Germany’s marked reluctance to supply Leopard 2 tanks to help Ukraine repel the brutal Russian invasion has very little to do with the feeble evasions and excuses offered by Berlin, and everything to do with the long shadows cast by German history.
January 30 sees the 90th anniversary of Adolf Hitler becoming Germany’s Chancellor, yet the 12 brief years of Nazi rule inflicted such deep wounds on the country and the wider world that they have dictated German policy ever since.
Whole generations have grown up in Germany since 1945 who despise and distrust armies and the concept of military force
Another imminent anniversary – next Friday’s International Holocaust Day – commemorates the ultimate crime of Hitler’s regime, a crime that was facilitated by Germany’s invasion and conquest of European countries. This is exactly the same illegal act now being attempted by Vladimir Putin’s armies in Ukraine.
So it is extraordinary that the current German government does not see the exact parallel between Putin’s aggression and Hitler’s attempt to subjugate the continent, which triggered the second world war – and act accordingly in conjunction with its allies to release the Leopard tanks.
Instead, the coalition led by Olaf Scholz is dragging its feet and offering up a series of transparently flimsy reasons why even the tanks it has already sold to states like Poland under export licence cannot be offered to Ukraine to defend the freedom and independence of a sovereign European nation.
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