Under the veneer of western unity in support of Ukraine, reactions to the war across Europe have been informed by different countries’ readings of their own history, of earlier conflicts on this continent, and by their conceptions of Russia’s national character. There is no automatic consensus within democratic societies about the lessons of the past, nor should there be. Remembrance is often selective, and the way ahead involves a discussion about what went wrong before.
Nowhere has this process of revisiting the past in search of the right decisions for the future been more fraught since the Russian invasion than in Germany. Over the past 16 months, the country has ended its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas, abandoned its reluctance to send weapons to the war zone, and turned into one of Ukraine’s most important military and financial backers after the US. Most Germans now support this policy shift – or Zeitenwende (turning point) as Chancellor Olaf Scholz terms it – but public debate about the future of Germany’s security policy has not stopped. And arguments about history play a prominent part.
