[D66] Fwd: Germany’s call for the bomb

[René Oudeweg]

wsws.org
Germany’s call for the bomb
9–11 minutes

Donald Trump’s announcement that he would no longer support European 
NATO states if he becomes president again, unless they rearm massively 
enough, is being used by the ruling class in Germany for an aggressive 
campaign in favour of its own nuclear weapons. Hardly a day goes by 
without a leading politician or a central media organisation calling for 
a German or European nuclear bomb.

https://www.wsws.org/asset/98aebf08-0308-45c4-a510-34fac66138a2?rendition=image1280

The current issue of Germany’s highest-circulation news magazine Der 
Spiegel shows a menacing-looking Trump on the cover. Trump is quoted 
saying, “I wouldn’t protect you!” followed by the question, “Does 
Germany need the bomb now?” The magazine’s unequivocal answer is yes.

Among other things, the authors are outraged that the “uproar was great” 
when the Social Democrats’ lead candidate for the European elections, 
Katarina Barley, “stated the obvious in the Berlin Tagesspiegel and 
called for consideration of a European nuclear weapon.” The necessary 
“discussion about building a European nuclear umbrella” should no longer 
be “dismissed as a glass bead game [arcane]” by the chancellor and his 
advisers.

In fact, the government has long been working feverishly behind the 
scenes on alternatives to the US nuclear umbrella, in which Germany is 
involved through “nuclear sharing.” Even though Scholz prefers to avoid 
any public debate, “Trump scenarios are being played out in confidential 
meetings in the chancellery, the foreign ministry and the defence 
ministry,” Der Spiegel reports. Confidential talks are already taking 
place with the “nuclear powers Britain and France.” Also at the 
instigation of the Chancellery.”

In his speech at the Munich Security Conference, Scholz also spoke 
indirectly about the transformation of the EU into a nuclear power. 
“More than ever, we need to ensure that our deterrence fulfils modern 
requirements,” he said. In its first National Security Strategy, which 
was adopted last summer, Germany had therefore decided, among other 
things, to promote “the development and introduction of future 
capabilities such as stand-off precision weapons.” Discussions were 
currently underway with France and the UK. Obviously, the aim was to 
equip these “stand-off precision weapons” with nuclear warheads.

The aggressive media campaign serves to advance these insane plans and 
prepare the population for a much more comprehensive rearmament 
campaign, including the nuclear bomb.

In an editorial, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung editor Berthold Kohler 
warned that Trump’s return to the White House “would also have 
consequences for Europe that we don’t want to imagine but must.” And he 
added provocatively, “Imagining alone is not enough, of course. Germany 
must finally prepare itself resolutely for the fact that the backbone of 
its security against military attacks and political blackmail could 
break away.”

“Prepare itself resolutely” means nuclear armaments. The Scholz 
government should “no longer bury its head in the sand and hope that the 
Trump nightmare will be over when it pulls it out again.” The Europeans 
must “massively rearm conventionally without any further delay,” but 
“also have nuclear forces that can restore the balance of terror in 
Europe, which is being disrupted by America in a way that Moscow had 
never dared to hope.”

The Green Party’s in-house newspaper taz calls for nuclear weapons

Significantly, the former pacifists of the Green Party are among the 
most aggressive nuclear warmongers. Former Green foreign minister 
Joschka Fischer, who initiated the first German combat mission since the 
Second World War during his time in office, called for “our own nuclear 
deterrent” in Die Zeit back in December. Last week, the taz newspaper, 
which is close to the Greens, followed up with a commentary under the 
headline “Yes to the nuclear bomb.” In it, business editor Ulrike 
Herrmann cynically praises nuclear weapons as “paradoxical weapons” that 
are needed “to prevent a nuclear war.”

This turns reality on its head. In fact, with the constant escalation of 
the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which they themselves provoked, 
the leading NATO powers—including Germany—are not only accepting an 
all-destructive nuclear third world war but are actively preparing for 
it. The most senior Luftwaffe officer (Air Force) General Ingo Gerhartz 
threatened Russia with the use of nuclear weapons back in June 2022. 
“For a credible deterrent, we need both the means and the political will 
to implement nuclear deterrence, if necessary,” he said.

The World Socialist Web Site commented at the time: “The fact that a 
German general is openly threatening to use nuclear weapons against 
Russia must be taken as a serious warning. Seventy-seven years after the 
fall of the Third Reich, a fascist mentality is once again spreading in 
the ruling class. It is ready to commit the worst crimes once again in 
order to assert its imperialist interests.”

A double interview recently conducted by the Süddeutsche Zeitung with 
the notorious political scientists Carlo Masala and Herfried Münkler 
gives a particularly drastic impression of this. In it, the two pro-war 
professors out-do each other with calls for nuclear armament and 
possible nuclear strikes against Russia. “Nuclear weapons no longer 
prevent conventional war, they are a way of expanding it,” said Münkler. 
Germany needed to find “a different response to this than simply shying 
away from it.”

Masala calls for a return “to the principle of ‘massive retaliation’” 
and “to the old NATO maxim of responding to every attack with a major 
nuclear counter-attack.” The basic issue was “that we have to organise 
defence so quickly and hard that Russia cannot exploit its advantages,” 
he said. What was needed were “deep strike capabilities,” i.e., “the 
ability to immediately attack strategically relevant targets in Russia 
with medium-range missiles or conventionally equipped intercontinental 
missiles.”

This is nothing less than a plea for a third nuclear world war. Russian 
military doctrine authorises the use of nuclear weapons to defend 
Russian and Russian-claimed territory. And leading Russian politicians 
have repeatedly threatened to respond with nuclear strikes in the event 
of a full-scale NATO attack. Neither Münkler nor Masala and the other 
warmongers in official politics and the media have ever explained what 
their scenario is and how many millions of lives they are prepared to 
sacrifice. The fact is that a nuclear war with Russia would not only 
completely destroy Europe, but potentially turn the entire planet into a 
nuclear desert.

Despite this danger, the government continues to escalate the conflict 
with Russia. A motion passed in the Bundestag (federal parliament) on 
Thursday by the government coalition parties calls for a further massive 
expansion of military support for Ukraine with the declared aim of 
extending the war deep into the Russian heartland. Although the Taurus 
cruise missiles long demanded by Ukraine are not explicitly mentioned, 
there is no doubt that these are also on the agenda.

According to the motion, the “delivery of additional long-range weapons 
systems and ammunition is necessary to enable Ukraine to carry out 
targeted attacks on strategically relevant targets far to the rear of 
the Russian aggressor in accordance with international law and to 
further strengthen its land forces with the delivery of armoured combat 
systems and protected vehicles.” In this context, “an immediate 
replenishment should be initiated in the event of the Bundeswehr’s 
disposal of armoured vehicles.”

This madness, which goes hand in hand with massive attacks on the social 
and democratic rights of the working class at home, has deep objective 
causes. As in the 1930s, the ruling class is reacting to the collapse of 
capitalism by turning to militarism, fascism and world war. This is 
about Germany’s old imperialist goals and desires: to become a world 
power and in the process to annex both Ukraine and Russia.

The tangible interests at stake are being articulated ever more clearly. 
One of the leading foreign policy experts, Roderich Kiesewetter, 
(Christian Democrat, CDU) pointed out a few weeks ago in broadcaster 
ARD’s programme Report from Berlin that a military victory over Russia 
in Ukraine was “also an extremely [sic] economic question.”

“If Ukraine disintegrates, the follow-up costs will be much greater than 
if we go in much stronger now,” he declared. “And if Europe wants to 
realise the energy transition, it needs its own lithium deposits. The 
largest lithium deposits in Europe are in the Donetsk-Luhansk region.”

[...]