Thread by @weegeedutchie

How Germany became the scapegoat of Europe - the Leopard saga. A story of false narratives, desinformation and outright hate.

Thread

1. After the Marder announcement at the start of the year, a frustrated Polish government decided they had to pledge something fenomanal aswell. They had right the thing - Leopard tanks. Ukraïne had asked for them.

2. The announcement at January the 5th was that Poland would deliver Leopards. The condition - only as part of a broader coalition. The announcement was done hastily, without preparation, and Poland hadn't build a "broad coalition" beforehand.

3. Some nations owning Leopards, like Austria, had done very little for Ukraïne. Export license owner Germany insisted on no alleingang and had to scrape those Leopards together. Finland talked about Leopard delivery, but took the same approach as Poland (coalition).

4. However, Germany was gladly prepared to allow Poland a delivery of the Leopards. Vice Chancellor Habeck, the responsible minister, was open to the idea. He immediately said the Polish government could make an export-request which his department would rubberstamp.

5. Morawiecki realized he had been to hastily with his announcement. Among European countries owning Leopards, there was no wide spread support for Leopard delivery. Thus there was no coalition which would rally around him to secure a large amount of Leopards. So what to do?

6. Well, the Polish government simply didn't follow up on its earlier pledge to deliver Leopards and as such it didn't submit a re-export request. No Leopards would be delivered, no export requests were sent to Germany.

7. With PiS still calling for Leopards without receiving broad support, the Polish government decided to repeat the pledge at the 11th of January. According to Duda, the Polish govt would sent a company of Leopards on the condition of acting within a broad coalition.

8. Again, PiS called into the void. No coalition came to existence because there was no wide spread support for Leopard delivery. Only Finland responded it'd be prepared to deliver Leopards, also within the framework of a coalition.

9. Good old Britain tried a futile attempt to rally a coalition by delivering a symbolic amount of Challengers. It was received with much cheer in Europe, but no Leopard owner followed with a re-export request to deliver Leopards, no coalition came to existence.

10. It was after the 11th of January, when media, twitter and a set of hostile think tanks started to develop a narrative in which they put all blamee on Germany. The claim was that Poland would be ready to deliver, but was still waiting for a green light from Berlin.

11. It was a fake story. Poland hadn't submitted a re-export request in the first case. There was nothing to give a green light to. Moreover, Habeck had already told that his department would not stand in the way.

12. To paint Germany in an even worse light, the media and hostile think tanks shaped a narrative about how a so called coalition - which didn't exist, as PiS wasn't delivering Leopards exactly because there was no coalitiom - was all waiting on Berlin to give a green light.

13. Germany, meanwhile, had still not received a re-export request, so it simply couldn't approve Leopard deliveries. The inaction of the German government as a consequence of having received no re-export request, was explained by bad faith actors as blocking and stalling.

14. With said narrative deeply imprinted in media, twitter and think tanks, things came to a head with the Ramstein conference.

15. Prior to the Ramstein conference, different Leopard-nations had excluded Leopards from their new aid packages. Neither Sweden nor Denmark included Leopards, Spain outright refused, Canada wasn't ready and so forth. The Talinn iniative had achieved little and was minority.

16. This should've alarmed everybody of one thing. There wasn't much support among allies for delivering Leopards - the Dutch PM Rutte had said it earlier quite clearly. It was sensitive, he said, so it wasn't "just Germany". Nobody listened to him.

https://twitter.com/weegeedutchie/status/1615640735889367040?t=d1ScG4Tj-u4SlsEXf6prXg&s=19

17. Because in the alternative Twitter/think tank reality, an almost demonic hate towards Germany had been unleashed. To them, Germany was blocking the (non-existent) coalition from delivering the Leopard tanks of which no re-export request had ever been submitted.

18. Perfectly reasonable people lost self control and went into a rage - shouted loudly how they hated those pro-Russian stooges in Berlin. The German arms industry, delivering quality weapons, was deemed unreliable, one of the many desperate attempt to harm the country.

19. As expected, during the Ramstein conference, there came no agreement to existence on Leopard deliveries. This was already clear considering some countries had excluded Leopards from their aid packages prior to the Ramstein conference (see tweet 15).

20. Pistorius, Germany's new Defence minister, could only conclude the lack of consensus would require the delegates to hold talks at home - the decision making had to be delayed. Nevertheless, he promised in any case to make inventory of what Germany would be able send.

21. But on twitter, the Germany hate, encouraged by think tanks, reached new heights. According to some, the fact no decision had been taken at the Ramstein conference, had only been Germany's fault.

22. At last - one journalist of the ZDF was confronted with the truth, after the American Defence Minister called Germany a reliable ally. The people, who'd been sinking away in the reality they'd created themselves, couldn't believe their ears.

https://twitter.com/alanisalegend/status/1616516484053798927?t=nrleetyZlmsGlj0FyS8-gQ&s=19