Germany doesn’t need to fear Russian disinformation trolls: it has Gerhard Schröder.
To mark his 80th birthday next week, the ex-chancellor and former leader of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) gave an interview to ensure he needn’t book a large room for his party.
Asked about political decisions he regrets as chancellor, Schröder channelled his inner Edith Piaf: “Nothing springs to mind, I have to say, nothing of note that I wouldn’t decide the same way.”
It was Schröder’s close friendship with Vladimir Putin that saw rising German economic and energy dependency on Russia climaxing in the first Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline.
Schröder was only acting chancellor, after losing the 2005 election, when he signed off on the deal. He then took a well-paid board position with the pipeline consortium. All legally above board, Schröder insisted in his birthday interview.
Nothing quite raises the hackles in Germany quite like Schröder’s ongoing political interventions on Russia. He was one of the first to congratulate Rolf Mützenich, SPD Bundestag floor leader, for a speech earlier this month on Ukraine asking rhetorically: “Isn’t it time we not only talked about how to fight a war, but also thought about how to freeze a war and how to end it later on?”
The remark outraged Ukrainian leaders, who would prefer German ammunition over advice, and set SPD leaders into damage-limitation mode.
First they insisted Mützenich’s words had been interpreted maliciously, then they had a crisis meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador, Oleksii Makeiev.
[ Europe battles ‘avalanche of disinformation’ from RussiaOpens in new window ]
On national radio on Wednesday, the ambassador said SPD leaders assured him that Germany’s support for his country was unwavering and that “freeze” had been a poor choice of word.
Leading German generals agreed such remarks were problematic because they suggested a moral equivalence in the conflict – and a readiness on both sides to halt the fighting.
Mützenich, a leading leftist figure in his party, appears to resent others speaking for him. In a newspaper interview he insisted he was “trained in social and peace science where ‘freeze’ is a concept used to enable temporary local ceasefires and humanitarian ceasefires in a particular situation, which can be transformed into a permanent absence of military violence”.
Following the last-in/first-out principle, the SPD floor leader was the last major politician in Germany to acknowledge in February 2022 that, by invading Ukraine, Russia had smashed Europe’s postwar order. Now his critics call him the first to qualify German military support for Ukraine and demand a shift to a postwar paradigm.
The reality is that many in his party – and the wider German populace – agree with Mützenich.
Since February 2022, from the moderate leftist wing of the SPD to the new extreme left party around Sahra Wagenknecht, Ukrainian sovereign rights appear secondary to these Germans’ pacifist ideals.
Similarly, awareness of wartime atrocities in Ukraine and resulting moral obligations today, pale next to guilt over Nazi crimes in the Soviet Union and Red Army war dead.
The SPD’s Green coalition partner warned of a “slide into old SPD thinking on Russia” while historian Heinrich-August Winkler said such “uncritical and romantic” SPD ideas towards Russia posed a danger to German foreign policy.
For the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the remarks were a “political test balloon” by the SPD ahead of European elections in June and September state elections in three eastern states.
Cold war socialisation was still palpable in an October 2022 public television survey, showing 77 per cent of eastern Germans viewed Russia as a threat to world peace – compared to 88 per cent in western German states.
[ Schroder holds on to SPD party membership despite Russia tiesOpens in new window ]
Eastern Germans are more likely to view media reports on Russia as too negative and, similarly, more easterners wish Germany would pursue a policy of equidistance with Moscow and Washington.
In a survey last month, 46 per cent of all Germans agreed that Kyiv should accept peace talks even if Russia occupies part of its territory.
Most telling this week is how no one in the SPD rushed, as usual, to criticise Schröder when he said: “It seems to me as if the SPD floor leader Rolf Mützenich is on the right path.”
Perhaps Gerd should book that bigger room after all.