The early 1980s was the time when it seemed that the two superpowers, in addition to planning for a “Mutual Assured Destruction” as a deterrent strategy for a generalized nuclear war, also had a parallel plan for a possible “limited theater” nuclear war » in Europe, a war that would largely take place on German territory.
It was then that a large pacifist and anti-war movement developed in Germany against this very possibility. In fact, it is interesting that movements developed in both parts of the then still divided Germany.
The Greens played a big role in this peace movement. Along with their opposition to nuclear power was the party’s trademark: a party that was both anti-war and anti-nuclear and anti-environmental destruction.
It was the time when the Greens were represented by figures like Petra Kelly, who organized anti-war demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people and who, together with comrade Gert Bastian (a retired Bundeswehr major general who had resigned from the army in protest at the installation of intermediate-range nuclear missiles ) and other MPs were raising a banner in East Berlin that read “Greens – Swords into plowshares”.
The Mutation of the Greens
The years passed and the Greens began to “water down their wine” in terms of the anti-war stance. The highlight of their first major shift was the acceptance and support of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, under the guidance of their then leader Joska Fischer, who also held the position of foreign minister at that time.
But now with the war in Ukraine the shift has become even more pronounced. Although the turn of the 1990s was very significant, it remained within the bounds of supporting an intervention that could be invoked as a violation of international law. Now we have the Greens fervently supporting Germany’s almost immediate involvement in the war in Ukraine.
To be fair it’s not just the Greens who have shifted. This concerns the entire current German government as well as the political system as a whole.
After all, the tone was first set by Chancellor Olaf Scholz when, shortly after the start of the Russian “special military operation”, he announced that Germany was facing a historic turning point, a Zweitende, and that he would set up a 100 billion dollar fund for rearming the German armed forces forces.
But in the Greens the shift is even sharper if we consider that even recently Greens leader and current foreign minister Annalena Burbock in the negotiations for the current coalition government argued for the need for a “feminist foreign policy” that would supposedly try to overcome resorting to violence and discrimination.
Now, the Greens are among the most ardent supporters of the armed support of Ukraine and the “hard line” against Germany in general. In fact, as an ecological party they have long had a staunch opposition to Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas, an opposition that became even more pronounced after the start of hostilities. In addition, Burbok often appears to be more aggressive than the other government partners. A case in point is her recent statement that Germany, which has not yet decided whether it will itself send the Leopard 2 heavy tanks that the Ukrainians so badly want, will not raise objections as a manufacturer if Poland decides to send its own of Leopard tanks in Ukraine. Nor is it a coincidence that Burbok recently traveled as far as Kharkiv, making her the highest-ranking Western politician to come so close to Russia’s borders and the front lines of military operations.
Burbok is not the only one who has chosen this pro-war stance. And Treasury Secretary Robert Habeck had been in favor of sending weapons to Ukraine from the start.
But other members of the Greens, such as from the democratic movement in East Germany, Kathryn Goering-Eckhardt, vice president of the Bundestag, is also an ardent supporter of sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The same goes for Anton Hofreiter who has evolved from an expert botanist to an expert on weapons systems. And 38-year-old Anieska Brügger, who is deputy head of the parliamentary group and who specializes in the relationship between the Greens and the Bundeswehr, a topic that would have seemed taboo a few decades ago.
The reasons for “Mutation” of Greens
The issue of sending tanks to Ukraine continues to divide German society. A significant percentage, more than 40%, declares the opposite in opinion polls. But a change is evident.
Several reasons can explain this “mutation”.
1. First of all, 78 years have passed since the end of World War II. Relatively few people remain alive with a clear memory of the horrors of war.
2. Correspondingly, German social and political life is no longer dominated by the generations that really bore the guilt of Germany’s leading role in the tragedy of war and the Holocaust, a guilt that played an important role for decades as a bulwark against the occasional plans for a major remilitarization of Germany. The younger generations feel that they are different from those generations and therefore they can make different choices.
3. In addition, especially the middle and educated classes who form both the social and electoral backbone of the Greens, seem to be much more inclined to see various goals supposedly belonging to the political tradition of the Greens, such as human rights or the environment, weapons to be advanced as well. Essentially, a “green” version of “liberal interventionism” that characterizes e.g. the Democrats in the US, a party with which the Greens are increasingly identified. The result is a shift from an insistent “No to war” to an increasingly emphatic “Yes to war if it can be justified.”
