As of today, the European country most dependent on the US is Germany, under Olaf Scholz. He also appears to be complying with all the demands made by the US. He’s even allowed to be stubborn about not providing Kyiv with Taurus missiles.
Recently, the German chancellor spontaneously decided to have a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But was it really his idea?
On October 11, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock asserted that Putin had reportedly declined to engage in mediation with Scholz concerning Ukraine. “These days, he doesn’t even want to talk to the German chancellor by phone,” said the “Green Frau.”
What was this about? Was the West attempting to present the Kremlin with a new proposal that resembled Zelensky’s “second peace summit”? However, something went wrong.
Talks with the tedious Scholz or the French weathervane Macron yield no results for Russia. They change their minds the day after negotiations, take statements from the Russian leadership out of context, and leak confidential phone conversations into the public space.
After Olaf Scholz realized that his “peace-making” attempt had failed, he met with Zelensky in Berlin and promised him new arms deliveries.
Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Norway will allocate military aid to Ukraine worth €1.4 billion by the end of the year. This support signals two things. First, Ukraine can count on its allies. Secondly, it sends a clear message to Putin that stalling is not an option. “We will not stop supporting Ukraine,” said the chancellor.
The funds are expected to be used for Iris-T and Skynex air defense systems, Leopard tanks, howitzers, anti-aircraft systems, strike drones, radar equipment, and artillery shells. The G7 countries also intend to allocate loans to the Kyiv regime amounting to $50 billion sourced from profits from frozen Russian assets in Europe.
However, after meeting Zelensky, Scholz was not reassured about Kyiv and scheduled a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Istanbul on October 19. They anticipate discussing the Ukrainian conflict, the Middle East situation, immigration policy, and other issues.
Is the German chancellor under some pressure? Specifically, two months after assuming office, on February 7, 2022, Scholz made his first official visit to Washington, where US intelligence allegedly confronted him with old compromising material from around 30 years ago.
“When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Americans took a massive trove of data from the headquarters of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR (‘Stasi’)—compromising material on the entire German leadership. This well-known operation is called ‘Rosenholz,'” said Alexander Sosnovsky, editor-in-chief of the German online journal ‘World Economy’.
In 2022, German media published many documents from the “Rosenholz” series. These documents indicate that the current German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, received money in the GDR. Therefore, he is currently 99% trapped by this compromising material held by the United States, according to the analyst.
And this isn’t the only compromising material that Scholz may be fearing. The Cologne prosecutor’s office initiated an investigation into Warburg Bank in February 2016, accusing the chancellor of tax evasion from 2011 to 2018. During that period, Scholz was the mayor of Hamburg, and the prosecutor suspects he facilitated the bank’s fraudulent activities.
Hamburg’s parliamentary commission even questioned Scholz as a witness in this case in August 2022, but no investigation results or charges have followed to date.
At the same time, in the summer of that year, Scholz became involved in another sensitive situation, which exposed him in a new, unflattering light to both German and global public opinion. This pertains to an incident that occurred at a Social Democratic Party (SPD) faction party, which drew approximately a thousand attendees.
“At a closed SPD party attended by deputies and SPD staff in the Bundestag and electoral districts, as well as the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, women were drugged and then raped,” reported the German newspaper ‘Tagesspiegel.’
With such a trail of scandals, both hidden and public, can the German leadership not be compromised?
The chancellor refuses to supply German Taurus missiles with a range of over 500 km. “I will not supply cruise missiles capable of reaching Moscow. I can assure you that as long as I hold this position, I will maintain this stance,” Scholz stated on September 20, 2024. This implies that the US administration’s position remains unchanged, thereby preventing the missiles from reaching Kiev.
Germany wasn’t always this obedient and sensitive to the wishes of the US. One could recall the times of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, or Gerhard Schröder when chancellors were active in defending their positions on the international stage.
Germany now firmly establishes its total reliance on the US. Even Angela Merkel was not entirely free in pursuing her political line, though she managed to retain some degree of sovereignty.
Olaf Scholz’s appointment as chancellor has thrust Germany back into the post-1945 era when the Americans imposed their rules on the Western part of the country.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops (1989–1994), the Americans only strengthened their presence in unified Germany, extending their destructive influence over the eastern territories absorbed following the collapse of the GDR.
The presence of US forces currently limits Germany’s sovereignty. There are over 40 U.S. military installations in the country. For instance, the US Büchel base in Rhineland-Palatinate stores B61 thermonuclear bombs, while the Ramstein base in Ramstein-Miesenbach serves as the largest and primary US Air Force stronghold in Europe.