Attack by peaceful comrades on SPD leadership plunges party into piquant dilemma

The SPD lives a lavish lifestyle, maintaining a primary and secondary residence.

The primary residence is Friedrich Merz 's spacious Chancellery, where junior tenants could move in. Brotherly and sisterly, they share the wide corridors of government power with the CDU and CSU.

The second home is more cramped, but you have it all to yourself. It's built from the stones of social democratic history, isolated from the sounds of the present. Here, you can enjoy listening to the old peace songs: "Tell me where the flowers are."

And so it is not surprising that heretical theses were secretly written at this second residence, which were then nailed overnight to the coalition's main building, just as the reformer Martin Luther once nailed his 95 theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg.

"In Germany and most European countries, forces have gained ground that seek the future primarily through a strategy of military confrontation and hundreds of billions of euros in rearmament."

The path also taken by Lars Klingbeil and Boris Pistorius means “pure deterrence without arms control” and does not make Europe safer.

What is needed is reconciliation with warlord Vladimir Putin or, as the paper states, a “gradual return to easing relations and cooperation with Russia,” including the “careful resumption of diplomatic contacts.”

The criticism is directed primarily at the SPD leadership. A frontal attack is launched against Vice Chancellor, Finance Minister and SPD party leader Klingbeil, and Defense Minister Pistorius:

“Military alarm rhetoric and massive armament programs do not create greater security for Germany and Europe, but rather lead to destabilization and an increase in the mutual threat perception between NATO and Russia.”

Therefore, an increase in the defense budget to 3.5 percent or even five percent of gross domestic product would be nothing other than “irrational.”

The masterminds: The signatories include party leftists such as Ralf Stegner and former parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich – both of whom had previously called for a diplomatic shift in Russia policy. Former Federal Finance Minister Hans Eichel – a representative of the right-wing SPD – and former party leader Norbert Walter-Borjans are also among those signed. Former SPD Minister of State for Culture and philosopher Julian Nida-Rümelin has also signed.

The historical hinterland: Willy Brandt 's policy of détente, which combined rearmament and military threats with dialogue diplomacy, serves the signatories as a blueprint for the present. Brandt's conviction: Reconciliation with the Eastern Bloc can only succeed through rapprochement. In his 1969 government declaration, he stated:

"The German people need peace in the full sense of the word, also with the peoples of the Soviet Union and all the peoples of Eastern Europe."

On the other hand, Brandt, Bahr, and the SPD defense ministers of those years— Georg Leber , Hans Apel , and Helmut Schmidt —were not naive. Between 1969 and 1974, they invested more than three percent of the gross domestic product in the Bundeswehr—more than Merkel and Scholz.

Back then, you didn't have to be a leftist to advocate for the policy of détente. Helmut Schmidt, in particular—who succeeded Brandt as Chancellor—shared the fundamental social democratic conviction of the duality of threat and diplomacy:

"Security policy is only one side of the alliance coin. The other side is the policy of détente towards the East. Détente, however, is not a substitute for security, but rather a complement to it."

Brandt and Schmidt have passed away, but not all of their comrades from that time. Klaus von Dohnanyi , the youngest minister in Brandt's cabinet at the time and later also a minister in Schmidt's cabinet, remained true to his fundamental convictions.

In a recent interview with The Pioneer, he explained his opposition to government policy.

"Foreign policy should stand on two pillars: that of security – that is, armament and the development of a defense capability, which still does not fully exist – and the attempt at a security policy consisting of diplomacy and a balance of interests." Willy Brandt's legacy has been betrayed – "and this also happened during Olaf Scholz's time."

And then von Dohnanyi grabbed the SPD defense minister and brought out the big guns against him:

"Have you ever heard our colleague Boris Pistorius talk about diplomacy being a security factor? You only hear it when it comes to guns, tanks, or defense spending."

The timing of the debate is well chosen. The SPD is about to hold a federal party conference at the end of June. The NATO summit is taking place almost simultaneously, at which Germany is expected to commit to massively increasing defense spending.

The party leadership disappeared yesterday as a precaution. Defense Minister Pistorius described the paper as a "denial of reality." He said one could only negotiate with Putin "from a position of strength." Parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch remained calm: "This is legitimate, even if I explicitly disagree with key fundamental assumptions." What you say when you want to end a debate.

Conclusion: Martin Luther's theses led to the schism in the church, just as the approval of war credits and the SPD's approval of the German Reich's entry into the war in 1914 led to the split of the USPD (Independent Social Democratic Party) from its parent party, the SPD.

We're not that far along today. But the embers of that time are burning again. Many comrades feel provoked by the rearmament policy and anti-Russia rhetoric of their own ministers. They feel today what SPD breakaway leader Eduard Bernstein , the SPD's great anti-Marxist theorist, felt back then: "Party discipline was imposed on us – but the party's soul was destroyed in the process."