“War raises many questions. Can violence be fought with violence? Can peace only be established without weapons?” That statement by Olaf Scholz raised a few eyebrows when it was ambiguously tweeted in an English translation from the original German by the German delegation to NATO. The delegation did not explain that the chancellor had spoken at a convention of German Catholics. It was a meeting of pacifists (who, by the way, spent most of the meeting debating whether Jesus was transgender). Could Scholz question pacifism instead of endorsing it? He is one of the innumerable examples of the German leader’s communicative clumsiness in relation to the war in Ukraine.
Germany is drawing criticism from many quarters for its apparent unwillingness to support Ukraine with military hardware, a reluctance that tarnishes its reputation within the European Union and NATO. “Germany ‘Breaks Promise’ to Give Kyiv More Heavy Weapons,” declared a recent headline in The Times. “There is a clear lack of political will within the German government to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine,” the Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Andrij Melnyk, lamented in statements to the digital newspaper Politico.
In fact, proportionate to its large economic size, Germany is more or less in line with an average member of the European Union when it comes to the supply of weapons and the financing of military equipment, although it must be admitted that good part of what was offered has yet to reach Ukraine. Despite this, Scholz is singled out for his lack of initiative and courage because he has two big problems, according to Wolfgang Ischinger, former president of the Munich Security Conference. One is poor communication. The other is that many members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) do not support the massive rearmament central to the new foreign and security policy that Scholz outlined in what has been called his Zeitenwende (“historic turn”) speech, delivered three days after of the beginning of the Russian invasion, on February 24. As a result, his party is holding back the implementation of the new policies. Perhaps the fear of further alienating the militants from him is what has led Scholz to be so reluctant to openly say that Germany is now supplying heavy and light weapons to Ukraine because it wants Ukraine to win the war.
In a big debate in the Bundestag on June 1, the chancellor rattled off a long list of weapons that Germany has already shipped to Ukraine. The list includes some 2,500 anti-aircraft missiles (such as Stingers), thousands of anti-tank weapons (many of which, however, did not work in the end), more than 15 million rounds of ammunition, 54 M113 light armored vehicles (along with Denmark), machine guns, a field hospital, trucks loaded with explosives, communications equipment, anti-drone rifles, night vision goggles, medical equipment, tents and fuel. Scholz also confirmed that the German government has agreed to supply Ukraine with the IRIS-T SLM medium-range surface-to-air defense system, one of the most modern of its kind, capable of protecting a city the size of Kyiv. Germany is also delivering 30 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks (plus ammunition for them), though they won’t arrive in Ukraine until July. And, in addition, it is going to provide seven state-of-the-art self-propelled howitzers (the Panzerhaubitze 2000). Ukrainians are already receiving training to use them.
Germany also helps Central European countries provide Soviet-made equipment to Ukraine by replacing the shipped material with more modern and efficient Western equipment. (The advantage of this approach is that Ukrainian soldiers are already familiar with Soviet-made tanks.) The Czech Republic will deliver 20 T-72 tanks to Ukraine, and Germany will replace the Czechs with 14 Leopard 2 tanks and an armored bulldozer. . And he does something similar with the Greeks. However, it is not substituting enough, says Polish President Andrzej Duda. Duda has accused the German government of not keeping its promise to offset the more than 200 Soviet-made main battle tanks it has sent to Ukraine with modern German main battle tanks. Steffen Hebestreit, a spokesman for the German government, denies this. Hebestreit declared himself “astonished” by the accusation, since Germany had never made such a promise.
All of that causes problems. “For 70 years, Germany was educated to be a pacifist country,” says Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, one of the leading politicians of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). That means that the German armed forces are small and pitifully equipped; and also that many of the main politicians of the country are impregnated with that pacifist culture. Rolf Mützenich, head of the Social Democrats’ parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, fought for disarmament for two decades. He got his doctorate with a thesis on nuclear-weapon-free zones. By his own admission, he “bitches” at having to vote in favor of rearming his country. Late on May 29, German political leaders, some through clenched teeth, finally approved the centerpiece of Scholz’s new security policy, a one-time €100 billion allocation to modernize the armed forces. Parliament ratified it last Friday.
Despite everything, the damage is done; especially in central and eastern Europe, where many observers are furious. “The impression here is that we can only trust Britain, the United States and our own region,” says Radek Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister and current MP. They helped Ukraine right away, even before the war started, while, in his opinion, Germany has done too little too late. Poland is doing more for Ukraine than most countries in the European Union, and it may be the country that does the most. Now, given its history and its pacifist political culture, Germany is helping Ukraine militarily more than many expected. I wish he could say it better and move faster.
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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
