Foreign Affairs

unhappycamper

(60,364 posts) Sun Jun 29, 2014, 05:45 AM Jun 2014

Part of the West? 'German Leftists Have Still Not Understood Putin'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-historian-heinrich-winkler-about-germany-and-the-west-a-977649.html

Soldiers at a base in Germany: "Many Germans still have sympathy for the idea that Germany can exist as something like a large Switzerland in the middle of Europe."

Part of the West? 'German Leftists Have Still Not Understood Putin'
By Christiane Hoffmann and Rene Pfister
June 27, 2014 – 05:14 PM

SPIEGEL: Professor Winkler, Germany's tight link to the West has been a solid pillar of the country's foreign policy for decades. Is that still the case?

Winkler: There is at least cause for doubt. A strong minority is questioning vital elements of our Western orientation, namely our memberships in NATO and the European Union. I find that unsettling.

SPIEGEL: In your books, you have written that, following several detours and mistakes, Germany is finally firmly embedded in the West. Are you going to have to revise your theory?

Winkler: I wouldn't go that far. Among Germany's democratic parties, there is an overwhelming consensus when it comes to the Western bond. It is a historic achievement. Konrad Adenauer (the country's first post-war chancellor) initiated Germany's bond with the West, but it was bitterly contested at the beginning, particularly by the Social Democrats. It was only with the famous 1960 speech by SPD lawmaker Herbert Wehner in German parliament that the Social Democrats threw their support behind West Germany's treaties with the West. In 1986, Jürgen Habermas argued that Germany's unconditional opening to the political culture of the West was the greatest intellectual achievement of our postwar history. It signaled the birth, posthumously, of a pro-Adenauer left. Today, that consensus is being attacked by the fringes on both the left and right of our political spectrum. When it comes to Germany's orientation to the West, the maxim "Les extremes se touchent" applies -- the extremes touch.

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Part of the West? 'German Leftists Have Still Not Understood Putin' (Original Post) unhappycamper Jun 2014 OP

An Excellent Article, Sir The Magistrate Jun 2014 #1

Thank god for operation Gladio and democratic military rule jakeXT Jun 2014 #2

The Magistrate

(95,244 posts)

1. An Excellent Article, Sir

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Sun Jun 29, 2014, 09:41 AM

Jun 2014

This applies well beyond Germany:

Winkler: German leftists have still not understood the degree to which Russian President Vladimir Putting has drifted to the right domestically. Now, insightful observers are saying that Putin is trying to create something like a reactionary Internationale. The turn toward homophobia and to clerics is completely ignored by leftists in Germany. Their sympathy for Putin comes largely from their antipathy for America. And this anti-Americanism is what binds them with the far-right. When, for example, Alexander Gauland of the Alternative for Germany says essentially that Russia's grab for Russian land is a completely understandable policy, then I can only say: That is racial nationalism in its purist form.

jakeXT

(10,575 posts)

2. Thank god for operation Gladio and democratic military rule

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Mon Jun 30, 2014, 04:23 AM

Jun 2014

SPIEGEL: Perhaps Germans have simply lost the belief in recent years that we are dependent on NATO. The Warsaw Pact, after all, dissolved on its own.

Winkler: That would be a very limited view of the situation. Imagine if Eastern and Southeastern European countries had not been accepted into the trans-Atlantic alliance. It is likely that a zone of instability and anti-democratic resentments would have resulted, just like in the interwar period.

In 1947, the United States formulated the Truman Doctrine, and began to actively support a series of authoritarian governments in Greece, Turkey, and Iran in order to ensure that these states did not fall under Soviet influence.[1] With American and British aid, the civil war ended with the military defeat of the communists in 1949. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) was outlawed, and many Communists either fled the country or faced persecution.[citation needed] The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Greek military began to work closely, especially after Greece joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. This included notable CIA officers Gust Avrakotos and Clair George. Avrakotos maintained a close relationship with the colonels who would figure in the later coup.[2]

Greece was a vital link in the NATO defense arc which extended from the eastern border of Iran to the northernmost point in Norway. Greece in particular was seen as being at risk, having experienced a communist insurgency. In particular, the newly founded Hellenic National Intelligence Service (EYP) and the Mountain Raiding Companies (LOK) maintained a very close liaison with their American counterparts. In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, they agreed to guard against a left-wing coup. The LOK in particular were integrated into the Gladio European stay-behind network.[3] Although there have been persistent rumors about an active support of the coup by the U.S. government, there is no evidence to support such claims.[4][5] The timing of the coup apparently caught the CIA by surprise.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%9374

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