DOlaf Scholz’s policy, which he describes as “prudent” and which consists of helping Ukraine in its fight for survival against the Russian army’s annihilation attack with as few weapons as possible, or in such a way that Vladimir Putin does not see this as acting by a “war party”. understands, finds supporters. According to the survey institute Forsa, 65 percent of Germans think the Chancellor’s line is correct. 56 percent feared that the war could spread to other countries in Europe if more arms were delivered to Ukraine.
The 28 first signers of an open letter that the magazine “Emma” published on Friday also see it that way. Alice Schwarzer, Alexander Kluge, Martin Walser, Reinhard Merkel, Reinhard Mey, Dieter Nuhr, Gerhard Polt, Edgar Selge, Antje Vollmer, Peter Weibel, Ranga Yogeshwar, Juli Zeh and others believe that Scholz is doing the right thing.
Who is the victim and who is the perpetrator?
They urge him not to supply any more heavy weapons to Ukraine, either directly or indirectly. It is true that “the Russian aggression is to be seen as a breach of the basic norm of international law”. There is also “a fundamental political and moral duty” not to back down from “aggressive violence without resistance”. But find these “limits in other commandments of political ethics”. One should not accept the “manifest” risk of an escalation. The “delivery of large quantities of heavy weapons” could “make Germany itself a war party”. A Russian counter-attack could “trigger the case for assistance under the NATO treaty and thus the immediate danger of a world war. The second line of demarcation is the level of destruction and human suffering among Ukrainian civilians. At some point, even legitimate resistance against an aggressor is in unbearably disproportionate.”
It is a mistake “that the responsibility for the danger of an escalation to a nuclear conflict belongs solely to the original aggressor and not also to those who, with their eyes wide open, provide him with a motive for possibly criminal action. And secondly, that the decision on the moral responsibility of the further ‘costs’ in human lives among the Ukrainian civilian population falls exclusively within the competence of their government. Morally binding norms are universal in nature.”
The Kremlin must have been waiting for such a manifesto. The signatories not only swallow the threat of World War III. With the formulation of the “moral responsibility for the further ‘costs’ of human lives” they deny the Ukrainians the right to resist. It sounds as if those attacked should endure murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and enslavement. It is, without empathy, unperturbed by the war crimes, the call for surrender. Do the signatories think that we would have peace again? And it nice and warm with gas and oil from Putin?