By Michael von der Schulenburg* – Article sent to Other News by the author*
When, in 1945 – immediately after the end of the Second World War on the European continent (in Asia, it lasted longer) – the delegates of the 50 Allied states met and agreed on the Charter of the United Nations outlining the foundations for a peaceful post-war order, Germany was still an enemy state. It was not until 1972 that the two German states were admitted to the United Nations community. And it took until 1994 for the Enemy State clauses in the Charter relating to Germany, among others, to be declared “obsolete” by the UN General Assembly. However, they were not removed from the Charta. They are, hence a lasting reminder that the Charter was created in response to Germany’s guilt for the Second World War and the horrific war crimes it committed during that time.
The UN-Charter should dominate German’s Foreign and Security policies
Germany should not forget this and its foreign and security policies should hence be led by the peace imperative of the UN-Charter and the international law that is based on the Charter – and not, as it claims, by any dubious “rules-based international order” who mostly serves to cover double standards in world politics. And given the negative role Germany played in the two world wars, it should never consider preparing for war again and solely focus its considerable wealth and energies in preventing wars or in finding negotiated solutions to on-going wars. In the context of the Ukraine war and the wars in the Middle East, the German government and its Chancelor Merz appear to have all this thrown overboard and turned into the dominant war mongering actor in Europe once again that massively rearms and prepares for a war against Russia while refusing negotiating with Russia. Has a reunified Germany dropped all pretext to adhere to the principles set out in the UN-Charter?
The preamble to the Charter refers to the two world wars, and speaks of saving future generations from the scourge of war, which has twice in our lifetime brought untold suffering to humankind. Germans should feel particularly addressed here, as many of their ancestors bore heavy responsibility for the unspeakable suffering caused during the thirty-one years of war between 1914 and 1945.
It was Germany’s declarations of war on Russia on 1 August 1914 and on France two days later that escalated a local conflict in the Balkans into the First World War. And it was the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany on 8 May 1945 that ended the Second World War in Europe. Germany’s role at that time was characterised by its aspirations to become a great power and its conviction that it could win wars. The resulting overconfidence led to murderous racial fanaticism, which claimed the lives of millions of innocent civilians – Jews, Poles, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Roma and other groups of people considered inferior. The UN Charter was intended to prevent such an inferno from ever happening again.
German governments – including the current one – should therefore feel particularly committed to the UN Charter’s imperative of peace. However, this does not seem to be the case. Listening to the statements of the current German government, one gets the impression that Germany is once again on the warpath. The climate is filled with veritable war hysteria and violent hatred towards Russia. Once again, the spectre of ancestral enmity is emerging. “Russia will always be our enemy,” says the German Foreign Minister. The Chancellor calls Putin the “most serious war criminal of our time”. He even justified Israel’s illegal killings of Iranian scientists and military officers along with their families and many civilians by claiming that we should thank Israel for “doing the dirty job” for us all – a language, Germans should remember, was used once before to justify war crimes.
This is by no means intended to draw a comparison with the Nazi regime – today’s Germany is completely different. And yet there are so many parallels between the actions of the federal government and the two world wars that one has to wonder why German politicians have apparently learned so little from our history. Are they unaware of these parallels? And are they really convinced that there is no alternative but to head for war with Russia?
Is war once again a legitimate means of conflict resolution?
In the German government’s justifications, war now seems to be regarded once again as a legitimate means of resolving conflicts. In contrast, diplomacy is seen as nothing more than appeasement. The fact that Germany thus violates the peace mandate of the German Basic Law and the UN Charter is simply ignored in the German debate.
In almost daily appeals, the German government and the mainstream media are preparing us for war with Russia. And once again, this war would be about Ukraine – just as it was in the First and Second World Wars. Couldn’t the conflict over Ukraine have been resolved through negotiations in accordance with the UN Charter, at least this third time around? Wouldn’t that also be in the interests of the Ukrainians, who are paying for our policies with their blood? No, the slogan is that Putin can only be countered with strength – even if that could mean the war spreading to Germany. Is there once again a tendency towards violence and dangerous overconfidence among the German political elite?
We see a Chancellor who is now giving top priority to these preparations for war. He prides himself on his “peace diplomacy”, but in reality he is pursuing a diplomacy of war by consulting with his colleagues from other EU states, the British Prime Minister, the Ukrainian President and the Secretary General of NATO exclusively on how this war can still be won. He has no proposal for peace negotiations – and he is certainly not talking to Russia, as genuine peace diplomacy would require.
The German Defence Minister has even given us a date: 2029, which is in four years’ time, when the war is supposed to start. Until then, he repeatedly urges, Germany must be ready for war. These are not empty words. A huge rearmament programme has been decided upon, and measures have been taken to implement it as quickly as possible without major bureaucratic hurdles. The ongoing deindustrialisation of Germany is even seen as an opportunity – freed-up capacity should be used to produce armoured vehicles and other military equipment for the impending war.
The plan is to triple defence spending by 2029, i.e. by the targeted start of the war, to €153 billion. (Russia’s defence spending this year is estimated at €121 billion.). Chancelor Merz wants Germany to have the strongest army in Europe again; we have had that twice before – and it did not end well.
Now, conscription of all men fit for military service is also being reintroduced. It is still voluntary, but according to the Defence Minister, conscription will be reactivated if necessary. In addition, bridges and roads are to be reinforced in a fast-track procedure to enable heavy tanks and military equipment to advance unhindered to the east. Hospitals are also to be converted to be prepared for a possible war. Military training should even be introduced in schools. And to create the right mood, the Chancellor and his Defence Minister are presenting themselves in full combat gear on tanks, warships and fighter planes.
To finance all this, the new federal government has once again taken out hundreds of millions of euros in new loans – one is tempted to call them war loans. To secure parliamentary majorities, the already ousted parliament was convened once again. The CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens and FDP voted in favour, and the Left Party made it possible in the first place through its behaviour. Have we not seen such cross-party solidarity before in preparation for war?
Particularly disturbing are the repeated claims by the Chancellor that Russia is already waging war against us. This sounds suspiciously like a pretext to justify a counterstrike by Germany. Is the Chancellor planning a preventive war? Wasn’t a similar argument used in June 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union – despite an existing non-aggression pact? After all, Germany already seems to be participating in the creeping deployment of NATO volunteers in Ukraine.
The mention of 2029 as a possible start date for the war should also give us pause for thought, as Donald Trump’s presidency would end in January of that year. Are they waiting for a new American president, in the hope that he will support the war plans of the European NATO countries?
What is being concealed is that a war with Russia would very likely lead to a nuclear conflict, in which case all armament measures and war preparations would be pointless – because everything could be over within a few hours. The fact that Merz is not afraid of a nuclear war suggests that the Chancellor has lost touch with reality.
Shouldn’t a responsible German government do everything in its power to prevent war, rather than provoking it by preparing for war? Most especially because it is obliged to do so by the German Basic Law and the UN Charter.
Germany’s questionable approach to international law
How do all these preparations for war fit in with the UN Charter and international law? And what has become of Germany’s former military restraint? Is the now reunified Germany once again striving for global greatness and military power?
It was probably no coincidence that Wolfgang Ischinger, probably Germany’s best-known diplomat and then-head of the Munich Security Conference, made the following provocative statement immediately after Donald Trump’s first election: “If we want to preserve the West as we know it, then we must realise the West is now us!” (Interview in Die Welt, 26 November 2016). In other words, Ischinger appears to claim that given the uncertainties triggered by Trump’s election in the US, Europe – and Germany in particular – must take the lead in the so-called free world. From there, it was only a small step to Friedrich Merz’s declaration that Germany should become the strongest military power in Europe.
The first victim on this path was the Two Plus Four Treaty of 1990 on the reunification of Germany. In this treaty, the two German states undertook, in a manner binding under international law, “never to use any of its weapons, except in accordance with its constitution and the Charter of the United Nations” (Article 2) in the event of reunification. It took only nine years before a reunited Germany participated in the NATO war against the former Yugoslavia in 1999, which was contrary to international law, thereby blatantly violating this treaty. This led to the militarily enforced cession of Kosovo – in other words, to territorial cessions that Chancellor Merz vehemently condemns today with regard to Ukraine.
The German government’s White Paper on Germany’s security strategy and the future role of the Bundeswehr, published in 2016, does not mention the Two Plus Four Treaty once – even though the document deals primarily with the future role of the Bundeswehr. This may be because Russia is already identified as the main adversary in this White Paper. However, this does not release Germany from its obligations under the treaty.
One of these obligations is the “renunciation of the manufacture, possession and control of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons” (Article 3). However, under the “nuclear sharing” programme – as NATO calls it – around 20 US nuclear bombs (each with 13 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb) are stored at the German air base in Büchel. In the event of an emergency, German fighter jets are to drop these bombs on targets in Russia. How is a contractual ban on the control of nuclear weapons compatible with Germany’s participation in such a nuclear programme?
The German Basic Law makes it clear that rules of international law, such as the prohibition of the use of force in the UN Charter, apply directly in German law (Article 25 GG). However, there is no reference to this in the 2016 White Paper. Although it mentions that the Bundeswehr should cooperate with the United Nations, among others, it does not mention that the prohibition on the use of force in the UN Charter also applies in principle to Bundeswehr missions.
Today, regardless of all concerns under international law, Germany is playing the role of arms supplier in the two most dangerous wars of the present day. For Ukraine, Germany is becoming the largest arms supplier following the withdrawal of the United States. In the case of Israel, Germany is already the second largest. This can be interpreted not only as questionable business practice, but also as an expression of a Germany striving for global significance.
Conclusion
With its war policy, Germany is on a dangerous path. It is a policy with which the country is gambling away its future. It is increasingly losing its international significance – economically, technologically and diplomatically. The destruction of Ukraine would cost Germany billions of euros, and it could not afford a war – even a Cold War – with Russia; it could spell the downfall of Germany.
The arrogance with which Germany treats China is an expression of ill-considered self-overestimation. We should not try to behave like a great power, because we are not one – and will never become one.
Nor should we invoke the fact that Macron in France and Starmer in the United Kingdom are doing similar things. It is quite another matter for Germany to try to emulate these former great powers – or even to claim a leading role. We could soon find ourselves alone with our policy of war, because France and Great Britain are on the brink of economic and political collapse, with unpredictable consequences for Germany as well.
Given our history, we Germans should know better than anyone else that a policy of war does not pay off. Especially in these times of geopolitical tension, a policy guided by the UN Charter and the international law based on it represents a real political alternative – and could help Germany find its way back to a policy of peace.
*Michael von der Schulenburg, former Assistant Secretary-General (ASG), worked for 34 years for the United Nations and briefly for the OSCE in leading positions in development and peace missions in many crisis regions of the world, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Haiti, Somalia, Syria and SierraLeone (see ww.michael-von-der-schulenburg.com). He has published extensively on issues of war and peace, non-state armed actors and UN reform. He is a member of the European Parliament for the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht.
*This article forms part of a paperback titled “No more Wars! – The Charter of the United Nations” that can be down-loaded as an e-book or PDF both in English and German from the website: www.bsw-ep.eu.