Thanks to John Kampfner for his article (Germany’s change of heart is now pivotal to the war in Ukraine. Here’s why, 15 May). True, it took a long time for Germany to come to this dramatic decision on its military aid policy. But it makes me sad that very few of our European partners took the trouble to understand our nation’s hesitation. British voices especially were only too happy to rehash the old song about the unloved Germany, the eternally handicapped decision-maker.
Born in the postwar Germany of 1947, and having lived just a few kilometres away from the barbed wire and minefields of the East German border, and experienced all the awful fears of another war of everyone around us – deep in the bones of our families and teachers – I understand how this has made us a careful people. Sandwiched between two ideologies, West Germany and East Germany represented the arrowheads of two opposing systems, a situation that overshadowed our lives every day.
