"What if bombs fell on Berlin?": Delicate discussion at Lanz - Wissler against gas embargo

Created: 07/01/2022, 12:04 p.m

Gerhart Baum (former Federal Minister of the Interior, FDP) as a guest on “Markus Lanz” (ZDF).

© Cornelia Lehmann/ZDF

Janine Wissler complains to Markus Lanz on ZDF about the internal "party hiccups" and comments on Wagenknecht.

Historian Schleel sees the left as a brake.

Hamburg – A woman who is not even present in the studio opens the evening with Markus Lanz on ZDF.

The moderator turns to Janine Wissler, the chairwoman of the left who has just been re-elected at the party conference, and first quotes party icon Sahra Wagenknecht and her reaction to that election: "Like a party that is currently at four percent, with this list wants to get back up is a mystery to me.”

"Someone from your own ranks," says Lanz challengingly.

"How do you feel about such a sentence?" Wissler replies with the most important news: "We have come to results and clear messages.

We are elected.

It was a democratic decision.” And Sahra Wagenknecht?

He denies her en passant "good style".

Markus Lanz: Janine Wissler comments on Wagenknecht – "didn't hurt me"

“Would it be better if Sahra Wagenknecht were no longer in the Left Party?” Lanz asks.

"I notice that hurt her." Wissler defies: "That didn't hurt me." Lanz: "Yes, that hurt you, that hit you." The person concerned buckles: "Well, I think we should have solidarity with one another.

I just don't feel like all the small things and the party hiccups anymore.

We have gigantic tasks, We have gigantic rearmament.

We have people living in poverty.

In such a situation, the left should focus on the political opponent and describe alternatives to the traffic light, and not kick each other in the shin and publicly split up.” Lanz sums up: “It is amazing when a party of solidarity is so lacking in solidarity is."

Markus Lanz: Wissler comments on the Ukraine war - "Putin is the aggressor"

So that would be settled by this evening.

Then comes the inevitable main topic: Ukraine.

What's next?

By which?

With diplomacy or more weapons?

Wissler leads NATO wars that violate international law.

"Putin is the aggressor," she says, and "there is no excuse whatsoever for this war."

But that doesn't mean "that you don't have to continue to criticize NATO."

Former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum interrupts her several times.

"Why?

Why?

Why?” he keeps calling.

Wissler explains: “Because the wars that NATO waged in the past, which were in violation of international law, remain in violation of international law.” Baum: “Which ones?” Wissler: “For example the Kosovo war.” Baum falls silent.

Wissler recalls that the left is not only the old SED state party of the GDR, but also a "consistent anti-war party".

The Ukraine war has a history.

One should not forget that "after the end of the bloc confrontation, after the end of the Cold War, a great opportunity was missed".

She also sees the reasons for the current escalation in Ukraine in the West: "When the Warsaw Pact dissolved, NATO should have been overcome as well.

NATO has remained and has expanded to the east.”

Tree begins to breathe heavily.

The former Federal Minister of the Interior is 90 years old, has turned gray with honor, and his discursive flexibility has solidified with honor.

Wissler reassures him: "You won't hear a word of Putin's defense." Baum: "But you are skeptical about NATO." She clarifies: "That's right, and that's more than skepticism." Baum, back in Trot: "Why actually?

NATO is a defense alliance.” Wissler repeats the Kosovo point: “Well, the bombs on Belgrade were not a defense.

And the Afghan war was not a defense either.

That was a robbery.”

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Markus Lanz: Historian Schlögel describes the left as "brakes"

Back to Ukraine.

Lanz brings the historian Prof. Karl Schlögel into play.

He initially aims at Sahra Wagenknecht and complains that she has "no idea about Ukraine".

"How come unread, uninformed people have dominated the discourse on this for a very long time?" he asks.

For Ukraine, he sees the delivery of arms as the only solution.

The left is a brakeman.

“They deny those who are attacked support and assistance.

You have to measure the position of the left by that.” He turns directly to Chairwoman Wissler: “Anti-war party?” he asks.

“There was a tradition of the left against fascism.

What you now represent is an anti-fascism that has become corrupt and is no longer credible.” One must now “try to find allies” in the West.

Schlögel talks a lot that evening, twice for around five minutes at a time.

He argues calmly, but likes to deviate from his main line of argumentation.

Lanz asks what would happen if bombs suddenly fell on Venice or Berlin.

Then Schlögel interrupts his speech for a pause of unbearably long seconds.

"When a power attacks cities, pipelines, railway lines, train stations, factories, it means the life of a state, a country is to be brought down," says Schlögel.

"Not just to humiliate it politically, but to bomb it back."

The question of what bombs on Berlin would mean is therefore still open.

"A negotiated solution is needed," Wissler clarifies.

"It is often suggested that arms deliveries would offer a quick solution." Anyone who is against arms deliveries or a gas embargo is branded as a Putin understander.

In the case of an embargo, however, the government must also consider the consequences.

Markus Lanz: Wissler is skeptical about the gas embargo - "considerable social upheaval"

"Didn't we learn from Georgia, from Crimea, that this is an expansionist regime?" Baum asks defiantly and is now getting quite loud.

In the direction of Putin he says: "He doesn't keep any contracts, he doesn't keep any contracts at all." Wissler returns to her topic: Russia now even has additional income after the sanctions because the gas price has risen so extremely.

"An immediate gas embargo would mean significant social upheaval."

"The sanctions don't even make Putin falter," says Lanz, adding: "I don't have the impression that Putin's departure is to be expected any time soon." Baum interjects: "We have a fatal tendency to ignore the Ukrainians to discuss.

I think we should refrain from making good suggestions.”

Lanz brings Schlögel back into the discussion.

“What have we still not understood, why are the Ukrainians fighting so determined?” he wants to know.

"Our perception has always been that Ukraine is Russia's backyard," Schlögel replies.

If one of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants blew up during the war, then Ukraine would be "a wasteland".

About Putin he says: "We are not up to such a figure." Gerhart Baum interjects: "This is a world conflict.

That affects everyone.”

Markus Lanz - These guests discussed with:

• Janine Wissler

  (party leader, Die Linke)

• Gerhart Baum

  (former Interior Minister, FDP)

• Marina Kormbaki

  (Reporter ThePioneer)

• Prof. Karl Schlögel

  (Eastern Europe historian, book "Decision in Kiev")

"What is it that we don't understand about Russia?" Lanz asks again, and Schlögel explains: "It's the end and the dissolution of an empire." Marina Kormbaki adds: "There will no longer be a partnership with Putin's Russia give.

Ties were irrevocably broken there.” Baum says Russia is a dwarf economically.

And cites the catchphrase of the "gas station with nuclear weapons".

Lanz repeats a question to which he was already looking for an answer last week: "Why would you want to conquer cities that you have previously reduced to rubble and ashes, expel everyone who lives there, kill everyone who lives there.

That seems so incredibly archaic.” Baum counters with a question: “Isn’t it amazing that we know so much and have made so little of it?”

Schlögel speaks of the deep guilt complex that affects Russia and Ukraine.

“Then something like Russian kitsch mixes in.

Such a false sentimentality that no longer looks, what is actually going on there concluded that the construction of this pipeline is a non-political matter.

As a political assessment, this is a catastrophe.

The knot that has now burst will keep us busy for a long time to come.”

Markus Lanz: Baum reminds of NATO double-track resolution - "We brought about peace with weapons"

Wissler is bothered by the fact that in the public discourse there is "a certain disdain for positions that clearly say: We have to rely on negotiations." In order to show solidarity, one has to keep the bridges in Russian civil society, i.e. to the cultural workers, the town twinning.

It is urgently necessary not to burn all bridges there, that one remains in exchange there in order to strengthen these forces.

Baum reminds of the NATO double-track decision: "We are arming in order to achieve disarmament.

We made peace with arms.

You have to think about that."

Markus Lanz: Conclusion of the talk

Rarely has a discussion been so fruitless and poorly structured.

An aged, argumentatively frozen Gerhart Baum, a leftist who rushed through the program in shrill justification mode and a historian for whom Markus Lanz obviously has extremely great respect.

So much respect that he let him get away with lengthy, tiresome monologues without even intervening once.

Historian Schlögel indulged in mini-lectures lasting more than five minutes without really developing new ideas for the discussion.