Thread by @CurrywurstRep

War, Haunted Pasts, Historical Debts, and Arrogance

A good argument is irresistible. Especially a bitterly-fought one replete with personal attacks, which, although it might be a little uncomfortable to watch at times, . . . a 🧵 1/
#AnneWill #Germany #Ukraine #MelnykAndrij

is much like the proverbial train wreck, impossible not to watch.

What about an argument about life and death, or guilt and obligations, or the fundamental value of human life? An attention-getting event, certainly. More on that in a moment. 2/

The Ukraine war has thrown harsh light on many faulty and dysfunctional notions about how to deal with international conflicts. Nowhere is this more true than Germany, where the “peace through trade with Russia” policy of and yes, Merkel, turned out to be an utter disaster. 3/

German politicians and thinkers have struggled to find the right new direction, and this struggle erupted May 8 on the Anne Will talk show on German television, in a verbal cage match between:
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--HARALD WELZER, social critic and professor, representing post-war German pacifism, and against arming Ukraine;

--RUPRECHT POLENZ, a CDU politician with centrist views, who supports arming Ukraine; and

--ANDRIJ MELNYK, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany
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The show took place after Chancellor Scholz’s speech that same day, and Welzer criticized it as “highly indifferent” and clarifying nothing about the Ukraine policy.

Ambassador Melnyk also remarked on the muddled nature of the Scholz speech, but then moved to his point ...
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—the opposite of Welzer’s BTW—and complained that despite Scholz’s promises, there had been “no movement” by Germany on actually providing weapons to Ukraine in weeks, and Scholz’s promises seemed empty.
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Melnyk then struck the first big blow of the evening, recounting how during WW II the Allies gave the Soviet Union 14,000 planes, 8,000 tanks (Panzer), and 7,000 flak guns, yet now with modern Germany they were “arguing over seven howitzers.”
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In other words: “What the Allies did is how you defeat Fascists and despots, like Hitler and Putin. Not what you’re doing.” Melnyk of course was very conscious that he was speaking on May 8, the day Germans commemorate the liberation of their country from Nazi control.
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Welzer (the professor), turned pedantic and . . . arrogant, mansplaining to everyone that they were dealing with a "process of violence", with a "tendency to escalate." He quoted Juergen Habermas’ recent article on Ukraine (see post about that here)
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#Habermas #Welzer

... arguing that “a war against a nuclear power cannot be won, in the usual sense.”

“Wrong!” countered Polenz, with examples; Vietnam for the Amis, Afghanistan for everyone, including the Soviet Union.

And sure, Polenz said, you can call this a process of violence, but ...
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... “I would more clearly call it a war of aggression!” Polenz went on: “When Putin talks about de-Nazification, he means that every Ukrainian who doesn’t identify as Russian, is a Nazi.” And those Ukrainians are being sent to prison camps and end up somewhere in Siberia.”
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Well. . . it’s difficult not to understand this as a subtle call to the cultural memory of German POWs who disappeared into the camps of Siberia after the war, many not returning. Something older voters in DE (CDU?) might care about.
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#Siberien #Siberia

Welzer countered with an academic argument about the logic of an arms race, but Ambassador Melnyk jumped in--“It’s very simple for you to sit in your professor’s office and philosophize!”

And from Melnyk, “You want Ukraine to give up, because Russian has nuclear weapons.
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... That means a war against Russian cannot be won, no matter what. That’s wrong! . . . What you are saying is morally depraved!”

Welzer, offended that his logic about the “process of violence” had been questioned, went ad hominem and said to Melnyk, ...
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... “I’ve noticed that you [Melnyk] often get unbelievably aggressive with your counterparts in a discussion.”

Welzer dipped into postwar history, arguing that for the many Germans against supplying heavy weapons, perhaps they have memories of losses from “war experience” ...
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... in their families. He pointed to Richard von Weizsaecker’s well-known speech on May 8, 1985. Weizsaecker, whose own father had been convicted at Nuernberg as a war criminal, said that May 8th should be celebrated as the “Day of Liberation,” instead of the Day of Defeat.
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Welzer went on and admonished the Ambassador: “You should listen to others more and not comment so much.” (Yikes...)

Of course, the issue here is Welzer lecturing the Ambassador from Ukraine about “war experience.” As if WW II had not been a “war experience” for Ukrainians?
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At first, Ambassador Melnyk responded to Welzer's admonition to listen more: “I’m not a student.”

Then he took on the “war experience” point, saying d to Welzer, “Your ancestors exterminated 10 million Ukrainians. That is a debt! [Germany owes to Ukraine].”
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Ambassador Melnyk pressed forward, “Three weeks ago we submitted requests to the German government for [armored personnel carriers and tanks,] and they haven’t been approved. And I have doubts if it will ever happen.”

Does “Nie Wieder” mean anything Germany now? he asked.
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An astonishing debate on this May 8th, covering nuclear war, de-Nazification, Siberian prison camps, ivory tower academics, pompous rhetoric, escalations of all kinds, and historical debts of unimaginable magnitude. Whether “Nie Wieder” is an empty slogan.
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Taking this last point, there are two meanings of “Nie Wieder” now. “Never Again War”, in the true pacifist sense, that Germany will never start or contribute to the start of a war again. And “Never Again Auschwitz”, in the sense that Germany will act to stop/prevent ...
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genocide, when it can. It is this second meaning that the many of the Greens, A. Baerbock and R. Habeck among them, have adopted.
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#Gruene #Green #Baerbock #Habeck

And the first is the one which Olaf Scholz seemingly prefers, while the Greens, his coalition partners, are pulling him toward their side with all their might.
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#Scholz

The complete Anne Will program with Melnyk, Welzer, Polenz, and co. is here:

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