Speaking out of turn
IT will never be known for certain if Germany’s naval chief Kay-Achim Schönbach would have had to resign 10 days ago if he had spoken respectfully about Russian President Vladimir Putin in Berlin, Brussels or Paris, instead of in New Delhi.
Vice-Admiral Schönbach said at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) in New Delhi that Putin needed to be treated as an equal by the West. ‘It is easy to give him the respect he really demands — and also probably deserves.’ His comments created a storm in the western world and he put in his papers to ‘avert further damage’ as he put it.
When Schönbach talked about Russia’s ability to divide Europe, he appeared to confirm worries in the US that Germany was the stumbling block to a unified EU stand against Moscow’s policies.
It is reminiscent of the military governor of the American Occupation Zone in Germany, General Dwight D Eisenhower’s famous remarks at a post-World War II mass rally in Paris, where he spoke in glowing and respectful terms about the ‘great people’ without naming them. Charles de Gaulle, then chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, who was present, assumed — as did the huge crowd — that the US army’s Chief of Staff was speaking of the French people. The crowd clapped in delirious delight and de Gaulle beamed proudly.
No, Eisenhower clarified later. He was speaking of the German people, what a great people they were, as they are today too, without doubt. It is tempting to think what fate would have befallen Eisenhower if there was Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp in 1945 when he had spoken in praise of the defeated Germans. Would Eisenhower have got the marching orders from President Harry Truman, like the German naval chief? Perhaps. But instead, Eisenhower went on to become the first Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and then the 34th US President.
It is an understatement to say that Germany has been less than enthusiastic about helping Ukraine in that country’s ongoing war of nerves with Russia. While the US and a host of NATO countries have been supplying deadly weaponry to Kyiv, Germany has baulked at doing anything of that kind.
Ukraine’s government was livid last week when Germany responded to pleas for help with little more than 5,000 helmets to be used in the eventuality of a combat with Russia. To add insult to injury, as it were, Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, told Ukrainians that they should see this farcical German contribution to war efforts as proof that ‘we are on your side’.
Are Ukrainian soldiers supposed to head-butt the well-trained, well-equipped Russian forces with these helmets if Putin sends in his troops across the border, a German political figure of Ukrainian descent asked on Twitter. It was one of many such sarcastic responses to the German defence minister’s military aid announcement.
Schönbach said in New Delhi that Putin was not ‘interested in having a tiny strip of Ukrainian soil’ and that he knew he could split the European Union over Ukraine. It may be this last part of his statement which cost the Vice-Admiral his job because it hit home. Germany is the stand out within the EU on getting Putin to back down on his opposition to letting Ukraine join the western alliance.
So when Schönbach talked about Russia’s ability to divide Europe, he appeared to confirm worries in the US that Germany was, in fact, the stumbling block to a unified EU stand against Moscow’s policies. That is the truth which Germany’s ruling politicians have been trying to paper over. Lambrecht, therefore, was left with no option but to let her Chief of Navy go.
Many of the things the Vice-Admiral said at the MP-IDSA would not have to be said at all anywhere in Europe. Here are some examples. Schönbach described himself as ‘a very radical Roman Catholic’. Such an explanation of identity is not called for in interactions at high levels within Germany or elsewhere in Europe. A statement of that kind has relevance only in a non-Christian country and while addressing people who are not of any Abrahamic faith. Yet, hearing such a statement from a European military professional can be jarring, especially when the wounds left by the ethno-religious conflicts in former Yugoslavia continue to impact the continent.
In worse taste was his assertion that Russia was also a ‘Christian country, even if Putin is an atheist, it doesn’t matter.’ The inference it left behind was that in any quarrel between Christian and non-Christian societies, Germany would cast its lot with the Christians. It is possible that was not what Schönbach had in mind. As he explained, he was talking about China and its emergence. But China is not a Christian country, nor is India. Given Germany’s pre-World War II history, such statements can be disconcerting.
Its impact was amplified because he said those things in New Delhi. Such statements would not be made in Europe because these truths are self-evident there. Not so in India and the naval chief paid a price for not following the adage that there is a time and place for everything.
That Germany is coming to terms with the post-Angela Merkel era in its domestic politics also took its toll. Merkel’s successor as Chancellor for less than two months, Olaf Scholz, is still finding his feet on the job. It is not for nothing that his government is known as the ‘traffic light coalition’. Originally it got this name because the coalition comprises three political parties whose colours are red, yellow and green. Traffic lights are not static, they change from one colour to another.
If Merkel had been Chancellor today, heading a similar traffic light coalition, Schönbach may have got away through the green light of her stature and experience. Not so with Scholz, who has to frequently stop at red lights.
