By Alison Smale, NY Times, June 5, 2015
BERLIN–When seven world leaders meet this weekend in Germany, their agenda will include maintaining pressure on Russia over Ukraine, a policy on which the host country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has proved a reliable ally for President Obama.
Yet for all that Ms. Merkel has done to use her nation’s growing influence on the world stage to counter Russian aggression, Germany’s role in seeking to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia–who has been excluded from the gathering for a second year–has left the host country feeling rankled and a bit mournful about the rupture of a relationship it had spent decades cultivating.
“Everything that we tried to build with Russia in the last 25 years is slipping away, and is in danger,” said Gernot Erler, the government’s envoy for Russia and much of the old Soviet bloc, who has been visiting the region since his student days in the 1960s.
The sense of regret at Germany’s inability to bring Russia into the European fold and to build a relationship that would transcend their bloody history stems from economic and ideological ties dating well back into the era when Germany was divided in two.
In 1970, Willy Brandt, the first West German chancellor to visit post-1945 Poland, atoned for his country’s Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe by kneeling at the Warsaw ghetto. Since then, the easing of tensions known as Ostpolitik has guided Germany in its dealings with Russia and its bloc.
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the two countries drew as close as perhaps they had ever been in centuries of trading and warring.
With his forays into Ukraine, Mr. Putin altered the dynamic. The choice put him at odds with the West and highlighted, particularly in the Baltic States and Poland, lingering Cold War fears about Russia’s true aims. In Germany, even veteran proponents of close ties were troubled by bloodshed they could not have imagined more than a year ago in a Europe they thought had left war behind.
Ms. Merkel, who grew up in East Germany and whose conservative worldview holds no romanticism about the Soviet Union, nonetheless worked hard over many years to make a diplomatic partner out of Mr. Putin. They still speak frequently, though their relationship has grown more strained in recent months.
But the disappointment over how things turned out is felt particularly acutely by her center-left coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who were once led by Mr. Brandt. A former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who is a personal friend of Mr. Putin’s and works for an affiliate of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, went so far as to say it was a mistake to turn the Group of 8 into the Group of 7 by excluding Mr. Putin from the talks.
Helmut Schmidt, who as chancellor in 1975 helped start the Group of 7, was also sympathetic to Mr. Putin.
“I see clearly that Putin is offended by the fact that, in his view, the West does not take him seriously enough,” Mr. Schmidt, 96, told the news agency DPA. Mr. Schmidt said the Russian leader was fulfilling what he saw as his duty to restore the Russian state after its “Wild West” years under Boris N. Yeltsin.
The business community, and a majority of Germans, have largely supported Berlin’s tough stance with Russia, particularly after a Malaysian passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine.
But the leaders of the two main German institutions for doing business with Russia appealed to Ms. Merkel to let Mr. Putin back into the Group of 7, arguing that Russia was needed to get peace in Ukraine, to deal with chaos in the Middle East or to forge an agreement to address climate change.
Some warned that the West risked losing Russia to deals with China, India or the Middle East.
“Russia has an alternative to Europe,” Mr. Schröder said. “That is not true the other way around.” Last year, Russian-German business declined 18 percent over all.
BERLIN–When seven world leaders meet this weekend in Germany, their agenda will include maintaining pressure on Russia over Ukraine, a policy on which the host country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has proved a reliable ally for President Obama.
Yet for all that Ms. Merkel has done to use her nation’s growing influence on the world stage to counter Russian aggression, Germany’s role in seeking to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia–who has been excluded from the gathering for a second year–has left the host country feeling rankled and a bit mournful about the rupture of a relationship it had spent decades cultivating.
“Everything that we tried to build with Russia in the last 25 years is slipping away, and is in danger,” said Gernot Erler, the government’s envoy for Russia and much of the old Soviet bloc, who has been visiting the region since his student days in the 1960s.
The sense of regret at Germany’s inability to bring Russia into the European fold and to build a relationship that would transcend their bloody history stems from economic and ideological ties dating well back into the era when Germany was divided in two.
In 1970, Willy Brandt, the first West German chancellor to visit post-1945 Poland, atoned for his country’s Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe by kneeling at the Warsaw ghetto. Since then, the easing of tensions known as Ostpolitik has guided Germany in its dealings with Russia and its bloc.
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the two countries drew as close as perhaps they had ever been in centuries of trading and warring.
With his forays into Ukraine, Mr. Putin altered the dynamic. The choice put him at odds with the West and highlighted, particularly in the Baltic States and Poland, lingering Cold War fears about Russia’s true aims. In Germany, even veteran proponents of close ties were troubled by bloodshed they could not have imagined more than a year ago in a Europe they thought had left war behind.
Ms. Merkel, who grew up in East Germany and whose conservative worldview holds no romanticism about the Soviet Union, nonetheless worked hard over many years to make a diplomatic partner out of Mr. Putin. They still speak frequently, though their relationship has grown more strained in recent months.
But the disappointment over how things turned out is felt particularly acutely by her center-left coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who were once led by Mr. Brandt. A former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who is a personal friend of Mr. Putin’s and works for an affiliate of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, went so far as to say it was a mistake to turn the Group of 8 into the Group of 7 by excluding Mr. Putin from the talks.
Helmut Schmidt, who as chancellor in 1975 helped start the Group of 7, was also sympathetic to Mr. Putin.
“I see clearly that Putin is offended by the fact that, in his view, the West does not take him seriously enough,” Mr. Schmidt, 96, told the news agency DPA. Mr. Schmidt said the Russian leader was fulfilling what he saw as his duty to restore the Russian state after its “Wild West” years under Boris N. Yeltsin.
The business community, and a majority of Germans, have largely supported Berlin’s tough stance with Russia, particularly after a Malaysian passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine.
But the leaders of the two main German institutions for doing business with Russia appealed to Ms. Merkel to let Mr. Putin back into the Group of 7, arguing that Russia was needed to get peace in Ukraine, to deal with chaos in the Middle East or to forge an agreement to address climate change.
Some warned that the West risked losing Russia to deals with China, India or the Middle East.
“Russia has an alternative to Europe,” Mr. Schröder said. “That is not true the other way around.” Last year, Russian-German business declined 18 percent over all.
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