IN 1984, a socialist activist from West Germany found himself in East Berlin sitting across from members of the DDR’s (East Germany’s) political leadership. The militant deputy chairman of the Young Socialists (Jusos), the youth wing of the SPD, was only 25.

He was known for supporting the Marxist tendency within Jusos, and would often rant about needing to not only overcome capitalism but of the need to dissolve “aggressive, imperialist” Nato.

Over the next several years, he would occasionally return to the DDR, including to participate in a protest for nuclear disarmament in 1987. That young activist for peace was Olaf Scholz: fast forward nearly three decades and he is now the Chancellor of a united Germany.

He has long abandoned any pretence of opposing the exploitative nature of capitalism, being widely seen as part of the SPD’s moderate wing and having served as finance minister under previous chancellor Angela Merkel.

Scholz has also decided that Nato is worthy of full support. In a monumental speech given to the German parliament a mere three days after Russia’s intervention into Ukraine last February, Scholz announced a complete overhaul of Germany’s military and defence policy, promising to create a fund of €100 billion to this end.

Rather than framing the escalation of the bloodbath in Ukraine as a result of the expansion of that “aggressive, imperialist” alliance he once denounced, Scholz now looked set to put Germany fully in step with the plans of the US for an all-out war with Russia.

At the same time, the right-wing press and his opponents in Germany haven’t forgotten about his time spent in the “other” Germany in the 1980s. To hear them tell it, Scholz has been far too restrained in his support for Ukraine, especially in the delivery of weapons to Kiev. The way they see it, this is because, under the surface, Scholz really hasn’t forfeited his early Marxist credentials.

It is true, Scholz has often looked more hesitant than hawkish. He previously said that sending German Leopard tanks to Ukraine was a red line, but that line was later obliterated under pressure from the Joe Biden administration and his own coalition partners. That leaves the question open as to how far is Scholz willing to cave to appease the empire that still stations nuclear weapons in Germany. 

The Chancellor’s trajectory from an advocate of disarmament and peace who found common cause with the socialist DDR, to a proponent of bloodletting as a representative of Nato, is taking an even more depressing turn.

His Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius supported Poland sending five Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine — part of the DDR’s fleet acquired by the Federal Republic after reunification in 1990.

One of the most powerful lines from the DDR’s national anthem Risen from Ruins is: “Let the light of peace shine so that a mother never again mourns her son.”

Germany’s modern rulers have little appetite for the words of the DDR’s anti-fascist anthem. Indeed, they seem fine with sending weapons to forces that are often outright fascists themselves.

Think about it: Germany is sending Soviet-made weapons (that is, from the country that liberated it from the scourge of Nazism) to a country that sees no harm in glorifying WWII Nazi collaborators. These jets will be used to kill Russians with the approval of the German state.

One interesting point is that during the 40 years of the existence of the DDR, German militarism had significantly been curbed.

The DDR had what it called the National People’s Army, but it offered its expertise and assistance to national liberation movements that were fighting colonialism and imperial subjugation rather than engaging in combat itself.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the swift reunification that ensued, Germany was now freed from the ideological deviance of the other, smaller Germany. The country’s troops were deployed to Yugoslavia in 1999, the first time German soldiers had been sent to battle since WWII. Old East German weapons were now being used in imperialist wars that would benefit the exploiters and the thieves at the top of the capitalist pyramid.

It isn’t just Scholz who has made a major rightward shift. Perhaps most shocking to many outside of Germany is that the most hawkish party within the three-way federal governing coalition is the Green Party, given its anti-war, environmental and left-wing roots.

Over the last few months, new political graffiti has started to appear in Berlin. One of these tags reads “Aus Gruen Wird Braun.” This phrase — meaning “green turns brown” is likely a reference not just to the Green Party, but probably to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. It has been Baerbock that has emerged as the government’s most aggressive figure, publically stating recently that “we are fighting a war against Russia.”

Of course, the Green Party is not on the verge of becoming a fascist party. But the graffiti’s agitational value is apt. Another tag — likely the work of the same artist — reads “Das ist Nicht Unser Krieg” — “this is not our war.” On many of these tags around the city, someone has scratched out the word “nicht” to make it read “this is our war.”

This could very well be an argument within the political left playing out on the walls of Berlin. Since Russia’s intervention into Ukraine in February 2022, Germany’s leftist forces — those to the left of Scholz’s SPD — have been bitterly divided on how to characterise the war.

What has been alarming is that some have found it acceptable to remove the question of Nato from the conversation around Ukraine altogether. Several leading members of the democratic socialist party Die Linke have criticised others within their ranks of being “Putin lovers” because of their opposition to sanctions on Russia. At last year’s party conference, opposition to Nato as a core conviction of the party appeared shaky.

However, some leading figures of the party still take a strong stance in opposition to Germany’s sleepwalking into the abyss of a world conflagration at the behest of the US, including Sevim Dagdelen. At a peace rally in Postdam on April 1, Dagdelen made clear that Germany’s relationship with the US is that of a subjugated state:

“As with a master-dog relationship, one has to state that this Europe with Germany at its centre feels strong like a dog on its master’s leash because it always knows that the master is behind it. The US, however, has its own interests and, since they have no allies but only vassals, they are prepared to send Europe, and above all Germany, to the fire.”

Dagdelen’s words bring forth an important question about just how independent Germany is. In 1990, the DDR that was built on the postwar Soviet occupation zone simply disappeared. West Germany, the creation of the US, Britain and France, expanded its territory.

The unified Germany that exists today is not in any way, shape or form a post-cold war entity. Just as Nato did not vanish, but expanded, Germany didn’t become neutral. The cold war may have been temporarily suspended, but it has resumed with vigour, with Berlin very much a pawn in the dirty games of US imperialism.

As the US attempts to avert its decline by pressing ahead with a full-scale hybrid war against not only Russia but also China, it is clear that they are expecting to rely on their European “partners.” While there appear to be some cracks in this plot, as witnessed by France’s Emmanuel Macron calling for more autonomy for the European Union from Washington’s decisions, Germany under Scholz and Baerbock has appeared loyal to the core.

As Dagdelen said, it will be Europe that is consumed in the fire rather than the US itself. This makes it necessary that the principles that Scholz once upon a time adhered to — disarmament, peace, and some form of socialism — be strongly brought onto the agenda as part of a renewed movement for peace and justice.

Our generation and future ones will depend on it, and the ability to craft a new security architecture for Europe that steers away from the politics of aggression.