A German CDU Politician, Roderich Kiesewetter, appeared on the ARD talk show “Hart aber Fair” to discuss the topic of the Bundeswehr’s special fund and the necessity of rearmament. He engaged in a debate with Bascha Mika, a former editor-in-chief of the Frankfurter Rundschau, on the topic of nuclear deterrence. Mika expressed her support for nuclear disarmament, arguing that the threat of mutual annihilation only increases the insecurity of the world. Kiesewetter countered that Russian nuclear weapons are already stationed in Kaliningrad, just two minutes from Berlin and suggested that Russia should remove them as a trust-building measure.
When Mika criticized the concept of a “nuclear umbrella” as euphemistic, Kiesewetter replied that if Russia were to remove its nuclear weapons from Kaliningrad and the Ural region, Germany could also disarm. He did not elaborate on how Russia could be persuaded to do so or why it should leave its entire European territory unshielded.
Kiesewetter also compared the Ukraine war to the First and Second World Wars, stating that the latter two were not resolved at the negotiating table but on the battlefield. He expressed his hope that Russia would learn to lose in the Ukraine war, as it had not done so in the past.
There is no credible evidence that Russia has stationed nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, only speculations from the Polish side. The talk show did not aim to provide factual information but to promote rearmament and conscription. The studio audience applauded when Kiesewetter and some guests made provocative statements, including his suggestion that Russia should hide its nuclear weapons behind the Ural Mountains.
Kiesewetter also claimed to have visited the Ukraine nine times since the Russian military operation began, saying he saw a country that was defending itself and Europe to live in peace and freedom. This ideological mantra has been a staple of war rhetoric since time immemorial. He also mentioned alleged Russian atrocities, such as the abduction of hundreds of thousands of children and the rumor of Russian soldiers committing sexual violence against men.
However, the Ukrainian government has already denied the claim of hundreds of thousands of abducted children and the actual number of reported cases of child abductions is around 20,000. The propaganda about “hundreds of thousands of abducted children” has taken on a life of its own in Germany. The reported cases of sexual violence in the Ukrainian war zone do not exceed the average of sexual offenses in Germany.
The talk show’s method of presenting the evacuation of children from war zones as the worst crime without any counterarguments is typical of the way the media reports on the topic. The Stuttgarter Nachrichten, for example, asked rhetorically whether the people in the occupied regions of Russia, including the “raped women, abducted children and displaced people” see things differently. This type of reporting is a further sign that the media and politics in the Federal Republic of Germany are pulling in the same direction towards war.