Throughout the war in Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has often drawn lines in the sand only to cave soon after. Berlin is once again saying it won’t go any further, ruling out the possibility of German boots on the ground. Presumably this means no to joining the current NATO contingent in Ukraine or backing the plan being bandied about for EU “peacekeeping forces.”
And once again, Scholz’s past is being resurrected putting pressure on his chancellorship. During his time as mayor of Hamburg, Scholz was involved in some shady dealings with a bank. Some background from Politico EU:
It became public earlier this month that police discovered €214,800 in a safe deposit box of Johannes Kahrs, a former lawmaker from the Social Democrats (SPD), Scholz’s party, who served as an adviser to Christian Olearius, head of Hamburg-based Warburg Bank, which is at the center of the scandal, while Scholz was still mayor of Hamburg in 2016.
According to media reports, Kahrs arranged meetings between Scholz and Warburg senior executives who were trying to get out of paying back €47 million in illegal tax refunds at the time. After those meetings, Hamburg tax officials revoked their demand that the bank pay back the money on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. A German court later reversed that decision and the bank has since repaid the funds.
The Hamburg regional parliament plans to summon Scholz for the third time this spring. And the center-right bloc in the Bundestag is also setting up its own investigation. That center-right CDU/CSU bloc is a strong backer of the war having submitted multiple parliamentary resolutions that would have Berlin send more heavy weapons to Ukraine.
The “Cum Ex” scandal, as it’s known, has been like a sword of damocles hanging over Scholz’s chancellorship. In January, the CDU and CSU were making noise about summoning Scholz before the finance committee. Trouble was they didn’t have the votes, but now the the CDU/CSU group, with the backing of the Left party reportedly do have enough to set up an investigative committee.
At that time Scholz was resisting sending (or granting permission for third countries to send) Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Of course, he eventually caved on the Leopard tanks once he got assurances that the US would also send Abrams tanks, which seemed more like an opportunity to save face rather than any concession on Washington’s part, especially seeing as the Abrams aren’t supposed to arrive in Ukraine until this fall.
The scandal also erupted again at the beginning of August.
That was when Scholz was dithering on sending more arms for Ukraine. By the end of the month he pledged to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” From Reuters:
Germany had undergone a “fundamental change of heart” in recent months on its military support for Ukraine, he said. “We will keep up this support, reliably and, above all, for as long as it takes,” he told the packed university audience.
His change of heart came despite members of his own party demanding an end to support of the war and to engage in negotiations with Moscow.
One year ago, Olaf Scholz was elected as the ninth German chancellor since World War II, and leads a “traffic-light coalition” of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) — named after the three parties’ signature colors of red, green and yellow.
During the election, Scholz’s opponents faced relentless scrutiny over plagiarism and gaffes while Scholz largely received a free pass over the cum ex corruption allegations, as well as his torture and political violence policies in the “gateway to the world” city. The next national election isn’t set to be held until 2025, but will Scholz’s coalition survive that long?
Increasingly public fights between the Greens and Scholz’s Social Democrats show that the relationship is on thin ice. With public money being thrown at the energy crisis after cutting off Russian gas and inflation taking its toll, the coalition is increasingly at odds over budget priorities.
A crisis meeting at the Chancellery at the end of March dragged on for three days, and no one emerged satisfied. Robert Habeck, Green federal minister of economic affairs and the country’s vice-chancellor, received the ultimate insult in western political circles these days: he was compared to Putin for his complaints about a lack of environmental progress.
A record high of 71 percent of the German public are not satisfied with the work of the federal government, according to the most recent Deutschlandtrend survey.
While the ruling coalition is at odds at home, there are questions abroad about who is really in charge of Berlin’s foreign policy: Scholz or his Green foreign secretary Annalena Baerbock who frequently undermines Scholz’s stated policies.
Baerbock, an overly confident and outspoken Atlanticist, has been one of the biggest proponents of German support for the Ukraine war and has helped undermine Scholz’s efforts to pump the brakes on that support. She favors a “feminist” interventionist foreign policy that aligns neatly with the US’ enemy list. She’s probably best well-known for her declaration that Europe is “at war with Russia” while addressing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in January.
Despite Baerbock trying to dictate policy towards Russia and China, Scholz for some reason has refused to dismiss her and instead has been reduced to “carefully” tallying her “mistakes.” All of this has created confusion abroad as to who is actually steering German foreign policy. As Le Monde notes:
As a not-very-vocal chancellor at the head of a raucous coalition, he has difficulty giving clear direction to his policy and is regularly overwhelmed by his ministers, with whom it is not always clear whether they are speaking for their party or for their country. His frequent disagreements with his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock (Greens), confuse their foreign counterparts.
While Scholz sometimes seems to change position by the week, Baerbock is consistently in line with Washington. She was the only chancellor candidate during the 2021 election who campaigned against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and is always one of the louder voices calling for Berlin to send more heavy weaponry to Kiev. She was an early advocate for the establishment of a special tribunal to bring Putin and his government to trial over the war.
Baerbock, whose introduction to transatlantic governance began with membership in the German Marshall Fund, the World Economic Forum’s Young Leaders Program and the Europe/Transatlantic Board of the Green Party’s Heinrich Böll Foundation, is the frequent recipient of glowing media reviews in both the US and Germany:
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 14, 2023
Or like this from the Washington Post, “Germany’s Green foreign minister is taking the lead on Ukraine:”
She did promise more weapons — which, she said, would help Ukraine “free its citizens who are still suffering under the terror of Russian occupation.” That was far more forceful than anything Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said in recent weeks. The war in Ukraine, it turns out, is Baerbock’s fight too — for the chance to become the next German chancellor.
The surprise visit to Kharkiv was Baerbock’s fifth to Ukraine since she took office at the end of 2021. She traveled therefor the first time in January 2022. Scholz, by contrast, needed five more months to make it to Kyiv, and only in response to considerable internal and external pressure.
Still, it’s somewhat shocking to see her with the highest approval rating of any of Germany’s main politicians, especially after she told German voters she doesn’t care about the toll her support for Ukraine takes on their lives and the country. (Germany might be able to avoid a recession this year as long as energy prices remain low but the long term prognosis is dire.)
And yet voters by and large agree with Baerbock’s hawkish stances on Russia and China.
According to the recent Deutschlandtrend survey, a majority of 47 percent (+3 compared to February) considers Berlin’s support for Ukraine appropriate. Only 31 percent think that supporting Ukraine with weapons goes too far while 16 percent believe Germany should do more to support Ukraine.
When asked to name the most trustworthy partner in the world, 59 percent of Germans said the US. Ukraine came in second at 47. China is considered an important foreign policy partner by only 8 percent of those polled.
Baerbock’s foreign ministry office is currently drawing up a new “China strategy” that is expected to adopt a much more hawkish stance against Beijing and one that is more in line with the wishes of Washington despite China being Germany’s largest trading partner.
Scholz, seemingly dragged along in Ukraine, is also bowing to Baerbock regarding China policy. It wasn’t long ago that Baerbock was leading a lone boycott of the Beijing Olympics while Germany and the EU shrugged.
Now Berlin is shifting its entire China strategy and participating in the Taiwan provocations. Beijing was unhappy when Germany’s education minister visited Taiwan at the end of March – the highest-level visit by a German official in 26 years.
And Scholz who formerly favored strong trade ties with China and courted Chinese investment is now parroting the US warnings that Beijing better not use force to alter Taiwan status quo. Should Berlin, having already severed its ties with Moscow, do the same with Beijing, the results could be devastating. A recent New York Times piece continues to push the narrative that by trading with China, Germany falls into a trap of “reliance” like it did by getting Russian energy. But the article also hits on what it would mean should Berlin sever its relationship with Beijing, including:
- “Germany depends on China to provide essential technology products, including mobile phones and LEDs, as well as raw materials, including lithium and rare earth elements.”
- “China has been Germany’s biggest trading partner for seven years in a row.”
- “German automakers, including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, sell roughly a third of all vehicles they produce in China — exceeding sales in all of Western Europe.”
- “A study by the Kiel Institute showed that decoupling from China would be very costly for all of Europe, but especially Germany, given the strength of its economic ties. Calculations by the institute, based on gross domestic product from 2019, showed that Germany could lose income worth more than €131 billion. And it could be even more if China retaliated.”
As the Global Times notes:
…the European economy is facing increasing challenges, including sustained inflation, labor shortages, high electricity prices, rising raw material prices, soaring government debt, and shrinking export markets. These have led to the stagnation of the European economy, which in turn seriously affects people’s livelihoods, threatens the long-term welfare system, and affects the fiscal capacity of various European governments. As Europe remains an important economic and trade partner of China, maintaining and developing economic and trade cooperation with China has become a vital choice for Europe to get out of economic difficulties.
…Meanwhile, strengthening transatlantic relations and relying more on the US has brought additional pressure to Europe and is not in its best interests. In order to advance strategic autonomy and safeguard its strategic interests, the EU needs to strengthen its relationship with China so as to break free from US control.
Scholz and Baerbock, while not in lockstep, are soldiering on nonetheless and taking all of Germany with them.
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Everything I just said in comment to the decoupling from Russia is applicable here ,times 10.
Economic suicide.
Very good piece, thank you. Baerbock is indeed a nasty piece of work.
Having lived here a long time and closely observing, I’d say that active and enthusiastic support for the war is not huge. Passive going along with it much more the mood.
Opposition is broader than it would appear. But hampered by lack of structures and channels (esp. Left Party paralysed by division on the question).
Also definitely positive rumblings on the labour front (though far behind France and UK).
Pro-war fanaticism and its embodiement,Annalena von Hindenbock, are popular with the people who matter: atlanticist economic elites and the deranged, but influential urban PMC (= Germany’s Müsliburgeoisie).
Is ” Müsliburgeoisie ” becoming a real word in Germany? Is it developed from the word ” Müsli ”
which I understand to be a kind of Swiss health-food cereal?
Müsli/Müesli is similar to granola. Cereal, bars, whatever. IDK how it’s now, but the word also used to be a nickname for vegans. “Müsli-Bourgeoisie” is kinda “granola middle class”. “Creative” or cushy office jobs, some eco/green activism, “simple living” (in a superficial way I’d argue), artsy, that type of thing.
Simple living in the sense that they can’t fit much more than a Murphy bed into that urban “apartment” of theirs anyways.
Vlad sent Baerbock (360 degrees!) a gift-boxed geometry kit, complete with compass and protractor.
These kinds of “progressive” politicians who have warped and/or hijacked the vector of the left toward a transnational corporate neoliberal and pro-war stance almost look like planned infiltrators. Real leftists like Corbin or Sanders or even Gabbard are being pushed aside while the anti union, pro big software, big pharma/agribusiness/oil transhumanists do their damage. Most “progressive” issues they follow curiously are wedge issues that focus on triggering people into cultural conflict.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like a nihilist thread holds everything together with a core objective of disruption and atomization. It appears to be spontaneous but I can see why some become enthralled with the idea of a malicious secret organized activity.
Also re Baerbock’s popularity: in the linked survey on “satisfaction” all but one of the listed politicians (covering the entire party spectrum) are net negative, many of them heavily. Baerbock gets 42+/50-. Only exception is Pistorius (Minister of “Defence”), who is new and has taken stick for opposing anti-Russian policies in the past.
Yeah it feels like the European left, perhaps with the exception of France, has gotten itself stuck adopting the idiocies that come out of USA. In particular after Trump got elected.
And the reason France is resistant is perhaps because much of it has already come and gone there, as the US stuff is reheated french fringe ideas and get recognized as such.
Anyone for “freedom fries?” Thanks for the memories.
Regarding digi_owl comment above, 7:10 am:
If I may ask a sincere question, why would these politicians, in Germany (and their peers elsewhere in Europe) be labeled as “left”? What is it that could or should be considered as “leftist” in their policies, ideology, proposals for society and the world? How are not the German politicians mentioned in the article rightwingers, members of a specific branch of current right wing politics?
Yes, I completely agree, characterizing liberalism, neo- or not, as being of the left, is increasingly — and I write this with all due respect, and restraint — causing great confusion, internally and outwardly. And it leads to the ridiculous: criticizing Biden or HRC or Obama or Trudeau… exposes one to accusations of supporting Trump (or Poilievre!), and being branded as right wing.
Stop it!
No, the policies are decidedly not leftist. But the parties the people that are members off started out on the political left and thus the labeling sticks.
But then i think Europeans are fully aware of political drift. Over here in Norway for example we have Venstre (Left), that these days are decidedly center-right in their politics. But back when they formed they were on the left side of politics, until the “scary communist” Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) was formed. Who themselves have been drifting ever more rightward in practice over the decades.
Yes, in a similar survey at the very end of March they asked the participants to “grade” politicians from +5 (appreciate/respect very much) to -5 (no respect at all). I’d argue that only Pistorius seems to be solidly in the positive.
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1817/umfrage/noten-fuer-spitzenpolitiker/
Baerbock favors a “feminist” Foreign Policy? And she hasn’t been removed from office for that “micro-aggression”? Seriously she was intolerably rude to the Chinese during her visit. And if the brightest light in the room in Germany is Scholz who even when he is not compromised can barely utter a coherent sentence against the likes of Baerbock, Germany is doomed.
That improbable couple could pretty much impersonate Emma and Charles Bovary in the Flaubert’s book. As I am not competent enough in English, I will copy-paste (with some adaptations) portions of the Wikipedia page on the novel…
If only Mr. Scholtz could bring himself to realize that , in this political relationship; he can be the shark and make her the suckfish if he wants to.
( Here is a bunch of images of remoras ( suckfish), some showing remoras stuck to sharks for a free ride.)
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrFFEZD7z1kibkG0wtXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZANMT0NVSTA4OV8xBHNlYwNzYw–?p=remora+fish+image&fr=sfp
A far more important meeting for the Chinese was held with Brazilian President Lula.
Oh and this one
https://de.rt.com/international/167860-putin-trifft-sich-mit-chinesischem-verteidigungsminister/
As for Baerbock most of the rest of the world sees her as Washington’s mouthpiece and any relevance Germany had on the International stage is being swept away.
Propaganda clearly works to convince people to hate certain countries and love others. It is not just Germany that is doomed, to echo the comment above.
Exactly. The tail wagging the dog. Opinions are formed by a controlled/controlling media and the population mostly regurgitates such ideas. What people actually think, we don’t know.
Yes, what you describe jumps out at the reader:
“When asked to name the most trustworthy partner in the world, 59 percent of Germans said the US. Ukraine came in second at 47. China is considered an important foreign policy partner by only 8 percent of those polled.”
Then:
“Germany depends on China to provide essential technology products, including mobile phones and LEDs, as well as raw materials, including lithium and rare earth elements.”
“China has been Germany’s biggest trading partner for seven years in a row.”
“German automakers, including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, sell roughly a third of all vehicles they produce in China — exceeding sales in all of Western Europe.”
“A study by the Kiel Institute showed that decoupling from China would be very costly for all of Europe, but especially Germany, given the strength of its economic ties. Calculations by the institute, based on gross domestic product from 2019, showed that Germany could lose income worth more than €131 billion. And it could be even more if China retaliated.”
People are left to imagine there are only 8% of Germans polled who are rubbing brain cells together to note that foreign policy has everything to do with the economy – especially when neoliberals are running wild.
The German Greens and their milieu really are hopeless. They may not all be tools of the U.S. Blob, but they sure act like it.
The Green-adjacent, formerly “alternative-left” daily newspaper Taz.de / die tageszeitung had an article on Friday glorifying Bellingcat, giving that spook op a tongue bath for their credulous “progressive” German audience.
https://taz.de/Bellingcat-Recherchen-zu-Pentagon-Leaks/!5928167/
Disgusting.
It’s not easy being Green-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRZ-IxZ46ng (2:10 mins)
But yes, the German Greens have gone full Neocon and their loyalties are certainly no longer in Germany. I think that they are looking for the Big Payout and the dismemberment of the Russian Federation was supposed to be it. Just goes to show you that if you pick the right people and spread the money around to the right people, you can subvert any organization. Look at the Democrats for example as well as the German Greens.
It may be that the Greens there, as much of the Cultural Left here, have become devoted to Wokeness Enforcement and multi-axial GenderSex Fluididity Display.
Putin and his United Russia have been mean and cruel to gay people and other members of the LGBTQetc. tendency. Therefor Putin and his United Russia ( and by extension Russia itself) are to be hated and reviled and warfared-against by proxy, in this case using Ukraine.
Or am I wrong?
Pretty much the pattern across Europe from what i can tell. At some point a bunch of post-war leftist got tired of the constant material struggles interfering with their cultural struggles, as they themselves were quite well off. So they co-opted or split from existing leftist parties and set about focusing on cultural issues. After the wall came down and USSR disintegrated, their “left” was the only one standing. And thus here we are.
thx for the taz-link
I assume the reporter just doesn´t know better and would see no reason to question urban legends re: Bellingcat.
(from the publishing list on taz she is no expert on this field.)
If one were to write her an extensive letter with multiple sources of proper evidence of the kind a journalist cannot ignore, I wonder what would she do or think.
But if you look at Holger Stark e.g. at DIE ZEIT, same thing. Long time “investigative” guy and still appears to believe any horse shit BND is telling him.
Trying to alienate China might just cripple what is left of the European economies but it seems that that is fine with Annalena Baerbock. if you watch those videos, she is deliberately trying to wreck German-China relations, especially when at about the 3:35 mark on the first video, she actually turns to her Chinese hosts to demand why they had not called off the Russians in the Ukraine as if they were the boss of them. That was both planned and practiced from what I can see and it would have gone down like a lead balloon in China itself. She has already said that she did not care what her voters wanted but would go her own way and it seems that she now wants to help throw the Chinese out of the EU. I rarely say something like this but I have been watching some of her videos and as we say where I live, she is “not the full quid.” Old Joe’s behaviour you can put down to malevolence and early senility but with Baerbock, there is a kind of blankness on her face when she talks that sets me on edge. Just my take here though I have to say.
With that line aboutn”feminist intervention”, I wonder how much of this behavior is a quest for a statue. It’s like the path to Catholic sainthood, behead enough people to scare the rest into conversion.
Defeating Russia is how they get a statue. Legislation tweaking policies put into place by Merkel doesn’t do anything for the statue seekers.
Come now, Germany has had much worse leadership over the last 120 years than Baerbock and Schultz. They are at best like a world-historical blister, and sure to be lanced after the chickens come home.
Here we would say “she doesn’t have two clues to rub together”.
Never fear, Baerbock is steering the ship, directly towards the iceberg, she know’s its the right one because its got swastikas all over it and occaisionally flies the OOcrainian flag of convenience. I think its great the way that the US in collusion with their trojan horses the greens, have agreed to destroy 80 years of hard, technological advance and manufacturing industry because, well, Murrica is exceptional and the piggies at the top of the Reichsbunker probably been promised a free weekend in Disneyland. When Germany goes, kiss goodbye to the EU, the only thing holding it together was Germany money (and cheap Russian energy) Both appear to be things of the past.
The Nazi roots of the German Greens – The Jerusalem Post
How Green Were the Nazis? The Nazis created nature preserves, championed sustainable forestry, curbed air pollution, and designed the autobahn highway network as a way of bringing Germans closer to nature.
Yeah, the nazis were all kinds of great. To the chosen few that is. The rest were to be either killed on sight or worked to death for their crime of simply existing. Rapturous eugenics are what they were.
were? If only it was so. No past tense in the article. :-(
My impression of Ms. Baerbock’s demeanor above is that she just got smacked around the room by China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang, a lifelong career diplomat with extensive experience in the West who has never been hesitant about calling-out the West’s failure to uphold its own professed ideals.
Baerbock is by all appearances a narcissistic self-promoter and a phony who has manipulated her way into a position for which she lacks bona fides. My older German friends are appalled by the hubris of the post-reunification generation. Baerbock’s demeanor while delivering her wooden canned lecture suggests that Minister Qin has just cut her down to size.
I’m sure that Minister Qin pointed out to her what the NYT piece in Saturday’s Links tells us: “Made in Germany” is running on brand fumes. The Chinese consumer is abandoning their over-priced and over-wrought products in favor of the sort of highly functional locally-produced goods that ironically formed the basis of the post-war wirtschaftswunder that the current generation is determined to squander. The difference between the honest and functional ‘60’s VW Beetle and a too-clever-by-half 21st century VW TDi programmed to defraud emissions testing.
‘a phony who has manipulated her way into a position for which she lacks bona fides’
Either that or else she was groomed and her ascent was “aided” by interested parties. This seems to be going on a lot judging by the number of shallow, inexperienced, vacuous people who are now leaders in their own countries. Robert Habeck seems to be of the same stamp too.
Agree re: Baerbock, but I know Germans are wicked good at making audio gear, not at all over-priced or over-wrought.
The WEF? High school in Florida. Attendance at London School of Economics. Plagiarism history. Cutish and young in comparison to most politicians. Covered in Bernays sauce. She could win an election in Santa Clara county in Ca. and she would fit into the View (one of the favorite morning TV shows of the Karens) in a heartbeat. Here in Bavaria the Greens are not all that popular except for the wives of the PMC class (even in my own family but I keep my mouth shut.) The voting strength is in NRW where their immigration promotion has a ready audience since so many PMCers are making a good living servicing the migrants and billing the government. We call it the Asylindustrie.. Anyone who disagrees with the Greens is a racist or MAGA Trumper. Unlike the US there are laws that severely limit free discourse even against the Ukraine war. As Sarrazin pointed out in his book ‘Deutschland schafft sich ab“Germany abolishes itself. And Sarrazin has been ostracized. The Greens are a very good approximation of the Democratic party in the US but because of the restrictive laws against dissent (Verfassungschutz) I would say better able to suppress dissent and opposition. As an example when there was an anti war rally in Berlin last month they had to project a video of Jeffrey Sachs laying out the facts rather than let any of the speakers say what Sachs said as a work around. The major papers and media are basically translators of the Times and the Washington Post. You Tube has some other voices thank goodness. It looks like the Morgenthau plan is working. Germany will become an agrarian society largely like Syria or Iraq but with no natural resources.
Baerbock reminded me of our own Liz Truss when she went to Moscow to lecture Lavrov, reading from her very serious script. What goes on in these people’s heads, it’s fascinating.
Well, to develop Don’s idea above, as we say ’round my way:
“If they have two ideas in their head, one is occupied with the question of where the other one came from ……..”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/publishing-magnate-mathias-doepfner-of-axel-springer-said-ossis-east-germans-are-either-communists-or-fascists-leaked-texts-show-f81d4060?mod=mw_latestnews/
Publishing magnate Mathias Doepfner of Axel Springer said Ossis — East Germans — are either communists or fascists, leaked texts show
“The chief executive and co-owner of media company Axel Springer apologized Sunday for making crude remarks about “East Germans” in text messages leaked to a rival newspaper.
German weekly Die Zeit quoted Mathias Doepfner as saying that “the Ossis are either communists or fascists.” The comments prompted sharp rebukes from officials in the east and calls for Doepfner to resign.
Ossi is an at times derogatory term for an East German.
East Germany and West Germany, as well as East Berlin and West Berlin, reunited in October 1990, a year after the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall.
In a short article for tabloid Bild am Sonntag, Doepfner, who was born in 1960 in Bonn, then the provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, expressed regret “that I have offended, unsettled or hurt many with my words.”
Doepfner said his remarks about East Germans were triggered by his anger at the large share of voters there who back the post-communist Left party or the far-right Alternative for Germany…”
Is Egon Krenz still alive? ( Who remembers Egon Krenz)? I wonder what he would think about all this stuff.
Wasn’t he the last leader of the DDR, right before die Mauer came down? Wikipedia says he’s still alive.
Yes. For a few days or a week or a month or something. Then he just quietly disappeared along with the GDR. Nobody seems to bother him because nobody seems to remember him.
Heh. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is exactly how he wants things.
Müsliburgeoisie — I love this word. So gemütlich, so much more expressive than “PMC”. Of course, it doesn’t have the cool robotic instrumentalism of a TLA, after all appropriate to designate our masters.
Don´t forget: 90% of German mass media are siding with Baerbock.
So shaping pro-Green support is easy.
I have said this in earlier months here, German Greens up and pro-war are both closely related with the structure of wealth.
The top 50% own 99,5% of wealth.
Or you could argue: Still too many Germans are too rich to oppose either the war or the Green Party.
Sad as it is.
But in the light of war – all the ridiculous chest-beating over Nazi-past since the break-through with the Auschwitz trials and the millions of books and smart speeches they are now but dust in the wind.
Scholz is aware of this structural stalemate as to voter base.
The only opposition power-grab were to appeal to the lower 50% .
But SPD won´t touch those.
So as to the surveys: They are most likely blank on the poorest 20%. And additionally many left conservatives have given up on the SPD and do not vote at all.
A big black spot we don´t know much about.
And spin-doctors will try to marginalize those even further.
that´s why Wagenknecht is feared.
What we are missing is a Willi Münzenberg 2.0