Arrogant, incompetent and corrupt: war is shattering our delusions of the German elite

It is too early to say who will win the war in Ukraine, but one nation has already suffered a catastrophic loss of prestige: Germany. The political and business leaders of Europe’s biggest economy have not only failed to give Ukrainians the help they so desperately need, but in their dealings with Russia they have been exposed as at best naive - and at worst complicit.

This week the German leadership crisis deepened when Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, claimed to be delivering on his promise to send arms to Ukraine — but was revealed by the tabloid Bild to have secretly refused every item of heavy equipment requested by Kyiv. After Scholz had crossed tanks and artillery off the list, an aid package said to be worth €1 billion (£836 million) had been reduced by more than two thirds.

Meanwhile Berlin has been stonewalling on sanctions, claiming that its industry and consumers cannot bear the pain of cutting off energy supplies from Russia. A decade ago, the Germans lectured Greeks and other southern Europeans about austerity, telling them that “an end with horror is better than a horror without end”. Now, as President Zelensky told German MPs a month ago, they care only about protecting their economy.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/24/arrogant-incompetent-corrupt-war-shattering-delusions-german/

https://web.archive.org/web/20220425002429/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/24/arrogant-incompetent-corrupt-war-shattering-delusions-german/