Expert Zoff around Putin at "Maischberger": EU as provocateur - or soon the only savior from the "genocide"?

Created: 06/29/2022, 11:14 am

The guests at "Maischberger" (ARD) on June 28th, 2022.

© ARD Mediathek (Screenshot)

At Maischberger's, two political scientists are arguing about the political background to the Ukraine war.

Who is provoking whom here?

The moderator intervenes elsewhere.

Berlin - "America is on the decline," proclaimed the emeritus professor of politics Christian Hacke in the political talk "Maischberger" in the first rather unacademic.

Things are not looking good in the West, he thinks.

“We are seeing a shift in power from the political West towards Asia.

Europe is losing weight.” With a view to the US presidential elections in two years, the expert points out: “We have to be prepared that in two years we will no longer have what we saw: Atlantic civilization, the free democracies carried out the American."

Maischberger debates the G7 summit: Nothing but beautiful pictures?

"High five and stuff."

Maischberger is this time about a summary of the G7 summit - which produced "nice pictures" in bad times, as

editor-in-chief Dagmar Rosenfeld comments.

Satirist Friedrich Küppersbusch put it more flippantly: G7 have shown that everyone is “buddies.

High five and such".

But that is one of the few points of agreement that evening.

At Maischberger, it creaks violently in the debate framework - both in the panel of experts and between the guests in the discussion group.

When it comes to the Ukraine war, the two journalists quarrel.

Rosenfeld says: "Ukraine must determine what peace in Ukraine looks like."

A through ball for Küppersbusch, who quotes the American philosopher Noam Chomsky: "The Americans are fighting the Russians down to the last Ukrainian".

But Rosenfeld has no desire for smugness: "I'm doing it less philosophically, but a bit more realpolitik," she sticks to her point of view.

"Ukraine has to decide that."

"Maischberger" - these guests discussed with:

• Professor Daniela Schwarzer –

  Executive Director in Europe and Eurasia of the Open Society Foundations

• Professor Christian Hacke

   - Member of the Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Defense for the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Federal Armed Forces

• Sven Ploger 

  –

  ARD weather expert

As experts: 

• Dagmar Rosenfeld 

  – Editor-in-Chief of

  Welt am Sonntag

• Friedrich Küppersbusch

   – journalist and television producer

• Joachim

  Llambi

   – RTL presenter and juror, among other things, on "Let's Dance"

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Russia now controls Luhansk almost completely - but US experts now see a disadvantage for Putin

In addition to the nice photos, there was little depth at the G7 summit, criticizes foreign policy expert Daniela Schwarzer:

What we have seen is that only a few answers have been found for the really big problems,” she sums up, listing the impending famine for large parts of Africa, climate change and the Ukraine war.

Hacke likes the fact that it was Scholz in particular who opened up the exclusive circle of rich nations to five other emerging countries, including Senegal, South Africa and India, and even sees this as a "readjustment of world politics".

Rosenfeld classifies the move as more of a “tough business interest”: “In the end, who has more to offer these countries?”.

Schwarzer is also more cautious and only sees a shift in the West “towards Asia” in this step.

G7 summit 2022 in Elmau: Pictures of the most powerful politicians in the world in front of a spectacular mountain backdrop

View photo gallery

Putin dispute on ARD: Professor sees the EU as a Putin provocateur - Maischberger intervenes later

Hacke advocates the thesis that US President Joe Biden wants to use the war in Ukraine to expand America's sphere of interest in order to weaken Russia and sees this as a strategic calculation by the West, which had already expanded its hemisphere for decades.

Another thorn in Hacke's side is Ukraine's EU membership candidacy.

These ventures would only "provoke" Vladimir Putin, he says, and result in Ukraine becoming the "divided Germany of today".

In which "part of it will then belong to Russia", while the western part "possibly joins the EU".

The highlight is Hacke's warning of the use of Russian nuclear weapons and thus the beginning of a Third World War, which the professor sees looming if the West continues to supply Ukraine with weapons.

The fact that he is right in line with Putin's line of argument doesn't seem to bother the professor, and moderator Sandra Maischberger doesn't set any counterpoints either.

For that, she intervenes elsewhere.

Namely, when Hacke displays a sexist attitude and introduces his thesis with the words towards Schwarzer: "You are a lovely and clever woman, but I have to disagree with you.

I say that without arrogance.” Maischberger finds this anything but charming and comments bitingly: “Then leave it alone.”

Ukraine war: EU soon alone on the floor?

Expert warns against US exit

Schwarzer tries to refute the statements of the previous speaker: Putin's rigorous ruthlessness poses great challenges for the international community.

Their fear is not in the direction of an escalation of the war, but "that political support in Europe and the USA will crumble," says Schwarzer: The war threatens to develop into a long-lasting trench warfare.

Putin is concerned with “the destruction of Ukrainian identity”;

Schwarzer speaks of "genocide".

Whether Germany will then be able to play a leading role in Europe is still a big question mark, said Schwarzer.

The result of the US elections in two years' time is also not unimportant: "I think it is very likely that the Republicans will have Donald Trump or a very similar person." Look at the immense costs that the war in Ukraine is already causing the USA, it is "doubtful whether support will continue in the next legislature".

Instead, the next president could find: "That's your business." The signals that Europe has been getting for months are clear: "Be prepared, take more care of your neighborhood."

The second part of the show is about a different problem: climate change.

The most popular weather expert on ARD sits in the chair with the station colleague and is supposed to suggest a way out of the future catastrophes.

Meteorologist Sven Plöger does a good job: "The market economy must be strengthened from a social and ecological point of view," he suggests and is certain: "There are many companies that have ideas." to a possible extension of the German nuclear power plants and the return to hard coal: "Robert Habeck has a great talent in selling his personal learning curve as a federal autobahn".

Conclusion of the “Maischberger.

The week” talks

Controversial points of view and snappy comments.

At Maischberger, riots were in the air.

That didn't detract from the quality of the show, but it seemed too polemical in places.