When speaking of Germany’s historical responsibility, Germans often only consider Russia. Ukraine simply wasn’t present on German maps and was nor perceived to exist until recently.
On the night of the 22nd of June 2021, the sky above Berlin was filled with thousands of white balloons, closely resembling doves. They were launched from the roof of the Russian House of Science and Culture, situated in the center of town on Friedrichstrasse, during a venue in memory of the day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The “Russian House” is part of Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian federal agency, who’s chairman Yevgeniy Primakov called for the total bombardment of Ukraine and the destruction of Ukrainian manufacturing, energy sector, army and state institutions. In the summer of 2021, already after Russia’s planned drill of a full-scale attack on Ukraine that took place in April-May, the arranged ceremony in the center of Berlin was supposed to cement a feeling of guilt and responsibility among Germans only towards Russia. Any pressure or criticism targeting the Russian chauvinist and authoritarian regime would be unacceptable due to this guilt – aging back to the Second World War.
Moscow, for years, promoted the notion that Nazi Germany was guilty for its actions only with regard to Russia, and that the victory over Nazi Germany was that of the “Russian soldier”. This preemptive campaign seemed to be successful. If German newspapers happily published the famous photograph of the Soviet flag above the Reichstag on the 8th of May, then it would always be followed by a text on this “Russian soldier”. As it was depicted, the Russians were the victors, looking over the Reichstag. When taking into consideration Nazi collaborators, Russians would never be mentioned. An ex-guard at a concentration camp who was deported to Germany in 2009 turned out to be a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Nazis at first. He was labeled a “Ukrainian collaborator”. If one was a victor, he was always Russian, if a collaborator – Ukrainian.
This cultural and terminological distortion had an immense impact on specific political developments – such as the various comments given by various German politicians before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the 6th of February 2022, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier gave an interview to the Rheinischer Post in which he said that Germany cannot halt the construction of Nord Stream 2, as this is one of the ways that Germany compensates for the losses it has given Russia in the Second World War. The fact that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was malicious to the national interest of at least two countries, which have also suffered from the actions of Nazi Germany with millions of casualties and hundreds of cities destroyed – Poland and Ukraine, – Steinmeier simply chose to ignore. In his view, Germany was only in debt to Russia and only Russia.
The next day after the interview, on the 7th of February, the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock visited Kyiv. Despite the “green” minister belonging to a different party than president Steinmeier, and despite being the representative of a newer generation, she still blindly believed in the same approach. When asked if Germany would deliver weapons to Ukraine in order to improve Ukraine’s chances of defending itself, Baerbock answered that it would not happen due to “certain historical injustices” concerning Germany. She was talking about the very same belief that German weapons would be used against Russia and its “historical responsibilities” would be violated. The fact that Germany has such a responsibility for Ukraine, which is under attack from a chauvinist and authoritarian regime, was also left ignored by Baerbock.
Of course, after some time had passed, after discoveries of Russia’s war crimes and the increasing difficulty of justifying them, Berlin’s rhetoric changed. However, in order to understand the motives and mechanisms of behavior in Germany, it is crucial to remember the decades-long biased understanding by Germans of both Ukraine and Russia. It is difficult to establish where such bias originated – perhaps it was the effect of Russian propaganda, the intellectual interest in Russia, solidarity with another “great nation” or just mere ignorance and chauvinism with regards to central and eastern European nations. What we can say with certainty is this biased and misguided view wasn’t born yesterday and not during Germany’s love for general secretary Gorbachev – it took decades to form. When on the 7th of November 1943 future German pacifist Heinrich Böll was on his way between Ternopil and Vinnytsia in the ranks of the Wehrmacht, he wrote “Russia!!!!” in his diary. This was the level of excitement upon visiting this exotic, eastern land. The fact that he was in Ukraine and not in Russia, he simply did not know, or perhaps didn’t even care to know, as this was a complex issue. Similarly, many other German soldiers signed their entries such as: “Kharkiv, southern Russia”, or “Odesa, and the Russian black sea”. For German society, the war against the USSR, that took place in Belarus and Ukraine was known as “Russlandfeldzug” or “campaign against Russia”. Therefore, after the war was over, the feeling of guilt and indebtedness was only focused towards Russia, and framed through the vision of Russian propaganda.
Of course, this was not the only narrative that was preventing the Germans from providing aid to Ukraine. Large fractions of German business was held in Russia. Even after Russia’s invasion in 2014, the majority of German companies did not leave Russia: European sanctions were weak while the investments were too long-term. “We worked even with the USSR – why are we then meant to leave Russia now when they are open and foreigners are free to do business with them?” – claimed the German businessmen.
A separate issue was the disbalance of Ukraine’s presence in the German information sphere. Traditionally, German media held their press centers in Moscow. From there, they would work on topics concerning all post-Soviet states, those who freed themselves from Moscow’s occupation. This was already a doomed verdict on the type of information that would be circulating here. First of all, German correspondents that worked in Moscow viewed these countries through Moscow’s ‘sunglasses’. Even if correspondents were critical of Putin, almost all of their friends and colleagues that influenced their worldview were Russian. Kyiv’s and Tbilisi’s viewpoints were absent from the daily work of German correspondents based in Moscow. Secondly, as Moscow was a permanent base for them and hence they had the time to make reports about ‘cute’ grandmothers, Lake Baikal and its nature, food culture and ballet. This was all used to humanize Russia’s image. These correspondents would only come to Ukraine in the event of a crisis. The gas conflict with Russia, the Orange Revolution, Maidan, Russia’s invasion – Ukraine dominated the screens and front pages as a country of never-ending crises. If there were no fearful reactions to such material, then even positive reactions would be left with a sour aftertaste – ”why won’t they bring order to their own country at last?”.
Were there attempts to override these false narratives? Of course. German politician and social activist Marieluise Beck-Oberdor spent years trying to bring Germany and its people to understand that the responsibility of devastation brought by the Second World War does not only concern Russia, but Ukraine and other countries. Ms. Beck even invited Timothy Snyder to Kyiv and tried to organize one of his lectures in the Bundestag. Various experts tried to explain to the Germans about the crimes of Holodomor and that Ukraine’s fight for national self-determination – is not the “rebirth of Nazism”, as per claims of Russian propaganda, but an anti-colonial liberation from an imperial force.
Such attempts were not always successful. It was quite a bitter paradox that the openly genocidal war of Russia against Ukraine was the factor that accelerated the emergence of Ukraine on the mental map of Germans. The question here isn’t about the obvious Russian crimes. Over a million of Ukrainians that ended up in Germany, have themselves impacted the German discourse on the matter. Ukrainian civil organizations such as Vitsche Berlin and Ukrainian scientific unions that have been forced to continue their professions in Germany due to circumstances, have made this process of understanding more dynamic. Germany is no longer able to ignore the existence of Ukraine and use its outdated and politically malicious paradigm of “Russia is our neighbor”, as Ukrainians refuse to be unrecognized.
In this context, it is not surprising that four democratic parties have recognized Holodomor as a genocide. A year ago, this was unimaginable as the German elite was not prepared to ever accuse Moscow of genocide, even if it happened 90 years ago. Today, the recognition of Holodomor is no longer considered as bravery, but rather an insignificant change. In times when Russia is carrying out a new genocide in Ukraine, far is more expected from German politics. Whether and when new steps will be taken by Germans is impossible to say. Evidently, Ukrainians have made huge steps in order to increase their influence in Germany and Europe as whole. Ukrainian diplomacy. Ukrainian cultural institutions, like the Ukrainian Institute as well as other Ukrainian civil organizations, over the past few months, have gained a lot of experience in their new diplomatic ways. Ukraine is no longer ignorable. The biggest (territorially) country and one of the highest populated in Europe, Ukraine is finally making it to German maps, at last, not as “southern Russia”.
