Michel Friedman accuses Plasberg: Germany is “partly responsible” for Putin’s aggression

Created: 05/04/2022 05:38

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Michel Friedman (CDU) - lawyer, publicist and TV presenter - guest at "Hart aber fair" (ARD).

© Screenshot ARD Mediathek

The Russian invasion of Ukraine worsens the image of Russia in Germany.

Stereotypical thinking, astonishment, but also rejection increase.

What are the consequences? 

Berlin – In the Western world, Vladimir Putin has been more and more often compared to Adolf Hitler as “Putler” since his invasion of Ukraine – according to official polls in Russia, approval of the president has recently risen to 82 percent.

In his "Hard but fair" talk, Frank Plasberg traces the popularity of the Russian despot, which is incomprehensible to the West.

His question: "Putin's war or the war of the Russians: How to continue living with these neighbors?".

For the first time in a long time, the ARD talk will take place with an audience again.

The Russian-born teacher Narina Karitzky, who runs a school in Bonn, thinks it is wrong to blame Putin alone for the war: "It's Russia's war," she says.

She herself is "ashamed" of her country, does not like to speak Russian in public and would not want to return to her homeland at the moment.

But there is also a Russian minority in this country, which sometimes finds it difficult to accept what is happening in the Ukraine.

In Germany, too, the Russian propaganda, which tells the Russian population how to think and how to argue, is sometimes having an effect.

Not everyone succeeds in emancipating themselves from it.

"Hard but fair" - these guests discussed with:

• Gerhart Baum (FDP)

  - lawyer, ex-Federal Minister of the Interior (1978-1982)

• Dr.

  _

  Michel Friedman (CDU) -

  lawyer, publicist and TV presenter

• Marina Weisband (Greens) -

  German-Ukrainian publicist

• Narina Karitzky -

  German-Russian school principal

• Prof.

  _

  Stefan Creuzberger -

  Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Rostock

Former FDF Interior Minister Gerhart Baums, whose mother was born in Moscow and who maintains friendships with many Russian opposition figures, including Alexej Navalny, disagrees.

Holding the Russians "totally liable" is wrong.

Angered, he later argues that it is wrong to think that "it is a typical Russian way" or even "assigned to a Russian character", waging a violent war, raping women and killing children and refers to the atrocities in this context of the Second World War: “Germans did that too.”

Marina Weisband criticizes the naive view of Russia over the past eight years

Publicist Michel Friedman also warns against speaking of a “Russian mentality”, which is just as non-existent as there is a French or German mentality.

In addition, it puts Russians in Germany in a "debt", they now have to explain where they stand in relation to Russian politics.

Friedman recommends, "Let's not push that too hard."

The historian Stefan Creuzberger emphasizes that in a "dictatorship" like the one in Russia, in which dissenting opinions are sometimes punished with 15 years in prison, one cannot speak of free opinion.

People in Russia could “just say 'yes'”, those who say nothing are already “suspicious”.

As under Stalin, even old people would be harassed, still "arrested" on the street, for protesting silently, holding up a "white flower".

The publicist Marina Weisband points out to what extent Russia has been able to influence "the last eight years" also on the Germans, who had had an "absolutely naïve" view of Russia.

Weisband recalls that the war in Ukraine began in 2014, but "Nord Stream 2 was approved, gas storage was sold".

She is still amazed at the statements made by many in relation to the invasion of Ukraine: "Well, I didn't see that coming."

Michel Friedman: 'Until recently we didn't want anything to do with the Ukraine conflict'

Friedman gets applause from the audience when he confirms to Weisband that Putin has "hardly changed" but only "our dismay" - until recently we "didn't want anything to do with it".

For Friedman there is no doubt that the Germans are "partly responsible" for "an aggressive nationalist dictator spreading his imperial and imperialist war movement".

Friedman sees Merkel and the SPD as the culprits.

Identifying Putin as the sole aggressor is also a strategy, Friedman said, to "exonerate."

In truth, there is much more behind the current situation than “just one person”.

The fact that we always want to understand Russia can also be seen from “how few demonstrations against Russia take place,” says Friedman, claiming: “If the Americans had done the same thing, all hell would break loose.”

A clip shows the exclusion of Russian artists, athletes and filmmakers from festivals or sporting events.

Friedman recommends a distinction between individuals and representatives of Russia or even Putin friends.

Baum agrees: "We don't need a radical decree."

Gerhart Baum warns against Putin: Driven by the idea of ​​a great Russia

Political doyen Baum expresses his fears for the future without beating about the bush.

Baum identifies the culprits in the "Russian Understanders," which have been annoying for years and portrayed NATO as a hostile organization.

When asked by Plasberg, he admitted his current fears about the European security situation: he had never felt so close to a nuclear war.

The attempt to control the Russian president is obsolete: "Putin decides on the use of nuclear weapons alone."

Baum predicts a division in Ukraine.

Putin will then "move on", driven by the idea: "I have to build a great Russia." Baum is certain that "no peace can be made" with Putin.

Friedman, on the other hand, warns that fears of a "third world war" and "nuclear war" are "extremely wrong".

He criticizes Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD): "The Chancellor allows himself to be blackmailed" if he follows the Russian narrative.

Baum is too daring and he admits his "concern" about the use of "tactical nuclear weapons": "It's in the air."

On the subject of "Putler" - a neologism of "Putin" and "Hitler", which illustrates a presumed parallel between the two controversial statesmen - the historian Heinrich August Winkler is quoted, who finds: "Not only the actions" of Hitler and Putin are "similar themselves, also the words”.

Plasberg wants to know from Friedman whether Putin's "lack of restraint" is the same as that of Hitler.

The comparison does not appeal to him very much: Even without Hitler, Putin's actions could be classified as "barbaric killings of civilians and innocent people".

Friedman warns of an increasingly anti-Semitic attitude in public appearances by Russian politicians.

Conclusion of the "hard but fair" talk

In some places, the show narrowly missed racist arguments, but then got the curve.

Even if it was clarified and straightened out again and again, comparisons with Hitler were rejected and warnings were given against prejudice, the subject seemed strange.

It would also have been desirable to have more current references and examples that would have been worth discussing directly.

As it was, however, the discussion wafted in a vacuum and forced the speakers into the role of moralizers.