Chancellor of the Downfall
How German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is maneuvering the once fourth strongest economy in the world ever further toward irrelevance.
Olaf Scholz’s genuflection before US imperialism is destroying peace in Europe and Germany’s industrial base. “The Federal Chancellor determines the guidelines of politics,” says the German “Grundgesetz” [Basic Law/Constitution]. Olaf Scholz is the ninth incumbent after World War II. And it is already clear that he will be the chancellor of decline.
An article by Oskar Lafontaine, former Chairman of the SPD and former Minister of Finance of Germany. – English translation by DeepThought.
Konrad Adenauer stood for integration with the West, Ludwig Erhard for the social market economy. Kurt Georg Kiesinger, the first chancellor of a grand coalition, was controversial because of his NSDAP membership. Willy Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his policies on East Germany and détente. Helmut Schmidt, together with Giscard d'Estaing, called for the coordination of the economic policies of the major industrialized nations, and Helmut Kohl became the chancellor of reunification. Gerhard Schröder’s term in office was marked by Agenda 2010, the rejection of the war in Iraq and the expansion of the energy partnership with Russia.
Callous sanctions cynicism
Angela Merkel organized the nuclear phase-out after Fukushima, abolished compulsory military service and opened Germany’s borders to more than a million refugees under the slogan »We can do it.« Scholz stands for the deindustrialization of Germany, the resurgence of militarism and the farewell to Willy Brandt’s policy of East and détente.
It is true that he was not responsible for NATO’s eastward expansion, which U.S. politicians such as George Kennan and the current head of the CIA, William Burns, warned would lead to war. But the end of the energy partnership with Russia is on his account. A German chancellor must know that an industrial nation needs cheap energy and raw materials to compete internationally, and that no other state in the world can replace Russian energy and raw material supplies at comparable prices. Since he sets the policy guidelines, he also cannot hide behind his Economics Minister Robert Habeck, who justified the energy sanctions as follows:
»Of course, we are hurting ourselves [. . .] The point of sanctions is that a society [. . .] bears burdens [. . .] Everybody will have to contribute [. . .] We will have higher inflation, higher energy prices and a burden on the economy, and we are ready as Europeans to bear those to help Ukraine. There will be hardships, and the hardships will have to be borne.«
Scholz should have recognized where this callous cynicism leads. German industry is relocating its production abroad, preferably to the USA or China, where energy costs account for only one-fifth or one-third of German energy costs. Companies that can’t do that are cutting production and eliminating jobs.
I don’t know how much time Olaf Scholz has for reading. But the infamous speech by U.S. geostrategist George Friedman to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in 2015 must be familiar to any German politician who wants to be taken seriously. For over a hundred years, Friedman argued, the goal of U.S. policy has been to prevent German industry from merging with Russian raw materials:
»United, the two countries are the only power that can threaten us, and our interest is that this does not happen.«
That is why the U.S. built a security belt between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and why the U.S. could not leave Ukraine to the Russians.
»The cards are on the table. The Russians at least want to have a neutral Ukraine, not a pro-Western one. We want a security belt. Anyone who can tell me how the Germans are positioning themselves on this issue can also tell me how history will be written in the next twenty years.«
Willy Brandt’s wise words
So, already eight years ago, the US strategist George Friedman said that it was up to the Germans when the US started to develop Ukraine into its military outpost. And it is a tragedy for Ukraine, for Russia, for Germany and Europe that Olaf Scholz was the German chancellor during the decisive phase of the U.S. attempt to turn Ukraine into a U.S. vassal, because Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl or Schröder would not have allowed the wanton abandonment of Germany’s Ostpolitik, détente policy and energy partnership with Russia. Men make history for better or for worse, and pictures sometimes say more than words. Unforgettable is the press conference at which Joe Biden announced the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stood by, smiling sheepishly like a whipped dog.
Just as the genuflection in Warsaw led to the fact that “the name of our country and the concept of peace can once again be mentioned in the same breath” (Willy Brandt), the genuflection of Olaf Scholz before US imperialism destroyed peace in Europe and the German industrial base.
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This article first appeared in German on weltwoche.ch.
It is up to Ukraine and Ukraine only, to determine its future. Neither Ukraine nor its people belong to Russia.
If Germany is so myopic and foolish to depend on a totalitarian state for its energy “because it’s cheaper”, then Russia can and will control Germany at any time it so chooses.