Bundescancer Olaf Scholz praised the late Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev as a courageous reformer. The former Soviet head of state dared a lot, said Scholz on Wednesday at the sidelines of the cabinet meeting at Meseberg Castle in Brandenburg. His policies made it possible “that Germany could be united and the Iron Curtain has disappeared”.
Thanks to Gorbachev, Russia was also able to attempt to establish a democracy. He died at a time “when not only did democracy in Russia fail”, but when Russian President Vladimir Putin was also digging new rifts in Europe. “That’s why we think of Mikhail Gorbachev and know how important he was for the development of Europe and our country in recent years,” said Scholz.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also paid tribute to Gorbachev’s merits. “I bow to a great statesman,” Steinmeier wrote in a letter of condolence to Gorbachev’s daughter Irina Virganskaya published on Wednesday. “Germany remains connected to him, in gratitude for his decisive contribution to German unity, in respect for his courage in democratic opening and in building bridges between East and West, and in memory of his great vision of a common and peaceful house of Europe,” it says in Steinmeier’s writing. In it, the Federal President also refers to the current situation: “Anyone who has experienced him in recent years could sense how much he suffered from the fact that this dream was becoming ever more distant.”
Today the dream lies in ruins, “destroyed by Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine,” Steinmeier said. Mikhail Gorbachev wanted a different future. Steinmeier met Gorbachev for talks during a visit to Russia in 2017.
Merkel: Gorbachev also fundamentally changed my life
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) praised Gorbachev as “a unique world politician”. “May the memory of his historic achievement make it possible to pause, especially during these terrible weeks and months of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Merkel said in a statement published on her website on Wednesday.
It was with great sadness that she heard the news of Gorbachev’s death, the former Chancellor continued. “Gorbachev wrote world history. He exemplified how a single statesman can change the world for the better.” Merkel continued: “I can still feel the fear that I shared with many people in the GDR in 1989, whether tanks would roll again like they did in 1953, when we shouted ‘We are the people’ and later ‘We are one people’ . But this time – unlike in 1953 – no tanks rolled, no shots were fired.” Instead, Gorbachev reproached the aged GDR leadership with the sentence “Those who come too late are punished by life”.