Germany with its EU hegemony is forcing the union to adopt its self-harm policies
Mathew D. Rose is an Investigative Journalist specialised in Organised Political Crime in Germany and an editor of BRAVE NEW EUROPE
Every year in February the Germans celebrate their Carnival. It is an occasion where the Germans drop many of their inhibitions and simply celebrate. This is a time where the “little people” supposedly set the agenda, including their political perception. With regard to politics it is supposed to be slightly irreverent towards the establishment. On the other hand, it takes the pulse of the nation. On the last couple of days of carnival there are massive parades with floats, which epitomise how the Germans see the world. Here some of the most popular:
There were, as far as I know, no floats concerning Israel’s genocide in Gaza, nor that Germany is the only nation up to now that is supporting Israel’s case against South Africa concerning this genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Nor were there any floats concerning cuts in the German budget to support the lost war in Ukraine, the tens of thousands of dead Ukrainian soldiers past and present in a proxy war where they no longer have anything to win and still much to lose.
And Putin has never said that he planned to conquer the whole of Ukraine, much less any NATO member states.
These days the truth does not count for much in Germany. Russophobia and Islamophobia dictate the discourse. These floats accurately convey the massive propaganda with which the Germans are currently being bombarded. In fascism truth is irrelevant and opposing opinions are crushed. Bertrand Russell once said: “First, they fascinate the fools. Then, they muzzle the intelligent.” This has been occurring in Germany for years now. In the internet I could not find any criticism of these floats. Germans will claim that anyone can freely voice their opinion in Germany. Not when they live in fear of doing so, as students of fascism well know. Nor was that the case for Hadas Weiss, a Jew, who was arrested in Berlin a week after carnival for carrying this placard at a pro-Palestinian demonstration (purportedly Germany’s Jews represent 1% of its population, but 37% of those arrested for antisemitic offences since Oct 7th). As Hannah Arendt wrote of the Germans and what enabled their genocide: “…the conviction that nothing less than going beyond the call of duty will do”.
Two figures who personify this development in German best are the nation’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Both have been extremely vociferous in their support of Israel’s genocide, referring to it euphemistically as “The right to defend itself”. They have both been at the forefront in supporting the proxy war in Ukraine. Both are vehement proponents of massive increases in expenditures for armaments – in Germany and the EU. Both have driven Germany and the EU to geo-political irrelevance. As a result German and EU diplomats have lamented the loss of any moral credibility in the Global South.
Von der Leyen, continues her bellicose juggernaut. Herself a complete failure as German Defence Minister, more concerned with milking the ministry’s web of corruption than creating a potent military deterrent, recently called for the creation of an EU authority to incentivise Europe’s defence industry that is currently enjoying massive profits to ramp up production and promote consolidation. This would mean redirecting funds from other policy areas, as was the case earlier this month as EU states agreed to contribute a fresh €1.5bn to a defence fund, partly by cutting spending on health and research. It would however bring a lot of bung to Brussels and the Commission. The leopard does not change her spots. However, due to hopes of being re-elected as European Commission president, von der Leyen has muted her support of Israel’s genocide, especially following harsh criticism from EU nations for her unauthorised reckless genocidal statements.
Butcher Baerbock’s policies have been carbon copies of the US. Germany’s foreign policy is diplomacy free. Punishment through death and destruction are her imperative. Lecturing world leaders on morals and democracy her lodestar. With her moral posturing she plays to her claquers: Germany’s metropolitan middle class. Max Weber would say: “it is practising ethics of conviction from a high horse instead of ethics of responsibility. And instead of realpolitik.”
As already mentioned, Germany is currently not only the only nation supporting Israel at the ICJ, but after the US, the second major supplier of arms to Israel – and Ukraine for that matter too. Germany has provided €28bn in aid to Ukraine, with a further €7bn in the pipeline this year. Not only are her actions reprehensible, they are geopolitically foolish. Her goal is not to serve the interests of the German people, the EU, or humanity, but to prove Germany’s fealty to the United States, a mistake many have made before her.
But Germany’s drift into fascism is not only a question of foreign policy, it is an expression of current crises in politics and economics that are spilling out into the EU. Seeing that Germany is the hegemon and paymaster of the EU, this is already having major consequences.
Germany’s current government is the most unpopular in the nation’s postwar era. The so-called traffic signal coalition comprised of Social Democrats, Greens, and Liberals was ushered into power with 52 percent of the popular vote. Currently it is polling at round 30%. This is no wonder as it has failed colossally on all fronts. Its much heralded Climate Programme is in tatters, as it attempted to use neo-liberal policies to finance it. As Macron had learnt with the Gilletes Jaunes movement, this can result in a massive pushback. And it did. This same approach was carried over into EU policy resulting in European wide farmer protests. French farmers were able to stop the Mercosur trade agreement, better known as “low tariffs for Germans cars in return for cheap agricultural imports to Europe”, including allowing South American farmers to use less expensive toxic pesticides on products bound for the EU that are forbidden in Europe.
Never to forget were the moments when German politicians, led by Butcher Baerbock, declared that Putin (not Russia) would be forced to his knees, if not assassinated by his own people, with the introduction of sanctions. While the Russian economy is flourishing, Germany’s is going into recession. Then there has been the humiliation of having Germany’s Nordstream pipeline blown up by the US. Ukraine is losing the war despite all the Wunderwaffen delivered by Germany, the US, and the other NATO nations. Germany is being taken to the International Court of Justice as an accomplice to Israel’s ongoing genocide. The list goes on.
The resulting unpopularity is having horrendous consequences for Germany and the EU. The Liberals (FDP) have reached a nadir where their existence is threatened. At the moment the FDP would not have enough votes to re-enter the Bundestag. This is also the case in the parliaments of the federal states. German Liberals, since decades the party of corruption, know that the gravy train could well be nearing its end. They have gone over to panic clearance-sale mode. Policies are being sold to the highest bidder. This does not only effect Germany, but the EU as well. As there must be a consensus among the German coalition with regard to EU laws up for consideration in the European Council, the FDP is now erratically opposing many of these, even some Germany has supported up to now, resulting in an abstention. Under EU rules, the Council can only approve legislation if states representing 65% of a population share of the EU vote in favour. Germany as the largest EU nation has round 19% of those votes. Many East European nations are just as purchasable as the FDP so that lobbyists have little difficulty in obtaining enough votes to block the adoption of legislation. We are currently seeing this with the EU’s new supply chain law, regulations to cut emissions in heavy duty vehicles, and the recent defeat of the Platform Work Directive. There is more to come.
While the Social Democrats and Greens deplore this situation, there is not much they can do. They cannot threaten the FDP with new elections as they would do poorly as well. According to the newest polls, the Social Democrats would obtain only round 15 percent of the vote, a loss of 40 percent compared to the previous election – and their current trajectory in downwards. The Greens may be faring better in the polls, but usually when it comes time to actually vote, they receive many less votes than these polls predicted.
But is not only the coalition parties that are having problems. The Christian Democrat’s polling has not increased as much as one would expect with the coalition on the ropes. This has to do with its unpopular leader Friedrich Merz. Another is the rise of the far-right AfD, according to polls the second strongest party after the Christian Democrats consistently with round 20 percent. It is on course to win three state elections in September.
The recent creation of the BSW “peace party” around the Leftist Sarah Wagenknecht is already nearing the 10 percent. Add to this a further new Far-Right party, the Werte Union (Values Union), consisting of ultra-conservative Christian Democrats discontent with the centrist policies of their party and Merz. It may not have the success of the BSW, but could cost the Christian Democrats a few valuable percentage points, not to mention donors. In other words, German politics is fluid as it has not been since the war.
This will become visible at the upcoming EU parliamentary elections in June. These elections are usually seen as a means of protesting against the established parties, as most German do not care about the EU (voter participation was just 60 percent in 2019), nor do they know, like most Europeans, what it does. In the 2019 election miniscule political parties such as the Animal Protection Party (1), the Pirates (1), or the humour “The Party” (2), obtained nine of the 96 seats. The AfD could for this reason reach 25 percent. We might even find that the traditional German political parties together will not even garner 50 percent of vote casts .
Then there is the far-right AfD. The dimensions of this carnival float implying a vast majority being against the far-right is probably not correct.
One can assume that between a quarter and a third of the German population harbour far-rightist sentiments and there are many opportunists waiting in the wings. They however are not the only threat to Germany’s political system. Between the endemic racism and euphoria with regard to the Ukraine war and genocide in Gaza, both of which have resulted in radical curtailment in the basic democratic right of free speech, a new fascist movement has risen, especially in the Green party. It is defined by fear, panic, self-deceit, and reaction. Many forget that Hitler too was a vegetarian, loved animals, and supported genocide. After curbing free speech, many of them are now calling for the ban of the AfD. Legally questionable, forbidding the second strongest party in Germany with such strong support would require an extremely repressive regimen, but fascists know no moral, legal, or democratic limits as we are seeing in Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
Despite this political fragmentation that some are comparing to the Weimar period, I have never witnessed German society so unified, from the Radical Left to the Far Right, in its support of Israel’s horrific atrocities. That this is an atavistic phenomenon was recently pointed out by the Lebanese-Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage, himself dismissed this month from the German Max Planck Institute for what Hitler’s grandchildren have determined are anti-Semitic statements and publications. Hage wrote recently on twitter: “When you transfer this political affect from the category ‘Jude’ to the category ‘Antisemite’, an incredible historical tour de force as this may be, you are not critically dealing with your fascist past, you are preserving one of its key affective components.“
Some German intellectuals are becoming nervous, noticing that their fanaticism is not shared by much of the world – even in NATO nations. Their increasing isolation due to developments at the International Court of Justice is worrying. “Strike Germany” (a call for a boycott of German cultural institutions due to their support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and discrimination against the Palestinian and pro-ceasefire artists and intellectuals) is a further uncomfortable development for these German who always want to be seen as “good”. Still, at the regular Saturday demonstrations in support of Palestine in Berlin, of the two or three thousand participants maybe one hundred have white skin and many of those do not speak German with one another. In short, a German majority stands behind Israel’s genocide or in fear looks away and remains silent.
Another element causing much discontent in Germany is the handling of the economy by the political class, which is dictated by a staunch neo-liberal commitment. According to the highly respected think tank DIW the war in Ukraine has has already cost the nation round 250 billion euros with major consequences for the economy. Germany is the world’s worst performing major economy. German mainstream media puts a lovely spin on it though, proclaiming that Germany is reducing its energy consumption and CO² emissions. This is not really surprising as the country is in recession of its own doing and much of its deindustrialisation is in branches that use great amounts of energy and oil. A considerable reduction in real per capita incomes as a result of the increasing prices of energy and food has hit low income groups especially hard, having to decide between eating and heating. Many of these have furthermore suffered under Germany’s egregious greedflation that has been especially virulent with regard to food prices. With regard to productivity and investment, many German companies are investing in the USA to cash in on the IRA subsidies or in nations with cheaper energy prices, not in Germany. Germany has also been the principle proponent in the EU of high interest rates, which has dampened investment further. At the same time it is following an intransigent austerity policy, which will further depress the economy, as it has in the past, leaving Germany with a crumbling infrastructure, high energy costs, weak digitisation, sinking domestic demand, not to mention a record drop in housing and commercial property prices. It is not even a year since the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, promised the Germans a second Wirtschsaftswunder. Maybe the Germans can be kept sweet with Russophobia and Islamophobia, a “Total War” in Ukraine, as well as with Israeli genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank. Time will tell.
Maybe when the Nazis took power in Germany almost exactly 91 years ago it was not a traumatic experience for most Germans as we have been led to believe, but a catharsis.
For the rest of the European Union it is another matter. Germany with its hegemony is forcing the union to adopt these same self-harm policies, something the greater portion of the corrupt EU political class appears happy to follow. But then many did the same after Nazi Germany had conquered Europe.
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