Germany’s progressives have a Putin problem

Eighty-nine years ago this week, the German Social Democrats in the Reichstag cast the only votes opposing Adolf Hitler’s dictatorial power grab, the Enabling Act. Today’s SPD members often cite that moment as the proudest in their party’s 146-year history. With a memory like that, there is something awkward about the current SPD Chancellor’s position. Olaf Scholz is now having to come to terms with decades of SPD appeasement towards the dictator in Moscow.

Before Putin’s invasion, Russian doves could be found across the German political spectrum, but Scholz’s now-ruling SPD has an especially long and developed history of Kremlin cosiness. The party has been at the centre of German foreign policy decisions for over two decades, governing as a junior partner for 12 of the 16 years of Merkel’s CDU chancellorship. Three out of her five foreign ministers were Social Democrats.

Overnight, Scholz has become the most hawkish SPD politician in living memory.