While so many in the world hold their breath for Harris or Trump it would also be wise to keep an eye on Germany. A sharp eye! A look at history books would also be advisable. For between Alps and Baltic, Rhine and Oder, the fearsome rhythm of marching boots is once again growing in volume.

 

Boots and Boosts: Berlin Bulletin No. 228, November 28, 2024

    By Victor Grossman

 

In 1914 they were aimed at the “decadent French” and authoritarian Czarist Russians. In the 1930s it was Soviet Russians, led by “Jewish-Bolsheviks” or, most directly and intensely, the Jews in general and all others viewed as “sub-human”. Their march, really aiming at expansion, power, wealth in the millions, ended twice in immense, horrifying disasters for the whole world.

But by the 1950s the next generation was again blowing bugles and beating drums, directed at the Soviet Russians again–and their forward defense line in the GDR.

After the GDR was swallowed up in 1990 and the Soviets defeated three years later, unbloody victories in these cases, new foes were required. As in both world wars the Serbs were chosen for chastisement, not unbloody, but this time under a transatlantic aegis.

Then came the “terrorist threats to German security” (and trade routes) in the seas off Lebanese and Somali coasts and, now again with boots on the ground, in Hindu Kush mountain passes and arid sub-Sahara savannas. But when these anti-terrorist crusades petered out, very pathetically, a new threat, an evil new Saladin was sought, and a crusader, a new Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa, to defeat him.

Several candidates vie for this duty and honor, most prominently the hugely popular Boris Pistorius, titled “Minister for Defense,” still labeling himself a Social Democrat, and endowed with the loudest voice in favor of a build-up for war. For him, the foremost task is total support for Zelensky and his Ukrainian government, no matter where that may lead. As always, of course, it is western security which is at stake.

Russia is a threat not only to Georgia and Moldavia, but also in the end for NATO… A collapse of our support would have fatal consequences… The delivery of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, for example, makes important contributions… Every euro counts. A victory for Russia would end up being more expensive than support for Ukraine today…We must provide deterrence to prevent it from coming to an extreme… We must be fit for war by 2029.

“Fit for war”–“kriegstüchtig,” also translatable as “war efficient” or “war competent”–this chilling word, hitherto hardly known, or forgotten, can now claim to be “word of the year.” As Herr Minister expanded: “We must become resilient and capable of growth.” To achieve this he hopes, after thirteen untroubled years, to start up a draft again, if possible for young women as well. “Such a service cannot be free of obligations,” he warned, and “the troops must be provided with the best possible equipment, from battle tanks to mobile field kitchens.” The proposal, at first treated as just a topic for discussion and widely unpopular, was largely rejected. But with the help of the media it was gradually stepped up to become almost a demand, especially[VG1] by Friedrich Merz, head of the Christian Democratic election team, who hopes to win next year’s elections and succeed Olaf Scholz as chancellor, possibly in a revived coalition with Social Democrats led by bellicose Boris Pistorius.

It is not just words or plans for 2029 which echo marching boots of the past; their current rhythm largely resounds from the Ukraine war. The tragedy of death and destruction in that tormented land is somehow twisted into a fancied threat to Germany, justifying huge armament spending, the permanent stationing of a Bundeswehr base in Lithuania and now, in Rostock, once the GDR’s main port and seashore vacation center, a new NATO marine station aimed at surveilling the entrance to the Baltic–1000 miles away from southern Odessa or Sevastopol. With Bundeswehr officers.

Is the Ukraine war solely the crime of a power-hungry sultan in the Kremlin? Millions believe so. But millions in other countries have questions, doubts or search for other explanations, possibly less simple. They ask whether Putin’s invasion, brutal as it has been, was perhaps a reaction to ever tighter attempts to surround–and strangle–his country by the far, far stronger military forces of NATO, or its prime movers in Washington? Their bloody putsch in Kyiv in 2014 put an anti-Russian government in power, thus threatening Russia’s Black Sea as well as its Baltic route to the outside world. When hostile military bases and exercises multiplied, only minutes away from Moscow and St. Petersburg and, despite Russian objections and compromise offers, when plans were announced to bring Ukraine into NATO, thus requiring, even in case of Kyiv provocations, the support of all 32 members, three of them atomic-armed, then the Russian reaction to armed conflict in Donbas may not be pardoned–but should certainly be better understood. Turning to Aesop’s analogy method: Was it like a bear, surrounded by a narrowing circle of snarling dogs–or wolves–and breaking rules by striking out first with a heavy paw?

Comments like that of Foreign Minister Baerbock, that the aim of the Ukraine war must be “to ruin Russia,” strengthened such doubts. And one-sided blame was weakened last year when Zelensky led Canada’s House of Commons in cheering 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a heroic defender of Ukrainian freedom although, it was soon revealed, he had volunteered for Hitler’s Galician SS Division to kill off as many Jewish families, Polish partisans and Russian soldiers as possible–and indirectly Canadians. Some cheerers did not know his murderous background, but Zelensky certainly did!

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When a Bundestag deputy asked Minister Pistorius about the use of deployed weapons on Russian borders he replied: “Anything that is delivered from Germany and attacks targets in the Russian hinterland can be used” and added that he was in regular contact with his Polish counterpart about the protection of what is called, in all too historically reminiscent vocabulary, the “eastern flank.”

In 1956 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told a “Life” magazine reporter: “The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. (…) If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.“ Thus the art of “brinkmanship” was born. It now seems to be very much in fashion!

Marching boots, drumbeats and clanking tanks are also in fashion for companies like Rheinmetall, Germany’s biggest weapons maker, which raked in over € 7 billion in 2023, a 12% increase over 2022. It has € 38 billion in its order books if the war continues. Its CEO, Armin Papperger, averaging € 3.5 million in take-home pay, is trying to break into the USA weapons market. Aren’t we all NATO allies?

In that other devastating war, in Gaza, the Palestinian West Bank, now in Lebanon and beyond–equally dangerous for the world but far more tragic for civilians–Germany is also a major actor, perhaps second only to the USA. Its public statements, its media coverage and its material involvement have been no less important, and no less one-sided.

It holds tight to its support for Israel, its ”Staatsräson” or “fundamental basis,” as compensation for the German crime of Holocaust. This doctrine, stressed since West Germany was founded, was its admission card into the western family of nations and was expanded to include total support of Israeli “right to self-defense,” backing every step of settlement expansion and armed attack by leaders like former terrorists Ariel Sharon, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamin, and by Benjamin Netanyahu. It has become virtually compulsory to publicly “condemn Hamas terrorists” for the bloody events of October 7 while forgetting or minimizing Israel’s long history of repression and terror and what followed: the blasting of one apartment building after another, the almost daily destruction of schools, mosques, universities, the last remaining hospitals, of water, fuel and sewage systems, even roads and sidewalks, the continued degradation or torture of prisoners, young and old, armed or civilian, the targeting of doctors and journalists, of foreign and UN aid helpers, the blocking of food and medical supplies, and the death of at least 40,00 or possibly far more mostly civilian Palestinians, including thousands of children–or their mental and physical maiming and crippling for life. Also ignored: the statements of top Israeli politicians and generals justifying this mass murder because the Gazans, like Palestinians and opposing Arabs of any kind–are sub-human and must be forced to be subservient, to leave their homes, gardens and olive orchards–or to die. Disagreement, criticism or protest are all “anti-Semitism” and the conclusions of majorities in world courts or the UN General Assembly be damned. Washington has its veto–and German government support.

And material weapons. During a Bundestag debate on the anniversary of the October 7 attack, when Opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democrats (CDU) accused the governing coalition of blocking export applications from arms companies, including the supply of ammunition and spare parts for tanks, Chancellor Scholz fired back. “The German government has always stressed that there is no arms export ban…We have supplied weapons, and we will supply weapons,” Scholz promised.

When a majority of the UN’s Human Rights Council backed a call “to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, the occupying Power… to prevent further violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights in April 2024 the German delegation joined the USA in voting against it (plus only Argentina, Bulgaria, Malawi and Paraguay). The reason: It “refrains from mentioning Hamas and denies Israel the exercise of its right to self-defense.” A Palestinian “right to self-defense” is always forgotten.

All attempts to present other views, including the voices of renowned Jewish historians or courageous Israeli “refuseniks,” who choose jail to avoid further killing of Palestinian civilians, or those in joint Jewish-Arab marches and demonstrations are refuted with the increasingly questionable, ever changing story of October 7; what went before or came after is collateral damage.

The three parties in Germany’s government coalition are back at each others’ throats again–about immigration, aid to investing companies, big and small, energy costs, pension age, cuts in hospital support, public debt, public radio, taxation of the wealthy. All three, licking their wounds after their disastrous results in recent East German elections, all hope to climb out of their popularity pit for next year’s national election and then bed up warmly with their traditional Christian adversaries, who were also trampled in two of the three and just squeezed by in the third, Saxony[VG2]. They still lead weakly nationally but will need to find a partner or two next year among today’s foes in order to achieve a majority without the presumed arch-foe, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). All five agree on supporting Bibi, come what may!

What about the other two parties, the LINKE and the breakaway Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, BSW, the “alliance” named after its founder and leader? The BSW is sharply opposed to weapons for any foreign country, now most vigorously against arming either Zelensky’s Ukraine or Bibi’s Israel. Its second-best-known member, eloquent little fighter Sevim Dagdelen, 49, (her parents are Alevite Kurds) started with the obligatory condemnation of the Hamas attack on October 7th but then said “With its arms aid to Israel, the government is aiding and abetting war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon instead of conforming with the majority will of the population in Germany favoring an arms embargo.” Her challenge was sent to a committee and thus buried. Of course.

Far less clear, sadly, was the position of the LINKE, or what is left of it after its split and disastrous results in the European parliament vote (2.7%, while the new BSW got 6.2%) and in the East German states, where it got 12.4% and 12 out of 88 seats in its stronghold Thuringia, less than half its one-time hold. With 4.5% it just barely held onto six seats out of 120 in Saxony. In Brandenburg, where it was once junior partner in the government, its bitter 3.0% meant no seats whatsoever!

Like salt in these wounds, Sahra Wagenknecht’s breakaway party, taking part for the first time, won an amazing third place with 14-15% in all three states, mainly gained from former LINKE voters. This creates surprising new problems. The older parties have been committed to ostracizing the far-right AfD, even when it wins first place (as in Thuringia) or a very close second (in Saxony and Brandenburg). But–oh God!–that would require accepting Sahra Wagenknecht & Co. in an alliance. And Sahra insists that her party will only join coalitions, even on the state level, which reject arms shipments and demand the withdrawal of American middle range offense missiles from Germany, where they are actually illegal–and fatefully dangerous–to all Europeans.

These two demands plus widespread worry, disillusionment or distress may have been key to winning so many votes for the BSW in the eastern states where such feelings–and demands–are most widespread. But they helped the far-right AfD even more, which also demands a cease-fire in Ukraine and withdrawal of U.S. missiles (but wants weapons for Netanyahu, like them hostile to Muslims). Sahra’s BSW and the far-right AfD (both under attack as Putin-lovers) not only have similar stands on opposing those ties with the USA so dear to the hearts of all the older parties, but also on other issues, such as favoring increasingly strict, less welcoming arms to refugees or other immigrants, partly citing genuine problems but also with a strong whiff of nationalism. The resulting success of the AfD, now in second-place nationally, is pushing all other parties to show their toughness toward foreigners–all over Europe, in fact. One of the lone exceptions is the LINKE, whose position–seen as humane by some, as unrealistic by others, may well be one reason for their loss of votes–and seats.

Another issue where Sahra’s BSW and the AfD strangely agree: they both voice doubts about the government treatment of the COVID crisis, with its strict closeting of so many, closing of schools, and semi-compulsory face masks and inoculation. Some condemn these measures as a plot to gain profits and controls. But it was almost certainly their opposition to further fighting in Ukraine, or sending millions worth of weapons there, which made them the only two parties to be truly successful.

This creates a major dilemma for the eastern Social Democrats or Christian Democrats. Will they swallow deeply, forget taboos, slip towards peace positions and invite Sahra’s BSW to join in governing one or the other state? Despite their national leaders? Or will Sahra & Co. compromise on the peace question, or economic issues, and slip backwards with their new voters? This juggling game is still unpredictable, but Brandenburg just adopted a clearly-stated antiwar statement, and the two others are teetering. That could be a strong, welcome retort to those lovers of drums and boots.

And finally, which direction will the LINKE take? Until recently, its stand on armaments and cease-fires in both Ukraine and Gaza could be described as double-talk, with its strongest leaders leaning as far as possible toward a single-minded condemnation of Putin, almost fully ignoring the party’s traditional opposition to NATO expansion and German armaments sales and–on flimsy grounds–even boycotting a large demonstration for peace last year–or those now opposing the killing in Palestine and Lebanon. This rightward direction is what led many to switch to Sahra’s BSW.

But then came a surprise. In the Berlin branch of the LINKE, until now a stronghold of the leaders who supported Israeli bombing of Gaza–and once fumbled their important Berlin Cabinet seats–they suddenly found themselves outvoted in their pro-Netanyahu position and walked huffily out of the meeting. Five of them, till then top local leaders, then quit the LINKE party entirely. There was official regret, but many said “Good riddance!”

This was soon followed by a national party congress in Halle. And, for many surprisingly, while the reformist, conformist side of this eternally divided party still held onto a majority, it was a thin majority, and one which seemed willing to abandon its stubborn (and obviously deadly) swing to the right and reach compromises on issues like Gaza and the USA-NATO drive towards world hegemony. Since its co-chairs did not stand for re-election, it elected new ones, again with the East-West, male-female balance: Jan van Aken, 63, from Hamburg, a biologist and active opponent of ecological damage, and the East German Ines Schwerdtner, 35, a bright new figure, only a year in the party, once editor of the German edition of the magazine “Jacobin.” Both exuding optimism about reviving the party.

Ines Schwerdtner pledged not only to work for peace but to stress issues even closer to people’s hearts: affordable housing despite soaring rents and groceries, no cuts in support for the poor, the children, the pensioners, the jobless–and also the immigrants. The two want to build up door-to-door discussions with the voters, asking their views, especially those in the working or middle class. Could such changes take effect soon enough to prevent disaster in next September’s national election? Could it save the LINKE from oblivion and turn it into a truly leftist party with a definite socialist perspective, possibly even more so than its defected child and new rival, the BSW? In a Germany facing economic stagnation or worse, with its most important company, Volkswagen, just announcing big, troublesome shut-downs–perhaps an omen, with huge, growing menaces of climate disaster and far right advances all over Europe (and the USA?), with international war between atomic-armed powers threatening–the growth of a strong new Left in Germany, once again an aide and encouragement for sister parties in East and West, is more imperative than ever.

 About Victor GrossmanVictor Grossman is a journalist from the United States now living in Berlin. He fled his U.S. Army post in the 1950s in danger of reprisals for his left-wing activities at Harvard University and in Buffalo, New York. He landed in the former German Democratic Republic (Socialist East Germany), studied journalism, founded a Paul Robeson Archive, and became a freelance journalist and author. His latest book, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee (Monthly Review Press), is about his life in the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1990, the tremendous improvements for the people under socialism, the reasons for the fall of socialism, and the importance of today’s struggles. His address is wechsler_grossman [at] yahoo.de (also for a free sub to the Berlin Bulletins sent out by MR Online).

 

https://mronline.org/2024/10/29/berlin-bulletin-no-228-boots-and-boosts-november-28-2024/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

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