On these pages, I have several times remarked on the rabidly Russophobic foreign policy being practiced in Germany by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens party. Lest anyone mistakenly believe that Baerbock’s views on Russia are strictly her own, allow me to remind you that the German Greens were the most vociferously anti-Russian bloc in the European Parliament going back a dozen years or more. In that regard they were in a close competition with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) party headed by former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, another Russia-hater who concealed his animus by making friends with anti-Putin Russians like Boris Nemtsov.
But in terms of vicious rhetoric, I submit that the Greens, with MEPs like Rebecca Harms, had the upper hand. Back in 2012, they were actively campaigning for a European version of the Magnitsky Act whereby the United States imposed severe sanctions on Russia for fabricated charges of human rights violations. They did not succeed in hitting hard at Russia until 2014 and the annexation of Crimea, but they did their best.
As we all know, thanks to the drumbeats coming from Germany’s centrist parties, the Alternativ fuer Deutschland, is an extremist party of the Right with neo-fascist tendencies. If you have any doubts, just ask the editorial board of the Financial Times and they will chime in with their vote of support for this interpretation. However, here we have just another case of mirror image propaganda, where the allegations are more appropriate to those making them than to those who are the target of them. What I am saying is that the anti-Russian German Greens are the true extremist party of the Right with neo-fascist tendencies while the pro-Russian AfD are defenders of German sovereignty against the American occupation forces. The Green’s rejection of post war contrition for the sins of their fathers and grandfathers finds expression in the new ‘holier than thou’ posture towards Russia and revanchism.
The Greens’ brand was built on environmentalism. But the Greens in power in Germany have enthusiastically sacrificed their environment-friendly policies on the altar of war with Russia. In the wake of a domestic energy crisis precipitated by rejection of Russian hydrocarbons, the Greens have brought back coal-fired generators. If there is anything environmentally friendly about Baerbock’s policies in government, it is the ongoing deindustrialization of Germany thanks to the departure of manufacturing capacity to countries with better energy and regulatory conditions.
