I’m off on the Munich-Vienna train when I hear that two Russian missiles have just crashed on the Polish side in this senseless war that is ravaging Ukraine.
I am then in full discussion with a young cabin neighbor from Munich captivated by the country of Vladimir Putin. When the news breaks, he jumps to his phone to check it, shakes his head, and gets very agitated. That Tuesday, the first information is that the missiles were launched by Russia. Red alert. The conversation quickly turns to the possibility of World War III.
“Our army is starving! confirms my neighbor. Brutal awakening that this war in Ukraine for Europe and Germany in particular. Since the end of the cold war, the country has stopped investing in its army. In September, the German government announced 100 billion euros to modernize it. But all this restoration will take time. Compulsory military service no longer exists since 2012. And, as in Canada, the Bundeswehr is desperately looking for arms. My young friend, son of a soldier, chose tourism and has no intention of changing the trajectory of his professional ambitions.
He calls himself a pacifist, but prays that the Western powers will not concede anything to Putin and let the Ukrainians down. I agree. Supporting Ukraine, containing this war, remains precisely the best way to avoid an escalation of the conflict and a long-term upheaval of the world order. Putin plays in our heads. The ex-KGB spy is a champion at this little game. At this stage, the nuclear threat remains a hypothesis.
Vestiges of the IIIe Reich
Seven hours by car from the Ukrainian border, geopolitics leaves no one indifferent. The not so distant European warrior past marked the grandfather and great-grandfather of my young neighbor. At that time, the roles of good and bad were reversed. The bad guy was undeniably Nazi Germany.
In Munich, the vestiges of the dark years of IIIe Reich punctuate my steps. They are there for anyone who wants to see them.
I was kindly invited to a party at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich. The building, built in 1936, was formerly called the “Führerbau”; the Munich palace of Adolf Hitler.
I admire these Munich residents who have chosen to drown the ghosts of this painful past with music, theater and a European youth that comes from everywhere. We watch in amazement as a choir performs perfectly, singing Mendelssohn on the pink marble stairs. It’s grand.
And yet here, on September 30, 1938, under the initiative of Mussolini, the Führer had signed, with the French Minister of War, Édouard Daladier, and the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, an infamous agreement. He guaranteed peace in exchange for a small Czechoslovak territory called the “Sudetenland” which would be given back to Germany. The following year, the Führer’s troops invaded all of Czechoslovakia and Poland. The Allies had passed a fir tree, as we say back home. We know the rest.
“You had to choose between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor, you will have war, ”said Winston Churchill, then a simple deputy.
These words resonate louder than ever. On the other side of the spectrum, more and more loudly, certain voices do not fear the dishonor of Churchill and urge their governments to reason with Ukraine so that it negotiates immediately to appease Putin. This is Ukraine’s great fear and it would be a mistake.
The recovery of Kherson, a turning point
The Russian retreat to Kherson makes the prospect of a Russian defeat less and less hypothetical and seems to put off for the moment that of open negotiations. Why would the Ukrainians want to negotiate? Their victory at Kherson marks a turning point in this war and shows, once again, the rout of the Russian army and its militias on the ground. Why would they stop there when the enemy seeks to exterminate them? The Ukrainians are doomed to victory.
A truce would necessarily be, at this stage, an improbable victory for the master of the Kremlin, which would give him wind in his sails. Appeasing Putin would allow him pause to go further as Hitler relied on fear of the Allies to advance.
The Russian army would continue on its way and after Ukraine, it would perhaps be Moldova, Georgia, but above all the message that everything is permitted. I am thinking of the threat hanging over Taiwan, also of the hard blows to democracies.
I remember the conversation with a lady at the big event at the University of Music in Munich. Maria Sollner told me: “My government has entered into an agreement to buy gas from Russia. Good trade should guarantee peace and democracy. Putin completely fooled us. Russian power plays in another dimension.
Putin loses this war, but he persists because he would hardly survive a total rout. Despots who lose end up lynched by cheering mobs. So he goes on showing muscle. It rains missiles down on Ukraine, it sends waves of recruits to the slaughter, it pulverizes the neighboring country. His army kills, tortures and rapes thousands of Ukrainians.
I return to the Munich University of Music party. I break the atmosphere a bit and I start talking to the guests. “Is there a parallel between Hitler and Putin? And the IIIe Reich who lived within these walls? I fear a deep malaise.
And yet, Florian Willeitner, in his fifties, the son of a Wehrmacht infantry soldier, did not hesitate and answered me with a veil of sadness: “We think about the atrocities of the Nazi regime every day, we feel guilty every day. Will the Russians ever feel guilty? “Look at all these people who are fleeing the regime, who refuse to fight, they are already ashamed,” he told me softly. They don’t all agree with this monster. »