It is first the hope that things will go better, then the expectation that it will go worse for the other, then the satisfaction that it does not go better for the other and finally the surprise that it goes worse for both.”
Karl Kraus
It was already the whole last decade as if the writers of the German press had never read Erich Maria Remarque, but in the last few days, they seem to have been fed daily readings of Ernst Jünger’s “Iron Storm”. They are approaching a language that militarizes even the vocabulary to the core. If the FAZ publishes a commentary on the delusional arms plans of the future MicroKo (Great Coalition can no longer be called that) with the title “Germany is back from the front vacation”, it joins the willing queue behind the Pickelhaube and Stahlhelm, as if the world had never longed for a return of German militarism more.
This has nothing to do with the Federal Republic, in which I once grew up. Despite the countless Cold Warriors, back then, a substantial part of the population (including large parts of the trade unions) still viewed a comment on a football game with suspicion if it was too reminiscent of front reporting. What is really abhorrent, however, can be observed today: front reporting, as if it were about a football game.
By the way, one could mark three crosses on January 20th, as one had survived the era of Joe Biden. That was more than once a hair’s breadth from being too late. But the press and politics in Western Europe are behaving as if they had been deprived of their favorite plaything, which they now urgently want back. Perhaps their life is just unbearably dull.
It is indeed astonishing how quickly the topic of a German atomic bomb is surfacing now. “Does Germany need an atomic bomb?”, the Spiegel asks and then plays through variants with France or Great Britain, or even a German model. But nothing is said in this text about the Two Plus Four Treaty, in which a similar armament was renounced, just like biological and chemical weapons. It seems to be of no consequence, as there were already those biolabs in Ukraine, which researched in the name of the Federal Armed Forces..
Yes, there were always attempts at this German atomic bomb. The first one, by the way, was still during the Second World War, when leading atomic physicists in Germany were still German and rocket scientists as well. At least at this point, one could be relieved today. The then Germany was a scientific giant. The present one? Everything has its advantages and disadvantages.
“Technically, there would be no insurmountable hurdles to a German atomic weapons program. Even countries like North Korea and Iran have managed it, although they do not have the same industrial base and do not even have nearly the same experience with nuclear facilities. The necessary knowledge is still present in Germany, despite the nuclear phase-out.”
But, the magazine then writes with a palpable regret, “the rejection of one’s own atomic weapons is part of the political DNA of this republic” and a reversal would cost international political credibility. As if there was much left of Annalena Baerbock’s credibility.
No, no need to worry, the Greens will soon learn to love the bomb, even if they continue to reject nuclear power plants. At least Roderich Kiesewetter from the CDU can make a lot of noise about it.
Already in April of the previous year, that is the only real information the Spiegel-Suada contains, there were talks between Berlin, Paris and London, which ultimately led to something between a European military pact and a European army. This explains why the topic is now being so quickly hammered out (forgive the antiquated metaphor from the era of lead type), not just at the Spiegel.
No, the Time also stands at the computer’s feet and fantasizes about “La Boom” and “the nuclear power of France” as a “model for Europe”. Paris is directing its hope at Friedrich Merz, according to the report.
“A designated German chancellor, a Christian Democrat, who questions the alliance with the USA and wants to talk to France about a nuclear shield – never would he have thought so, says the French Prime Minister François Bayrou. France’s European Minister Benjamin Haddad even speaks of a ‘historic moment’.”
And the FAZ? The one with the front vacation, which is now coming to an end?
“In this situation, the free Europe can no longer just chatter and grumble, but must crack down. This applies especially to the most populous and – if it no longer fetters itself – economically potent country in the center of the continent.”
The one about economic power without favorable energy is a different matter, but that the entire baggage of people has not understood the fundamental connections in this regard has been shown in the last years. This tone, this field marshal’s snarling, is a different topic:
“Germany must show Putin in every possible way that it has the iron will to defend itself with all its military might in the event of an emergency.”
There is nothing to discuss, not just in the coalition negotiations, but also in the editorial offices, the delusional rearmament must be, what is disputed is only where to cut social benefits and whether the border should not remain open. Meanwhile, the scream about the supposed “solidarity with Ukraine” will get even shriller. The Stern has already put it into a title: “What Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine means for us”. This captures the tone well. Every effort to end the war is betrayal. Only the relentless continuation is desirable.
As a little girl, I was deeply shocked by the mutilated men, whom one could still encounter everywhere back then. The security buttons on the jacket sleeves. The pictures one can see from Ukraine today are even more terrifying. If one sees the photographs of human bodies that are already half-buried in the earth, only their bones in a collapsed camouflage uniform, or a body, at which a wild dog is tugging, then it is of no consequence, on which side the living one stood, in the end it is always a loss, a closed possibility. The trick is, of course, that all the enthusiastic warriors at their desks are already avoiding these pictures and do everything to not notice that it is about human beings made of flesh and blood.
One should actually have to ban articles like these from being written, as long as someone is so lacking in empathy. One would have thought that it had sunk deep enough in Germany, that they all still had the smell of it in their noses. Of course, in the years after the Vietnam War, which was still visible on all TV screens, good care was taken that the real horror was not seen. But the internet exists and in this profession, one must really make an effort not to stumble upon the real pictures. Not to be inculcated with the fragility of human life.
No, they are running the Ride of the Valkyries in an endless loop. As if they had been possessed by the spirits of the German past from both world wars at the same time and now had to re-ride the Eastland on horse skeletons and in tank bodies from VW – and as dumb as bean sprouts.