China and Russia wary of German rearmament
The joint statement issued after the visit of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Moscow in September mentions the “historical truth” about World War II. This may seem an esoteric subject, but it is anything but…
The joint statement pledges that Russia and China “will not allow anyone to revise the results of World War II, which are fixed in the UN Charter and other international documents.” The common Russian-Chinese stance touches on the gradual transition taking place in Germany and Japan in recent years to shift away from pacifism toward militaristic ideologies. This needs explaining.
Russia has been observing with growing disquiet that Germany is in another historical transition that holds disturbing parallel with the transition from Otto von Bismarck in the pre-World War I European setting and subsequently from the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany, which led to two world wars and caused horrific destruction to mankind.
To illustrate the change sweeping over the German ideology, in an interview with the weekly magazine Die Zeit in July, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (who is also the acting chairwoman of the ruling Christian Democratic Union party) stressed that it was “high time” to discuss “how Germany must position itself in the world in the future.”
She said Germany is “expected to show leadership, not only as an economic power,” but it also concerns “collective defense, it concerns international missions, it concerns a strategic view of the world, and ultimately it concerns the question of whether we want to actively shape the global order.” Plainly put, the German voice is no longer the voice of pacifism…
Suffice to say, 75 years after the end of World War II, German imperialism is stirring – and, once again, targeting Russia. A comprehensive militarization of society is back on the German agenda. Germany’s elites, as in the past, will stop at nothing to push forward the interests of German capital both at home and abroad.
Three features are to be noted here. As in Weimar Germany, right-wing extremist networks in Germany’s Bundeswehr (armed forces) and the security services have once again begun their operations largely unhindered by the German ruling elite. A comprehensive militarization of society is, once again, under way…
German-US tensions and the recently announced American troop withdrawal from Germany are in reality working as an excuse to accelerate Berlin’s rearmament plans…
But in truth, the withdrawal of troops opens up an opportunity: all those Realpolitiks, who for years have been speaking out against the partly pacifist, partly anti-American majority opinion in Germany, are now at an advantage for a change.
“Does it want to retain the comforting feeling of being a ‘peace nation’? Until now, this has meant that others have ensured peace. Or will the country come out from under the shadow which spreads from its past, and secure peace for itself and its European partners?”
The German public militates against war and militarism. The horrors of the world wars and the crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany on humanity are still in collective memory. What is taking place is that the return of German militarism comes exclusively from the ruling elites with strong backing from the industrial conglomerates that have a gory history as arms manufacturers and shameless record in war profiteering.
