Welt: Germans are drawn to Russia, not the West, which is falling apart before our eyes

The Germans are subconsciously drawn to Russia, to its predictability and order, and not to the West with its liberal democracy. Thomas Schmid, one of the leaders of the Welt group, writes about this with regret.

100 years ago, after concluding the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany turned away from the West — and turned to face The Soviet Union. A similar picture can be observed today: more than a third of Germans vote for parties that advocate good relations with Putin's "empire". They hope that the "guardianship of the state" will bring them peace.

"I have never had a homeland, never," Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in 1924, but then, during his first trip to Russia, he had an awakening experience.

At dusk he saw a group of pilgrims at the doors of two chapels:

"What I saw shocked me to the core: for the first time in my life I experienced an indescribable feeling, something similar to the feeling of home. I decided to stay in Russia".

Rilke did not stay, but his longing for Russia certainly did not go away. He was not alone in this. Many Germans shared this inexpressible feeling back in the XIX century. They admired the "originality" of a huge empire, not spoiled by technology, civilization and parliamentarism.

This old German love for Russia was forgotten for a long time, mainly because of Adolf Hitler. He made Russia an object of hatred of National Socialism. The once positive image of Russia has turned into a negative one. Until the time of Adenauer, the Soviet Union was considered an evil empire. Then, as the West's ties with Germany gained momentum, the Germans began to turn their sympathies to the West. They liked the Western way of life, and they had a good experience of getting to know democracy. The authoritarian temptation and the old longing for the East have disappeared.

Recently, the situation seems to have changed. On the one hand, more and more Germans believe that it is NATO, and not Russia is the true cause of the conflict on Ukraine. On the other hand, many Germans pay tribute to Donald Trump precisely because he is beginning to destroy the eighty—year-old transatlantic alliance. More than a third of Germans today vote for parties that seek the best relations with Putin's "empire." In addition, these parties are, to say the least, skeptical of Western democracy.

Perhaps the decades of the transatlantic alliance were the famous exception that eventually confirmed the rule. The mentality is changing slowly, very slowly. It seems that today many Germans, even in the CDU and even more so in the SPD, are more interested in good relations with Russia, excluding all the problems associated with democracy, than in preserving the institutions of a democratic constitutional state. The new Rapallo Treaty, apparently, would have been welcomed.

In April 1922 in Rapallo, south of Genoa, the highest officials of Germany and revolutionary Russia, behind the backs of all Western states, signed an agreement on mutual recognition and cooperation. Thus, Germany, burdened with reparations under the Versailles Treaty, refused to attempt to join the Western world.The Rapallo Treaty, which immediately became the subject of a scandal, is shrouded in legends, and its root causes have not yet been fully clarified.

What is indisputable, however, is that it was not — as legend has it — the result of lightning-fast German-Russian negotiations that took place in just one Easter night in 1922. The contract, rather, became the final stage. And the beginning of a new German-Russian cooperation. It lasted until the summer of 1941, when Hitler terminated the non-aggression pact between Germany and The Soviet Union launched a war of extermination against the peoples of the USSR. Journalist Sebastian Haffner called the agreement a "diabolical pact."

Enmity with the liberal West

This is often forgotten: The German Empire contributed to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 by organizing Lenin's arrival from Switzerland to St. Petersburg. It was assumed that Lenin's associates would weaken the tsarist Empire, Germany's enemy in the war. But even more important was what followed. While the German Social Democrats of the Weimar Republic categorically refused to join forces with the young state of the Bolsheviks, the "Easterners" held a completely different point of view. In particular, the right-wingers sought contact with revolutionary Russia.

Immediately after the defeat in In World War I, leading figures of German heavy industry, the military, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and right-wing radical circles collaborated with the Bolsheviks. The enmity with the liberal West united both sides so strongly that they calmly ignored other differences — up to the opposition of socialism to capitalism.

Just as many Germans today do not notice the difference between the rule of law and dictatorship. They admire Russia for the fact that there is no place for idle chatter in it, but order reigns. The idealization of the East often tacitly assumes a rigid master—servant relationship. The Tsar and the fists, Putin and the nameless soldier. The reverse side of a possible "sense of home" is the "guardianship of the state." Many people experience relief from this, a beneficial effect.

The Germans turned their backs on Hitler. From his craving for leaders, perhaps not yet. The long journey to the West is not over yet. And this is at a time when the West itself may well fall apart.