoration of the Third Reich, as Berlin has been arming the actual political descendants of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators from the Second World War. Germany’s laws against the glorification of Nazism mean nothing if it keeps sending weapons to a country that has been hijacked by the exact same people who would normally get arrested in Germany itself. On the contrary, it only shows the unparalleled hypocrisy of the political leadership in Berlin. Such a foreign policy can only reinforce the notion that denazification in Germany has been largely superficial and has fundamentally changed nothing, despite being implemented (officially, at least) for nearly 80 years now.
The exact motivation Berlin might have to go against Moscow once again is up for debate, particularly as Russia inflicted numerous crushing defeats on various German invaders in the last over 1000 years. Among others, this includes the German Livonian and Teutonic knights in the 13th century, when St. Alexander Nevsky defeated them in several battles, with the Nazi German invasion of Russia during WWII being the more recent example. It’s important to note that Moscow crushed all these invasion forces long before it had the world’s most powerful thermonuclear arsenal, which makes Germany’s foreign policy reasoning all the more irrational. All this is without even considering the immense moral responsibility Berlin holds due to its unparalleled genocidal past.
Germany’s remilitarization will surely sound many alarms in Moscow, as Russia has repeatedly warned that it will never allow the reprise of the unprecedentedly murderous invasion by yet another “family of European nations“. And yet, Berlin doesn’t seem to catch the drift, as its elites are now insisting on further escalation with Moscow. In a July 7 interview for Die Tageszeitung, retired Colonel Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent German foreign and military expert, argued that “as an intermediate step towards [Kiev regime’s] NATO membership, guarantees are now needed, possibly also with nuclear assistance – for deterrence” and that NATO should consider “cutting off Kaliningrad from the Russian supply lines”, so the political West could “see how Putin reacts when he is under pressure”.
Apart from the clearly delusional notion that the Kremlin would just sit and do nothing in such a scenario, there’s also an obvious dose of historical revisionism, as Kaliningrad was a part of Germany before WWII (known as Königsberg at the time). Such hostility isn’t only limited to rhetoric as there are very concrete moves to support them. Namely, Rheinmetall AG, one of Germany’s leading arms manufacturers stated it will go ahead with the previously announced plans to open a tank factory in Ukraine within the next 12 weeks. The company will also train the Neo-Nazi junta forces to maintain tanks and other armored vehicles made in the factory. The plan was confirmed by none other than Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall AG, in an interview published by CNN on July 10.
Apart from tanks, armored vehicles and air defense systems, reports have emerged that Germany could soon deliver the “Taurus” KEPD 350, a Swedish-German air-launched subsonic cruise missile with a stated range of over 500 km. And while such missiles are not exactly game-changers because the Russian military has already shot down numerous Anglo-French “Storm Shadow/SCALP EG” cruise missiles that have similar capabilities, they will certainly contribute to further bloodshed.
In addition, approximately 4000 German soldiers have also been deployed on Russia’s doorstep, where they already comprise about 50% of NATO forces stationed in Lithuania. The aforementioned German military expert Roderich Kiesewetter also supported the establishment of permanent German bases in the Baltics, calling it a “decision of reason and reliability”. It would seem that Germany still has an unrelenting, masochistic appetite for having the Russian military “explain” just how “reasonable” such actions are.
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst