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Hofreiter (right) and Stegner at the SPIEGEL top-level talks.
Deliveries of tanks to Ukraine are politically controversial - the federal government has so far refused to sell armored personnel carriers and main battle tanks directly.
According to the Green Party politician Anton Hofreiter, the government is also preventing Spain from supplying Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks in the fight against the Russian invaders.
"Spain would very much like to deliver Leopard 2 tanks, and Germany is forbidding that," Hofreiter claimed in SPIEGEL's top-level discussion with moderator Markus Feldenkirchen.
"I have very, very reliable information from the Spanish government," said Hofreiter.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez does not want to make the wish for the tank deliveries so clear because, like Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he is a social democrat.
"But of course they want it."
Ralf Stegner, foreign policy expert for the SPD, immediately contradicted Hofreiter: "That's spoofing, as they would say in the north." Stegner said about the Leopard deliveries: "The Spanish government expressly doesn't want that."
Hofreiter again called for more arms deliveries to Ukraine in order to increase the pressure on Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and force him to negotiate.
"Negotiations with Putin are absolutely realistic," said the Green politician.
However, the Kremlin ruler has not yet come to negotiations "because the costs for Putin are not yet high enough".
The West must make it credible that it will also support Ukraine in winter.
Stegner also spoke out in favor of negotiations, but against increased arms deliveries.
The tanks he knows "above all destroy life," said the SPD politician.
»There is always an alternative to war.« Negotiations do not take place in public, but behind closed doors.
"Putin is not a fool"
Commenting on the prospects of getting the Russian president to talk, Stegner said: »Putin is not a chump.
He's not achieving any of his goals at the moment.« Assuming a certain level of rationality on the part of Putin, there are definitely options in which Moscow is interested.
Hofreiter and Stegner also assessed Putin's announcement of partial mobilization differently.
"The army is simply running out of personnel," Hofreiter said.
The Russian President is apparently "very afraid of his own society" because it is only a partial mobilization.
Stegner said the step "also shows what reserves Russia still has."
Russia is the second largest nuclear power in the world.
It is very good that there are demonstrations in Russia.
"The idea that there could be quick military successes that would end the war is perhaps illusory," said the SPD foreign affairs expert.
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