Expert Mölling: Vladimir Putin makes politics with German guilt

According to security expert Christian Mölling, the celebrations in Moscow for the victory over Nazi Germany 79 years ago were not just about history – but about tough politics that Vladimir Putin was making with Germany’s “special debt” to Russia. “Russia is making brutal use of this promissory note,” said the research director of the German Council on Foreign Relations on Friday star– “The situation – international”. According to Mölling’s assessment, the fact that, in addition to Russia, a large number of other countries east of the Oder were attacked by Hitler’s troops and suffered from German aggression in the Second World War has completely faded into the background in Germany. ” “It helps Russia enormously,” he said, referring to what he sees as the Germans’ selective memories. Mölling made it clear that Germany’s historical responsibility not only applies to Russia, but also to states such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine.

“Putin knows that everyone in Germany is jumping on it”

He viewed Victory Day on May 9th as an opportunity for Putin “to communicate in both directions; both to his own population and to the outside world – in our direction.” Putin was particularly targeting the Germans at the start of his new term in office The threat of nuclear weapons was used. “He wanted to wake everyone up, which he almost certainly succeeded in doing, because he knows that everyone in Germany will respond to it,” said Mölling in response to Putin’s reference to the operational readiness of the Russian nuclear arsenal.

The expert saw Putin’s statements on the history of both the Soviet Union and the Tsarist Empire primarily as an instrument of propaganda – although the Russian president did not have to fear that historians in his own country would point out questionable representations. Mölling recalled that even at the beginning of the major invasion of Ukraine, tanks had slogans like “We are going to Berlin”. This evoked associations with the famous image of the hoisting of the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building over the smoking rubble of Berlin in 1945. ” Everyone has the picture in their mind,” he said. This type of historical memory is “something that can be turned up and down as rhetoric. But it is extremely helpful because everyone can agree on it.”