The latest poll by the German broadcaster ZDF shows that 48% of Germans support increasing military aid to Ukraine from European countries, while 27% want it to remain unchanged and 21% favour scaling it back. Regional differences are stark—only 17% in western Germany back cutting aid, compared to 41% in the east.
There is also overwhelming cross-party support for a joint European armed force, with 84% of respondents in favour. At the same time, many Germans share deep concerns that the war in Ukraine could spill over into other European countries.
In his column for Die Welt, German journalist Henryk Broder reflects on what supporting Ukraine means in a historical and geopolitical context. He argues that the very countries meant to guarantee Ukraine’s survival—chiefly the US and Germany—approach the war like limited liability companies, insisting that Russia must not win, but that Ukraine must not be allowed to win outright either.
“The chancellor, who often quotes the Gerry and the Pacemakers song You’ll Never Walk Alone, has yet to make a clear case that Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity are fundamental to Germany’s own interests and not up for debate. Even if it were just rhetoric, it would still be more than the then-defence minister Christine Lambrecht’s infamous offer of 5,000 used helmets,” Broder writes, referring to Olaf Scholz.
The German journalist argues that future historians will ask the questions that should already be confronting leaders today: why did Europe and its transatlantic allies fail so catastrophically in 2022? Why did they underestimate Russia and, in doing so, leave Ukraine to its fate—just as they now reflect on why the Allies never bombed the railway tracks to Auschwitz?
Germany, he insists, should be showing daily solidarity with Ukraine, rather than lecturing it on the dangers of excessive self-defence for fear of provoking escalation.
“The peace movement led by Alice Schwarzer and Sahra Wagenknecht wants the war to end as quickly as possible. But rather than calling on Putin to withdraw his troops, they direct their outrage at Western arms supplies to Ukraine, arguing that these are only dragging the war out. Meanwhile, former Russia correspondent Gabriele Krone-Schmalz has re-emerged to defend Putin’s actions, presenting them as a response to NATO’s aggressive policies and a perceived lack of respect for Russian culture,” he writes.
The German journalist also points to letters from readers drawing parallels with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The argument goes that the US would never have accepted the Soviet Union turning an island off its coast into a missile base—so why, the reasoning goes, should Russia accept something similar on its own borders today?
He also quotes a letter from an acquaintance who complained that his taxes were going to “the corrupt Zelensky” and pointed to the cars Ukrainians drive around Berlin. “I couldn’t see the connection,” Broder writes. “He never seemed to mind his taxes funding, say, the Taliban in Afghanistan or Hamas in Gaza. Was that fine by him? Was there no corruption there?”
Even after three years of full-scale war, many Germans—and Europeans more broadly—still fail to grasp its reality. If it still needs explaining that Ukrainians fled to the West not from poverty but from Russian missiles, drones and bombs, then that understanding is clearly lacking. It will come, eventually—but at what cost?
