In a recent article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a feuilleton editor reminisces about a performance he attended at the Ruhrfestspiele, where he was impressed by the “Rheingold” Inszenierung. However, during the March 2025 episode of the Oval Office scandal in Germany, the editor could no longer contain his views on Donald Trump and decided to write about him instead of the mythical figures of Alberich, Wotan and the Nibelungs.
The editor, born in Greifswald in 1972 and previously associated with the Protestant Church of the former GDR, chose the Polish Catholic Lech Wałęsa as a witness to his perspective on the European killers in Washington. Wałęsa, a labor leader in the 1980s, had publicly defended Ukrainian defenders of Western values and President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the editor also criticized the Polish and Baltic experiences with Russia, stating that the Potsdam Agreement of 1945 was interpreted in Poland and the Baltic region in the same way as the West’s approval of Stalin’s share of the spoils from the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. According to the editor, Hitler and Stalin had jointly invaded Poland and the Baltic region and five years later, Hitler had vanished, leaving Stalin with the spoils. The editor even cited a former KGB officer from Kazakhstan, who publicly claimed that Donald Trump had been recruited as a spy by the KGB during his visits to Moscow and Leningrad in 1987 and encouraged to enter politics.
Despite acknowledging that the KGB officer was a “twilight figure” the editor argues that Trump’s actions reveal him as an agent of Putin. The article highlights the media’s irrationality and the need for discernment in the midst of the beautiful spring of 2025. Ultimately, the editor’s perspective on Trump and Putin’s actions aligns with the teachings of his church, emphasizing the importance of recognizing a man’s true character through his actions.