{"id":182896,"date":"2025-06-14T04:45:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T04:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/182896\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T04:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T04:45:14","slug":"germany-spd-peace-manifesto-an-attempt-to-cover-their-tracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/182896\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany: SPD \u201cPeace\u201d Manifesto\u2014an attempt to cover their tracks"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201cmanifesto\u201d by former leading members of Germany\u2019s Social Democratic Party (SPD), calling for a \u201cstrategy of de-escalation\u201d for Europe instead of \u201ca new arms race,\u201d and advocating a \u201cgradual return to cooperation with Russia,\u201d has made considerable waves.<\/p>\n

Rolf M\u00fctzenich speaking as SPD parliamentary leader in the Bundestag, September 2023 [Photo by DBT \/ Marc-Steffen Unger ]<\/p>\n

The paper was signed by several dozen former high-ranking party members\u2014including Rolf M\u00fctzenich, who led the SPD parliamentary group until February this year, former executive committee member Ralf Stegner, and former party chairman Norbert Walter-Borjans. It was also endorsed by former Finance Minister Hans Eichel, former Minister of State for Culture Julian Nida-R\u00fcmelin, and historian Peter Brandt, son of former Chancellor Willy Brandt.<\/p>\n

While the media portrays the manifesto as a challenge to party chairman and Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, it is nothing of the sort. Published two weeks before the SPD national party conference, the manifesto is aimed at defusing the growing outrage over the party\u2019s militaristic course, which resulted in its worst-ever election result in February.<\/p>\n

While the manifesto invokes the d\u00e9tente policies of the 1970s, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, arms control and international understanding, and warns against \u201calarmist military rhetoric and massive rearmament programs,\u201d it is in agreement with government policy on all essential points and conclusions. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing disreputable in the paper, it\u2019s not a \u2018Russia paper,\u2019\u201d M\u00fctzenich emphasized in an interview with the\u00a0S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung.<\/p>\n

He knows what he\u2019s talking about. As SPD parliamentary leader, M\u00fctzenich secured parliamentary majorities in 2022 for the \u20ac100 billion special fund to rearm the German military and in 2025 for war credits amounting to over \u20ac1 trillion. When he now criticizes \u201cforces\u201d that \u201csee the future primarily in a strategy of military confrontation and hundreds of billions for rearmament,\u201d it\u2019s a transparent attempt to cover his own tracks.<\/p>\n

The manifesto explicitly supports rearmament. It states, \u201cIt is clear: a capable Bundeswehr [Armed Forces] and strengthening Europe\u2019s ability to act in terms of security policy are necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It also supports the call for \u201can independent defence capability of European states independent of the USA\u201d\u2014one of the main justifications for the massive increase in military spending. Despite all the talk of \u201cd\u00e9tente\u201d and \u201ccooperation,\u201d Russia is clearly identified as the enemy for its \u201cviolation of international law in attacking Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The manifesto does not call for ending the war offensive against Russia. It merely seeks to mask that offensive behind empty phrases about \u201carms control\u201d and \u201cdialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the more revealing is the aggressive response from leading SPD politicians. This demonstrates that there is nothing social or democratic remaining in this party, which once rose to prominence more than 150 years ago under the banner of Marxism. Today it supports the imperialist objectives of German capital and the associated social cuts just as aggressively as the Christian Democrats (CDU\/CSU), Liberal Democrats (FDP), Greens, and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The SPD controls the two key ministries\u2014defence and finance\u2014for advancing these goals.<\/p>\n

Defence Minister Pistorius accused the manifesto of \u201cdenying reality.\u201d He claimed it abused \u201cthe desire of people in this country for peace.\u201d One could only negotiate with Putin \u201cfrom a position of strength.\u201d That, he said, was also Willy Brandt\u2019s policy\u2014\u201cunder whose government the share of defence spending in terms of GDP was significantly higher than today. No submission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appropriately, Pistorius visited Kiev on Wednesday and promised another \u20ac1.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Germany, he announced, at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, was prepared to co-finance so-called \u201clong-range fire systems\u201d\u2014i.e., missiles capable of striking targets within Russia. Germany would also expand its arms cooperation with Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, former Bundestag (parliamentary) Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael Roth denounced the manifesto as a \u201cself-satisfied and selfish feel-good paper.\u201d He admitted that he too had once believed in the motto \u201cpeace without weapons,\u201d but in a world of \u201cdictatorship and imperialism,\u201d this no longer applied.<\/p>\n

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SPD parliamentary group domestic affairs spokesman Sebastian Fiedler said the paper had \u201cirritated, disturbed, and angered\u201d him. It even \u201ctalks of cooperation with Russia \u2014 that is, with a war criminal.\u201d He emphasized his full support for the government\u2019s course.<\/p>\n

Even the Greens\u2014no longer part of the government but still fully backing rearmament and the war against Russia\u2014attacked the manifesto. Deputy parliamentary group leader Agnieszka Brugger dismissed the call for negotiations with Russia as \u201cwishful thinking,\u201d claiming such a course \u201cwould not cause a ruthless imperialist to end his violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brugger called the manifesto\u2019s signatories the \u201cusual suspects\u201d who had \u201cmissed out on party positions\u201d within the SPD. She urged the party leadership not to let these \u201cattacks from within\u201d against the government\u2019s course go unchallenged. \u201cAnyone who wants peace must ensure our security is preserved, based on reality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The pro-war policy of the SPD and Greens also exposes the Left Party, which\u2014much like the M\u00fctzenich-Stegner manifesto\u2014occasionally voices mild criticism of rearmament. But when it counts, the Left Party backs the war policy without reservation: in the Bundesrat (upper house of parliament), it voted for the \u20ac1 trillion military package; in the Bundestag vote for chancellor, it helped bail out Friedrich Merz (CDU) after he failed in the first round.<\/p>\n

The entire strategy of the Left Party is focused on forming a coalition government with the SPD and Greens\u2014and, if necessary, the CDU. Once in office, as in the states of Berlin, Bremen, and several eastern German states, its left rhetoric vanishes like the morning dew. It slashes social spending, deports refugees, and arms the police like every other party.<\/p>\n

There will be no opposition to the rearmament madness and the danger of war from any party in the Bundestag or the trade unions linked to them. This can only come from an independent movement of the international working class that unites the struggle against war, fascism, and social austerity with the fight against their root cause\u2014capitalism.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201cmanifesto\u201d by former leading members of Germany\u2019s Social Democratic Party (SPD), calling for a \u201cstrategy of de-escalation\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824,49378,24861,657,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-182896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-imperialism","12":"tag-militarism","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114679901468671136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}