German promise of cautious military leadership at odds with actions

Thanks to Adolf Hitler, the self-styled Nazi “Führer”, the German verb to lead — führen — has been contaminated since 1945.

But the passage of time — and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February — has triggered a “watershed” here, even on the idea of German leadership. First came a €100 billion defence spending fund, announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz days after the invasion. Now comes a watershed discussion, triggered by defence minister Christine Lambrecht about Germany’s role as a military power.

“Germany’s size, its geographical location, its economic power — in short, its weight — make us a leading power, whether we like it or not — also in the military arena,” said Lambrecht in a keynote address on a new national security strategy — Germany’s first. That is itself an indication of where, 77 years after the Nazi dictatorship’s defeat and 67 years after joining Nato, Germany finds itself on military matters.

For Lambrecht, this debate will not succeed simply by boosting budgets for the Bundeswehr armed forces. Just as important, she says, is to change how Germans view their military: as a guarantor of, not a threat to, peace.

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While she left her audience guessing as to how she plans to change pacifist hearts and minds, the idea of reluctant German leadership or “leading from behind” is not new. In the euro crisis, for instance, former chancellor Angela Merkel was always careful to build a broad alliance of support before acting.

Today’s hunt for a new role for Germany — commensurate with ability, interests and others’ expectations — begs a key question: is Berlin talking about military leadership in theory, tomorrow — or leadership today, in Ukraine?

On Monday Scholz insisted that Germany had already provided “far-reaching support” for Ukraine — from rockets to anti-aircraft systems — but to expect no military solo runs from Berlin.

Along with the US and other Nato allies, Scholz officials insist Germany will not supply Kyiv directly with combat tanks or other heavy arms.

That approach reflects thinking in Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). In light of recent Russian strategic losses, senior SPD officials warn of doing anything that might cause Moscow to “act completely irrationally and attack other countries”.

The SPD’s junior coalition partners see the Russian strategic defeat very differently, with Green Party co-leader Ricarda Lang insisting that “the time for hesitancy has passed, more must be delivered” to Ukraine.

With an eye on a chilly winter ahead, however, German support for supplying heavy weaponry to Ukraine has shrunk from 58 per cent in June to 32 per cent now, while 77 per cent think the west should start negotiations with Russia for a peace deal.

Just a quarter of Germans in an RTL television poll think they should be doing more — similar to the number who think they are already doing too much for Ukraine.

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The push to discuss German leadership has so far avoided answering an awkward historical question: given its past, how much is Germany not just expected but obliged to do to secure peace in Europe and to push back against the rise of fascism today?

On Monday, Scholz, accompanied by his Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, visited the Wannsee villa near Berlin where, in 1942, the Holocaust was agreed and planned by Nazi leaders.

The chancellor said that, for Germany, “it is very, very important” to continually foster historical awareness of Nazi war times.

Last March, though, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called out Germany on this, in particular its post-1945 “no more war” mantra. In a video address to the Bundestag parliament, he said: “We now see that the words ‘no more war’, repeated for 80 years, really mean nothing.”

The president told Scholz: “Give Germany the leadership role it has earned so that your descendants will be proud of you.”

Echoing his words on Tuesday, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that, behind Germany’s refusal to send battle tanks to boost Kyiv’s counter offensive, were “abstract fears and excuses”.

For seasoned political observer Albrecht von Lucke, of the political journal Blätter journal, Germany’s new ambitious defence rhetoric remains at odds with its practical reticence.

The latter, he says, is “motivated by fears of Germans — that are not without reason — of the war spreading,” he said. “But if Berlin can’t tackle this discrepancy then it cannot fill the leadership role it is claiming for itself.”