This policy was pursued even though, as early as 2000, the fact began to be seen that, with President Putin, there was a person in the Kremlin who would try to change Russia’s borders by military force. And for whom the West was not a partner but an enemy. In spite of these tendencies, from which the East-Central European partners were informing the Germans and in particular the SPD leaders around Schröder, Steinmeier and Gabriel – all of them by the way from the Land of Lower Saxony – the SPD did not allow itself to be deterred – with the approval of Angela Merkel’s CDU – from letting Germany become highly dependent on Russia in terms of energy policy and from not preparing the Bundeswehr militarily for a possible conflict with Russia in Eastern Europe. For this massive failure, the SPD bears a heavy historical debt.

Hans Stark is Professor of Contemporary German Civilization at the Sorbonne University and Counselor on Franco-German relations at Ifri.

This publication is available in French: Allemagne d'aujourd'hui, n° 243, janvier-mars 2023 (pp. 91-104).