One of the closest advisors to the German head of government has gone haywire.
At a conference, Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt (52, SPD) gave unusually open insights into the German arms delivery strategy Ukraine war given – and powerfully irritated at the same time.
During the appearance at a Berlin think tank, Schmidt justified Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (64, SPD) hesitant course in supplying battle tanks to Ukraine. Representatives of the other two traffic light parties, FDP and Greens, had repeatedly called for them.
Close confidante: From 2002, Schmidt was first a personal advisor for the then SPD Secretary General Scholz, then office manager. When Scholz was finance minister in Merkel’s cabinet, Schmidt served under him as state secretary
The head of the Chancellery, who also coordinates the German intelligence services, made an absurd comparison at the conference: “I’m tempted to call it the V2 syndrome, that there is this miracle weapon that, like magic, ensures that things just walk away.” The Leopard 2 is now seen as the silver bullet that could end the war, “but that’s just not how it works”.
The “V2” rocket was developed under Hitler as an alleged miracle weapon. The National Socialists still wanted to use it to win the Second World War – the Wehrmacht fired it at London and Antwerp in the last months of the war.
[1945:ANazi”V2″rocketinCuxhaven
And: Thousands of forced laborers and concentration camp inmates lost their lives during the construction of the “V2” rockets in former mine tunnels south of the Harz Mountains.
The head of the Chancellery considers THAT comparable to today’s tanks from German armaments companies?
The CDU defense expert Roderich Kiesewetter (59) is stunned. To the “Daily Mirror” he said: “The use of the term V-weapons, i.e. revenge weapons, shows fatal historical ignorance. The V2 was used as a terrorist weapon by Hitler’s Nazi regime against civilian targets in major cities such as London or Antwerp.”
Leopard-type main battle tanks, on the other hand, could be used lawfully and legitimately as a joint European initiative “against the Russian aggression, which violates international law, on predominantly civilian targets in Ukraine,” said the CDU politician.
CDU defense expert Roderich Kiesewetter (59)
For example, Scholz’ party member Michael Roth (52), as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested that tank deliveries would be possible as a joint European initiative.
CDU politician Kiesewetter emphasized that the experts agreed that battle tanks and armored personnel carriers would help Ukraine a great deal militarily. “Schmidt not only confuses cause and effect, but also plays down Russia’s terrible war against the Ukrainian civilian population and discredits Germany’s reputation,” he criticized.
Kiesewetter continued: “Chancellor Merkel would have dismissed a chancellery minister with such statements.”
“Disturbing appearance!”
In addition, the head of the Chancellery made another mistake. He claimed: “If main battle tanks were captured with the German Iron Cross, it would be the perfect occasion for Russian propaganda to say, look, this is NATO attacking us.”
Kiesewetter, himself Colonel a. D. of the Bundeswehr thinks that’s nonsense. All combat vehicles and weapon systems that will be delivered would wear national insignia of Ukraine. “The Iron Cross is reserved for Bundeswehr vehicles in mandated operations and domestically,” said the CDU politician.
︎ Union faction vice Johann Wadepuhl (59) criticized after the appearance of the head of the chancellery that Scholz had “no consistent strategy” in supporting Ukraine.
“Because the delivered Gepard tanks could also be captured and of course there is no ‘miracle weapon’,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”. The question remains whether Germany “does everything it can do”.
His summary: “It was a disturbing appearance by the head of the Chancellery.”