Chancellor Scholz continues to refuse to supply Western tanks to Ukraine. The head of the Chancellery says that the demand comes across as the hope of finally finding a “magic wand” with which to end this war.
Actually, Chancellor Olaf Scholz should have come to discuss with Anne Applebaum. The US journalist is an expert on the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, and she has a clear opinion on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine – and on the German reaction to it. “I think everyone would like Germany to take a leadership role,” she said on Anne Will’s talk show in September. “Supplying tanks would be the perfect way to show leadership.”
But Scholz didn’t have time for the conversation at the Progressive Governance Summit in Berlin. As a replacement, he sent his head of the chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt, and recorded a greeting. In it, Scholz reiterated his position on supplying Ukraine with arms for as long as is necessary “to fend off Russia’s heinous aggression.”
As long as necessary, but not all that is necessary, Schmidt clarifies in the following discussion. “We have to support Ukraine, but we also have our own interests,” he says. Schmidt blocks calls for “leadership” from Germany. In his portrayal, the Federal Republic of Germany has more of the role of a moderator in Europe and must first grow into the leading role: Here Germany is still in the “teenage years”, in which one is controlled by hormones and occasionally shouts around. Schmidt doesn’t mean his boss or the traffic light coalition – on the contrary: When he talks about “teenagers,” he obviously thinks of Scholz’s critics, who demand that the chancellor not constantly put the brakes on arms deliveries. So probably to politicians like the FDP defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.
Applebaum has an explanation as to why the West – not just Germany – is still so hesitant about delivering arms. She questions whether we are really prepared for Ukraine to win this war. “How would that change Europe? How would that change Russia, like our relations with Russia?” In Washington, Berlin and London there are reluctance to speak openly about it – although this perspective has become very real due to the success of the recent Ukrainian offensives. “I hope that’s what the tank dispute is really about” – a lack of imagination that disappears over time.
Schmidt comes across as something between annoyed and bored on the subject. He now sees the demand for tanks as the hope of finally finding a “magic wand” with which to end this war. But there is no magic wand. Sometimes he is tempted to speak of the “V2 syndrome” of the Germans, says Schmidt. “We think there’s this silver bullet that can magically make things go away.” (The “V2” was a rocket developed by Nazi Germany, which Nazi propaganda described as a “wonder weapon”.) That role is now played by the Leopard 2. “Is that the weapon that will end the war? It won’t do that .”
If he were to think of Strack-Zimmermann here, for example, the image of the magic wand would be daring: the FDP politician is by no means arguing that the war could be ended immediately with tank deliveries. Rather, she regrets that there are “one or the other” in the federal government “who still has a bit of a jam,” as she just said.
Otherwise, Schmidt refers to the well-known arguments of the Federal Chancellor on the tank question: Germany is already the third largest supplier of military goods, behind the USA and Great Britain – even if, according to figures from the Ukraine Support Tracker, Poland delivers more in absolute numbers and Germany in relation to gross domestic product none good place. Nobody else supplies Western-style battle tanks, there are logistical reasons, after all the device must be able to be repaired, some partners are afraid that Russia will get their hands on the tanks. Ukraine has also captured Russian tanks, which “our secret services are very happy about.”
Finally, Schmidt compares the delivery of tanks to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for a no-fly zone. Zelenskyj raised this demand for more than two months, emphasizes Schmidt and makes it clear how absurd he finds it. In fact, the rejection in the West was unanimous at the time: the danger of being drawn directly into the war was too great.
Scholz said of the Russian invasion in the video that Putin and his supporters saw it as part of a larger crusade directed against the rules-based international order, against freedom and progress, and ultimately against the West as a whole. “He means all of us,” said Scholz.
In the discussion with Applebaum and Schmidt, the moderator, Katharine Viner from the British “Guardian”, wants to see at least a rhetorical change in the Federal Chancellor in these words. Schmidt, who emphasizes that he has known “this guy” – his boss – for almost 25 years, denies this. Scholz spoke “crystal clearly” about Russia and Putin’s intentions in a speech in Saint Petersburg in 2016. There is “a clear line and position”. It’s like when Scholz talks about Scholz: He always knew everything. The “Bild” newspaper just scandalized his sentence from Tuesday that he was “always sure” that Putin would use gas as a weapon.
This begs the question: if Scholz knew that, why has Germany become more and more dependent on Russian gas? Applebaum says she’s always happy when leading politicians from Western Democrats “begin to show understanding of how the autocratic world sees us”. From their point of view, the concept of “change through trade” pursued by the Federal Republic for decades has completely failed. There is a long tradition in the West, especially in Germany, of believing that peace and prosperity can be achieved through talks and business alone. It has been clear since 2007 that “our worldview is not shared by the autocrats,” meaning Russia, but increasingly not by China either. These countries see the West as “a kind of enemy”. She doesn’t say it so clearly, but what she means is clear: the West was naive.
Schmidt doesn’t like this verdict – he prefers not to talk about past mistakes, that can be done later when the war is over. He counters the West’s naïveté argument by saying that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel clearly understood in 2014 that Putin’s Russia was not what we had hoped. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia, many other Germans also realized what Putin was up to. Schmidt does not explain the obvious question of why the federal government, in which the SPD was also involved at the time, nevertheless had Nord Stream 2 built. But he explains what Scholz was aiming for with the term “turning point”: This word gives everyone, “even those who previously had different feelings about Russia, the opportunity to rethink and understand: okay, this is really an enemy now “.