A long time ago: Bundeswehr recruits take part in the public oath on July 20, 2009 in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin.
Image: Picture Alliance
A blind spot: those who served with arms in times of threat showed an attitude that was right but frowned upon.
PAzifism is an honorable attitude that can definitely be justified in Christian terms. The fact that it “does not lead to the good, but would cement the dominance of the bad, the criminals and the inhuman”, as Joachim Gauck has just impressively explained, is then a bit too sweeping. Gandhi’s unarmed struggle for independence was crowned with success. Can’t appreciate that enough. Non-violent resistance against Hitler or Stalin, however, as Gandhi saw it himself, would have led to the victory of evil.
Even the Russian war of aggression does not make pacifism obsolete as a personal attitude. But as a generous endorsement to Ukrainians at risk of death, that attitude is downright obscene. After all, there is a moral, Christian, and legal duty to help people in need. And there is also a right for states to self-defense and the right to help. This “natural right”, as it says in the United Nations Charter, does not have to be exercised, but to mock it and only watch the slaughter of your neighbor is a pretty bloody pacifism.