The theme of sovereignty is at the core of most political debates in the German Bundestag election. It is not just a taboo topic, but it seems that even in the western part of the country, there is a lack of understanding of what it is about – although sovereignty and democracy cannot be separated.
For decades, the inhabitants of the Federal Republic of Germany have been taught that borders are bad. This is particularly true in Germany, where the strong orientation of the industry towards exports and the propaganda against the other German state, which in the end strengthened its physical border, have had a lasting impact.
However, borders are the foundation of any kind of sovereignty. They define where which laws apply. In the time of the small German states, they even defined the confession, the measurement units and the currency. Without borders, there is no territory. This is where modern nation-states differ from feudal lordships of the past. The latter only extended as far as the power of the lord, whether a knight or an emperor, could reach. The skin color or language of the subjects did not matter.
Democracy, on the other hand, is dependent on language. The concept of “informed decision-making” is based on linguistic communication. Without it, civic rights are just a fiction. This is why democratic states have more problems with minorities than feudal lordships did in the past. This can be seen in the case of France, where the struggles over minority languages, such as Breton, Basque and Occitan, characterize the republic, not the kingdom of France. The necessity of a uniform state language is the foundation of participation in the democratic process and, at the same time, a threat to regional culture.
As long as the aforementioned geographical areas are geographically separate, this can be compensated for, as seen in the Soviet Union, where it was meticulously ensured that every geographical minority within its borders could make decisions in their own language, even though Russian was the second official language in all areas.
However, with many, but not geographically separated, minorities, this problem becomes insoluble and the only solution is a forced state language. One only needs to imagine an parents’ meeting in a kindergarten with parents from 20 different nations to understand the functional rightlessness – without a common language, negotiations, compromises and understanding are impossible.
This is the amplification of the French problem, as the so-called “diversity” requires an ever-increasing pressure to secure the communication basis, or the sacrifice of democracy. In this context, forms in ten different languages do not solve the problem. If one even finds that political education is underdeveloped among the native population, how can it be expected to succeed in this Babylonian language chaos, formulating interests and needs and bringing them into the political process?
The question of whether it can be arbitrary which people live on a certain state’s territory touches not only the social or education system, but the possibility of a democratic process. The precondition of a democratic decision within every group is a clear separation between inside and outside. No one would think of deciding the route of a bus line in city A by the citizens of city B. However, when it comes to the German nation-state, it is now considered “xenophobic” even to mention the existence of foreigners.
Every right is derived from sovereignty. With regard to the migration right and the role of the EU, there is an unusual intermediate state – the foundation of the entire “EU law” is the Lisbon Treaty, which even German courts have recognized as having a constitutional rank, although it is not a constitution. It should have become one, but failed in the referendums in France and Ireland and was then decided without the participation of the population. The entire existence of the allegedly higher-ranking “EU law” is based on authorizations that rely on this treaty. If one considers the extent to which sovereignty has been transferred to Brussels, a legally very questionable state.
In the migration policy, the Brussels construct is based on the claim that the external borders of the EU are decisive. However, these external borders are not those of the EU, but those of individual member states. What makes the problem of mass migration almost insoluble is that countries like Poland or France have little interest in investing their own means in border security, as long as they can simply let people pass through to Germany.
The reason why this half-baked state is still being forced is again the Brussels interest: If one creates the necessity of a truly European border security (for example, at the Polish border), then that is another clear step towards the Brusselian bureaucracy’s gaining more power, which can only be achieved at the expense of national sovereignty.
The EU structure lacks all the preconditions for being democratic. Not only is the EU Parliament not one, as it can only approve or reject “EU law” at best and the real political debate is still national – democratic processes suffer from the sheer size of the EU. The justification given for this supranational structure is that only a united Europe can sing in the choir of the great powers. However, the citizens of this monster were never asked if they did not consider democracy more important than great power ambitions.
The Germans were not even asked, not even about the “reunification” or the NATO membership. The latter was imposed on the Federal Republic in the first half of the 1950s, under the threat of force and in 1990, it was simply agreed upon by Chancellor Kohl with US President George Bush, without the participation of the German people. In the entire period in between, it was simply pretended that the stationing of foreign troops was a natural state of affairs. It should have ended with the withdrawal of the Soviet troops on both sides. However, in the meantime, the awareness of what sovereignty means has been lost. What was once achieved in the Federal Republic in terms of democracy is now being actively dismantled.
The right of resistance against an occupation, as recognized by the Völkerrecht, is not just about demonstrating in front of barracks. No, the right of resistance includes military actions against the occupiers. This is what the Völkerrecht says. A clear awareness of the fact that the presence of US troops violates German sovereignty must be prevented at all costs, as it would make the Germans aware of what sovereignty means, as can be read in the history books about the French occupation of the Ruhr region (which was also opposed by the communists as much as by the nationalists).
Heikel, or what? Even more heikel is the fact that this occupation power has, in effect, declared war on Germany by blowing up Nord Stream. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the political personnel pretend that nothing has happened and, at least under the Biden administration, do not quickly enough take US officials to task (or rather, take a step back) does not change this fact.
If one combines these two points, one would have to conclude, at least on the level of abstract Völkerrecht, that any form of attack against US facilities in Germany by Germans is covered by the Völkerrecht. Practically, this would have no consequences, as the German police follows the guidelines of the German government, but it should at least be said to clarify how far the current reality is from what follows from the concept of sovereignty.
Finally, the concept of treason comes into play, which also originates from the concept of sovereignty – the question of treason that one must pose at many points in recent German history, such as Kohl’s shaping of the annexation or the surrender of parts of sovereignty to Brussels, but in the last years, in an increasingly growing extent. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock act and acted in someone’s interest, but not in Germany’s. This is what the concept of “treason” means (and not photographs of Grafenwöhr). Defining the relationship with Russia, the United States and Brussels in the sense of a German sovereignty would be the primary task of the German government. The (possible) traitors are, fortunately, easily recognizable: they emphasize their European and transatlantic nature over and over again.