Status: 07.03.2022 05:07
Weapons deliveries to a war zone, 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr: the about-face of the federal government is an impertinence for some Greens. It’s rumbling at the base.
For Karl Wilhelm Koch, these are steps in the wrong direction. “Supplies of weapons will only unnecessarily prolong this war,” says the politician from Hunsrück. He belongs to the Green Left, a grassroots movement of around 600 party members.
The group is clearly against the current course of the federal government and the green parliamentary group. Members of the Green Left wrote an open letter to her last week. It says literally: “We urge you. No arms deliveries to Ukraine! Negotiations for de-escalation immediately!”
Karl Wilhelm Koch is one of the authors of the letter. He says in an interview with that ARDCapital studio that sending weapons to Ukraine is causing further tensions with Russia’s President Putin: “We risk a war against this crazy despot. What will Putin do next if this escalates? When will he resort to nuclear weapons? Do we have any Means of defending ourselves? Not in my opinion. Unless we want to escalate to nuclear power. Well then: good night Europe!”
Beginning of the war as a caesura
The principles of the Greens in the direction of peace policy have been thrown overboard, says Koch, because of an external – albeit dramatic – event. In a statement, the Green Left calls on the federal government to do everything possible to defuse the situation.
That’s exactly what they’ve been trying to do for weeks, according to representatives of the Greens parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Without success. Agnieszka Brugger, the party’s deputy leader and defense expert, calls the start of the war in Ukraine a turning point. Previous positions and measures had to be questioned.
“I know many in our party who felt the same way as me: at the moment when the war was raging, I could no longer justify to my conscience why we were defending the people’s right to self-defense, protecting their country and life , should not do our best – where possible – to support it,” she says.
A lot to talk about
Especially in Brugger’s regional association, the Baden-Württemberg one, there was a lot of need for talks at the grassroots level. A number of members did not agree with the federal government’s decision to supply arms and rearmament. The party had to do some persuasion. She has convened several virtual meetings – video switching between the base and representatives of the state association or the parliamentary group – to exchange arguments.
No one knows for sure whether the party members are in the majority for or against the steps taken by the federal government. There is no survey. Group Vice Brugger goes in an interview with the ARD-Capital Studio assumes most base greens are behind. “Of course, the core and heart of green security policy is to strengthen peace, security and human rights for us and also worldwide within a framework in which it is possible for us,” she says.
The party has changed
But the path to this goal is different for the Greens today than it was when the party started, says political scientist Hubert Kleinert from the University of Giessen. In the 1980s he was a member of the Bundestag for the Greens.
According to Kleinert, the party has changed because the world has changed too: “The labeling that keeps popping up that the Greens are a pacifist party has been obsolete since 1998/99 at the latest. Because when the Greens first took part in government the Greens supported the Kosovo war. With great stomach ache – but they did it.”
There are situations in which pacifism doesn’t help, says Kleinert. His prognosis: There will be “grumbling” among the Greens about the arms deliveries and the upgrading of the Bundeswehr, but no major resistance.