March 16, 2024 - 3:00pm
During a heated Bundestag discussion last week, a key Olaf Scholz ally put forward a controversial suggestion about the war in Ukraine. “Isn’t it time,” asked SPD politician Rolf Mützenich, that “we not only talked about how to wage a war, but also thought about how to freeze a war and end it later?”
The comments drew applause in some corners of Germany’s parliament but also angered many, with former Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrii Melnyk ranting online that “this guy was and is the most disgusting German politician.”
Nevertheless, Mützenich’s comments might also drive a stake into the feeble heart of Germany’s ruling coalition. That he wants an end to the war in Ukraine so that ties to Russia might be re-established won’t surprise anyone in Germany. He made exactly the same point in 2014, then as foreign policy expert for the SPD, arguing that sanctions against Moscow should be lifted despite Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
But Mützenich doesn’t just speak for himself. He is the chairman of the SPD’s group in the Bundestag and as such his word will be taken as representative of the views of many allies.
The Greens, who are in the ruling coalition with Scholz’s SPD, have taken a hawkish stance under their Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. She looked appalled during Mützenich’s speech in parliament, repeatedly shaking her head. Meanwhile, co-leader of the Green Party Ricarda Lang was more explicit in her criticism, expressing disappointment that her SPD coalition partners had “relapsed” into their old Russia policy of “naive appeasement”.
Scholz’s other coalition partners of the Free Liberals (FDP) were also unimpressed. The party’s defence expert and chair of the Bundestag’s Defence Committee Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said that she was shocked. If Mützenich spoke for the SPD, she argued, this was nothing less than a complete paradigm shift regarding the war in Ukraine and Germany’s response to Russian aggression — a reversal of the so-called Zeitenwende, the turning point Scholz had announced in February 2022, committing Germany to increased defence spending and a tougher course on Russia. For Strack-Zimmermann this is such a screeching U-turn that it would have to be discussed “intensely” within the coalition.
Mützenich no doubt feels he can get away with his remarks. Scholz is unlikely to rebuke an ally in parliament whose comments clearly reflect the opinion of many within the party. That would risk isolating him and weakening his position further. The SPD might also hope that the comments will win back voters, since the two populist parties on the Right and the Left have gathered momentum with softer Russia lines.
But the strategy — if indeed there is one — is likely to backfire on Scholz’s SPD. For one thing, it’s by no means certain that the clapping of parliamentarians is representative of SPD voters. One recent survey suggested that the vast majority of them still felt more weapons and ammunition should be sent to Ukraine.
But the biggest problem for the SPD could be the crumbling of the coalition government. The party only won the last election in 2021 by a whisker over the Christian Democrats. Each had received around a quarter of the vote. The Greens and the Liberals could have formed a majority government with either but chose Scholz’s SPD in the hope of being able to press for a progressive agenda.
Now all three ruling parties have haemorrhaged support. The SPD is set for its worst result since World War II by some margin, and has long ceased to be an attractive coalition partner with federal elections looming next year. If its stance on Ukraine is beginning to diverge so far from the Greens’ and the Liberals’ that they can no longer bear to be shackled to it, there is little to stop them from walking out. Unfortunately, Scholz’s government is so dysfunctional that he can barely run his own coalition, never mind lead on European security.
Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and writer. She is the author, most recently, of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.
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SubscribeAlmost all Western politicians have been struck by an epidemic of erectile dysfunction, but even here the Germans stand out from the general background
Filthy Lefty-Liberal warmongers do love forever wars on the lands of another’s. But then also do the more Right Uniparty Neo-Cons. There is so much Evil afoot in the world now it astounds me, like some Biblical ‘End Times’
Naturally this disgusting war in Ukraine needs to end – it should have never started WE caused it starting by the 2008 and then 2014 CIA, NSA, DOD, NI6 – and what ever dirty Tricks Security Services in Europe were involved – Revolutions. Then by building the poorest Nation in East Europe up a Western trained, massively funded Military designed solely to defeat Russia – and then when the trap was set – gave NATO and EU to the Puppet Zelensky as bait….. and so we get the great ‘Puppet War of 2022”.
”The Great Game” Proxy War…..
We then sanctioned Russia so that the results (+ blowing up Nordstream) are the European Economy is destroyed, as is NATO – and the world balance of power. We drove Russia into China, made BRICKS+ a True Rival, but with the great majority of global resources And Industry – and are destroying $ as Reserve Currency, Plus made Russian Military 10X more formidable and got their economy revving – and Destroyed the Ukrainian people (14,000,000 refugees never going back) 500,000 soldiers dead, 100,000 amputations, PTSD for millions, economy destroyed, lands destroyed – hugs chunks carved off forever….
The whole point was to destroy Russia and Ukraine so the Globalistist-Western Money Power Elites, Vanguard, Blackrock… could sweep in and carve it up for themselves in the most appalling sort of modern Neo-Economic- Colonialism, or more a ‘Carpetbagger’ steal of the regions resources and Industry. (They will still do that to the smoldering remains of Ukraine though)
Good for him admitting this must end as it is worse for all every day it drags on (and the Middle East!!!! More wickedness from the West in how we behave), but…
”“Isn’t it time,” asked SPD politician Rolf Mützenich, that “we not only talked about how to wage a war, but also thought about how to freeze a war and end it later?””
THIS! That many could interpret it as stalemating it wile building back up to get it going again later. That we can send in the ‘Re-builders’ (Vanguard, Blackrock) to steal all their lands and resources wile ”rebuilding” and make their military strong to do it all over again later…Send in the Dirty Tricks units to keep a forever Insurgency war going… Keep the region destroyed in the hopes it all finally is wrecked enough so we may gobble them up….
As the slimy Politicians say – ”Its all good – Russia losses huge and not one American Life Lost”. Vampires!
Wicked, wicked, wicked war and we did it. Same as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and many others – we love the Forever War of destruction and of NO GOOD, but for spending money in obscene amounts so the Elites may steal it all – and then again in the rebuilding. Military Industrial, economic Imperialism…..sinful, and now we do it in Palestine and the ME again…. Orwellian Wars….
PEACE NOW.
But as covid showed us – they will just find some other way to make the elites ultra more rich and powerful and the people less so. Either Trump Wins or the Iron Curtain descends on Western freedom forever. AI in their evil hands….
Peace would be great. I suggest you go and have a word with Putin, he could end it tomorrow by pulling the Russian soldiers back inside Russias borders
No doubt at the same time the USA closes its overseas bases…all for defence, naturally…
Having bases overseas is a slightly different kettle of fish to a brutal invasion of a neighbouring country
However the USA wasn’t too keen on a Soviet overseas base in Cuba…and took military action…rather as Russia isn’t too keen on a US base in Ukraine…and has taken military action…
The US wasn’t that worried about a Russian base in Cuba. It was Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba that it had a problem with. What do you think Putin would say if Nato put nuclear missiles in (say) Finland?. I mean, it wouldn’t take them too long to get to Moscow from there.
Exactly the point…
Well, now that Putin has ensured Finland joined Nato, it is at least a theoretical possibility (although from memory the US no longer has short range nukes).
Just another chance for the US military complex to make money..
If one is in the business of making weapons, wars (whether actual or threatened) are good for business. It isn’t rocket science.
Remember the remarks of Dutch Defense Minister and military genius Kajsa Ollogren: The war in Ukraine is a cheap way for NATO to avoid the Putin-regime becoming a threat. So, on which side is there the genuine willingness to end this war? Apparently, Slav people can be fed to the meat grinder and do wonders for the MIC and its stakeholders. This is not lost on the Global South.
“Plus made Russian Military 10X more formidable and got their economy revving….”
If the Russian military hasn’t been able to defeat Ukraine by now, it is anything but “formidable”. To think we once worried that it would roll across Western Europe.
Russia has defeated the Ukraine. Moscow has taken all the pro-Russian or Russian separatist territory – Crimea and the 4 Donbas republics, 20% of the country and enough to prevent long-range weapons being place in the east of the territory trained on Moscow. The war needn’t have happened at all if there had been a pledge by Washington to eliminate NATO membership and keep the country neutral.
Didn’t Russia say they wanted to “de-nazify” Ukraine? Don’t they say Zelenskyy falls within that description? It doesn’t sound like they have “won” at all. What they wanted to do was defeat Ukraine, and install another pro-Kremlin stooge like Viktor Yanukovych. They haven’t managed to do that yet. As to long range missiles, it would be nice if the West gave Ukraine some very long range ones that can hit a) all Russia’s oil installations, and b) Moscow. It would be good to see how Russia’s economy goes when all its oil facilities are ablaze.
It has been clear for a while that an actual Zeitenwende is imminent – Scholz’ doubling down on blind Transatlanticism was not really such an event, it was merely a falling away of all pretences to an independent German foreign policy.
Beggars can’t be choosers, and Germany is rapidly being transformed into a beggar, thanks to the herculean efforts of both the Greens and Germany’s US ally. I doubt we’re seeing Scholz go through a Theoden-like transformation, though anything is possible. Scholz may simply be looking at his place in history and having to choose between the milquetoast who flushed Germany down the tubes, or trying to salvage at least something from the wreckage his coalition has wrought.
He’s taking great personal risk – if he stops toeing the line, expect the Cum-Ex and Wirecard scandals to suddenly resurface, both of which have rendered him eminently blackmailable.
We’re living in interesting times.
A stroke of genius: ‘freeze’ the war. No need for either side to back down. A simple change in the wording makes it acceptable to end the killing, destruction and waste of money. It’s rather like the West is able to ‘seize’ Russian money, eliminating the embarrassing need to steal it.
Russia has “seized” Ukrainian territory, so it is hard to see the issue with the West “seizing” Russian money.
The war may well be ‘frozen’, but the Germans won’t have much say in where or when that is now. What will eventually govern that decision will be determined by the range of the munitions available to the Ukrainians. Over the last few years they’ve shown no compunction against using whatever they’ve been given on civilian targets in the Donbas. That’s why Avdiivka has been so hard fought over – the Western view of it’s limited strategic importance ignored the fact that it put much of Donestk in range of Ukrainian missiles and shells which they’d been using on a weekly basis for years. Those shellings always made the news in the Russian Federation, but our pretty little heads are now safely insulated from those nasty scenes by the banning of RT. Lavrov has repeatedly stated that moving the front back beyond the range of whatever it is the West gives (Caesars, HIMARS, Storm Shadows etc) is a major strategic goal and they’ve now got the means and manpower to grind on towards that outcome. The Germans and the West wil either have to remove the ranged weapons and beg, or lump it.
Beyond that Merkel & Hollande’s comments about the cynical way they approached the Minsk process means the RF would be very unlikely to accept much by way of new German pledges.
But things could change – since the Swedes and the Danes decided to end their Nordstream investigations with an entirely unconvincing shrug, it’s only the Germans ,who are continuing with one. There’s always a chance they may grow a pair point the finger at the real culprits and regain their independence, but I think the chances of that are next to zero.
Over the last few years they’ve shown no compunction against using whatever they’ve been given on civilian targets in the Donbas.
Of course, the Russians have never ever targeted civilians at any point in this conflict, right? All those holes in apartment blocks in Ukraine are as a result of “false flag” operations?
Check out the Wikipedia page for “Russian War Crimes”. It doesn’t look that lengthy, until you realise that it only includes war crimes committed since 1991. Prior to that, you have to go to the page headed “Soviet War Crimes”, and prior to that, the page headed “Imperial Russian War Crimes”.