Why was Germany focused only on Russia for so long?

This article was produced in the framework of the "Unprejudiced" project with the support of the Eastern Partnership Programme and the German Federal Foreign Office in autumn 2022.
Author: Anja Lordieck

The relationship between Germany and Ukraine is strained. Germany's attitude toward Russia has fueled deep mistrust in Ukraine that still persists. Was Germany too focused on Russia? "Germany's relationship with Eastern European states has always been shaped by what Russia might think about it," explains Irish journalist Judy Dempsey, senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank, which studies European foreign and security policy.

That's why the focus on Eastern Europe needs to change, demands Franziska Davies, a historian of Eastern Europe at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich: The so-called Ostpolitik has been a disaster since Gerhard Schröder, she says. "The permanent 'You have to get along with Russia' had the consequence that we didn't recognize the seriousness of the situation in Germany when the war in Ukraine began in 2014." The glorification of Russia, she said, led to disastrous consequences, most notably the dependence on Russia as an energy supplier. But where does this focus come from?

Historical Reasons

It is primarily due to history, indicates historian Davies, whose research focus is Ukraine. The term Eastern Europe has been strongly associated with Russia since its inception in the 19th century. In Germany, Russia and Eastern Europe were seen as uncivilized and barbaric. This perception was continued in the 20th century. The Russian and thus Eastern European population was seen as incapable of democracy.

The Soviet Union was also russified, explains Franziska Davies. This has not completely changed to this day, as shown, for example, by statements made by German President Steinmeier in an interview at the beginning of 2021 in the Rheinische Post. In it, he justified the adherence to the Nord Stream II gas pipeline with, among other things, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. The gas pipeline runs from Russia to Germany and could have made gas imports via Ukraine unnecessary. The plans, which have been on hold since February 2022, were in Russia's interest and against Ukraine's interest. So a German president argued with millions of victims of the Soviet Union for a project in favor of Russia - and ignored the fact that Ukraine was also part of the Soviet Union and among the victims mentioned were Ukrainians. German remembrance culture has long ignored the fact that the war of extermination and the Holocaust during World War II also took place in Ukraine and Belarus, explains historian Franziska Davies. To this day, Russia is perceived as a global player and as the real shaper of the region.

Imperial Perspective

This was also evident in the debate in Germany after the Maidan revolution. After the Ukrainian government failed to sign the association agreement with the EU at the end of 2013, protests broke out on Kyiv's Majdan independence square. One consequence was the annexation of Crimea by Russia. In the wake of this, people in Germany had spoken of "our Russian neighbors." "This is a deeply colonial view, because Russia is no longer our neighbor, but was at a time when the German and Russian empires were great imperial powers," Franziska Davies explains. After Poland was divided at the end of the 18th century by the Habsburg monarchy, Prussia and the Russian Empire, the two empires actually lay directly next to each other for over a hundred years. They were also linked by an anti-Polish policy that culminated in the Hitler-Stalin Pact in World War II. In a secret additional protocol, the German Reich and the USSR agreed to partition the Baltic States and Poland.

Germany denies Ukraine the status of a "real" nation

Like Poland once was, Ukraine was denied the status of a "genuine" nation in Germany in 2014 - including by former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. "'Genuineness' is not an appropriate category for a nation," says Franziska Davies. Ukraine is not an artificial state either - according to this way of thinking, there are only artificial nations. This, too, shows the colonial perspective of the Germans on Ukraine, she adds. Only with the escalation of the war in February did it become clear to many Germans that Ukraine is a nation, that Ukrainians do not want to belong to Russia, and that many are ready to die for their country. Still, she said, the open letters against arms shipments from German people unfamiliar with the region show the continuing colonial view of some Germans.

In addition to this imperial view of Ukraine, Franziska Davies sees another reason for Germany's focus on Russia: Russian literature and culture have been romanticized and perceived much more than Ukrainian. In contrast to Russian, she says, very little Ukrainian literature has been translated into German. As a result, Germans know too little about Ukrainian literature and culture. It is important that this changes in the future.

Structural deficits in foreign reporting

The only positive thing that the German journalist Gemma Pörzgen

can derive from the terrible war in Ukraine as a side effect is that more people are finally taking an interest in Ukraine and engaging with the country. "But I fear that the focus is too much on the military conflict and too little on the reality of life in Ukraine." The journalist has observed structural deficits in German foreign reporting for years, which are now becoming all the more apparent. In a 2014 article for the journal Osteuropa, she analyzed German media coverage of the Maidan protests and the annexation of Crimea. "In the process, there is a suspicion on all sides that German journalists either fell for Russian propaganda or reproduced Western stereotypes that do not do justice to reality," she writes. The coverage of Ukraine in 2013/2014 shows that many German media are not sufficiently equipped for responsible foreign reporting in the globalized world. Pörzgen observes a trend toward less detailed long-term observations by correspondents accredited in the countries to more short-term assignments by dispatched foreign reporters, also called "parachute journalism." "Journalists travel briefly to regions and implement stories they have already researched. However, onthe-ground reporting is key to understanding a country and helps advance the diversity of issues." She identifies the cause of this trend as editors increasingly cutting back on costintensive foreign reporting in particular, due to the media crisis. In recent years, permanent correspondent positions have been cut around the world, bureaus closed and freelance foreign correspondents' fees slashed.

Eastern Europe in many curricula

More knowledge about the region is important, says Gemma Pörzgen. She believes that more intensive education about the region of Eastern Europe is needed, especially in school lessons, and that multilingualism should be promoted. A survey of the school ministries of the 16 German states shows that Eastern Europe plays a role in many curricula, for example in history lessons. Often, the plans are structured in a competency-oriented way and the contents are not specified in concrete terms. The goal is thus not so much that students learn specific content, but rather that they develop predetermined competencies - with the result that the region of Eastern Europe can be examined particularly intensively or only superficially, depending on the teacher.
There are also deficits in the field of Eastern Europe in German academia. As early as 2012, Manfred Sapper, editor-in-chief of the journal Osteuropa, pointed this out in an article. After the end of the Cold War, Eastern European expertise was considered superfluous. As a result, institutes were closed in 1991 and chairs were reassigned. As a result, the Russian expertise of German economists, political scientists, and sociologists was dangerously low. In a 2022 interview with the journal DUZ, he states that not much has changed since 2012. He does rate the Center for East European and International Studies ZOiS, which has since been established, as excellent. However, he says it has a very strong cultural studies orientation and lacks economists and lawyers, among others. He also criticizes the fact that historical research on Eastern Europe is too focused on Russia. Historian Franziska Davies also observes this. It is a rarity, she says, for Eastern European research not to focus on Russia.

Germany must question privileges

Germany must learn to take the perspective of Ukraine and other states that suffered under colonial oppression, says Franziska Davies. The German perception, she says, is often that the war against Ukraine is a confrontation between East and West. For Ukrainians, however, this is irrelevant. For them, Russia is a state that has been trying to suppress their nationbuilding for centuries. This, she said, was most evident during the Holodomor in the 1930s, the famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. "The lack of empathy of many Germans makes me perplexed. We should develop humility toward our privileges and position of prosperity, and recognize that even in Europe, not having to fight for one's democracy is not a given."

For a long time, the German view of Eastern Europe was focused on Russia. This is mainly due to historical reasons - but there are also clear deficits in media coverage of Eastern Europe and in the academic examination of the region.