When the prominent German radio journalist Sabina Adler published her book “Ukraine and Us: The German Defeat and Lessons for the Future” in Berlin in August 2022, it became an event for German intellectual life. The reason for such high attention to Adler’s book was obvious: the escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022 called into question Germany’s previous political and economic approach to Eastern Europe. For three decades, the interests and concerns of Ukraine, as Europe’s second largest state, have been partially ignored by Berlin, while Russian political and economic elites have been heavily courted.

Adler traces the historical, political, economic and cultural sources of the fundamental failure of Germany’s policy towards the post-Soviet space in the period 1991-2021. Her analysis focuses not only on the origins and initiation of the great war of 2022, but also on the role that Germany indirectly played in dealing with the country where Russia invaded. As one of Germany’s long-standing experts on Eastern Europe, she points out how German political omissions, lobbying, double standards and a form of false pacifism indirectly prepared Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

As a result, Adler’s critical analysis of Berlin’s policy towards Ukraine in 2022 was then and still is a landmark in German political journalism. This is what, for example, the first reviewers of the book wrote for the influential German press in 2022-23:

– “An extremely revealing book” — Christian Thomas for Frankfurter Rundschau;

– “Authoritative contribution to light [cititorii despre relațiile germano-ucrainene]” — Natasha Freundel for RBB Kulturradio;

– assesses Adler [relația Germaniei cu Ucraina] with wisdom and a razor’s edge” — Viola Schenz for Süddeutsche Zeitung;

– “Adler manages to put a mirror in front of us through his book. It highlights errors in thinking [noastră].” — Paul Toetzke for Modern Liberals;

– “This book explains a lot. Then you will become wiser.” — Jörg Tadeusz for WDR 2;

– “Here’s this one [carte] it may be unique at the moment [actual]with its degree of depth and poignancy,” – Bernd Székausky for MDR Kultur.

True, there have already been critical approaches to Berlin’s overestimation and misunderstanding of Russia, as well as to its too soft attitude towards Moscow’s imperial policy. Previous bright ones were, for example, monographs:

– Gerd Koenen, Der Russland-Complex: Die Deutschen und der Osten 1900-1945 [Complexul Rusia: Germania și Estul 1900-1945]. Munich: CH Beck, 2005.

– Thomas Urban, Verstellter Blick: Die deutsche Ostpolitik [Vedere părtinitoare: Politica germană față de Est]. Berlin: Tapeta, 2022

– Rüdiger von Fritsch, Zeitenwende: Putins Krieg und die Folgen [Schimbarea vremurilor: Războiul lui Putin și repercusiunile sale]. Berlin: Aufbau, 2022.

Cohen’s influential book was reissued with a new preface in 2022. Urban’s study, which appeared six months before Adler’s book, was completed just before the big Russian invasion and hit bookstores in March 2022, three weeks after it was begun by Rüdiger von Fritsch, the former German ambassador to Moscow whose book was published in May 2022, and who has since become one of the most active commentators on the Russian war against Ukraine in the German media.

After the famous Zeitenwende (change of time) declaration by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 27, 2022 and the publication of Adler’s book in August 2022, several new and important studies by various journalists appeared. Among the most important and deep additional studies of this kind, in chronological order of their appearance, are:

– Michael Tumann, Revenge: Wie Putin das bedrohlichste Regime der Welt geschaffen hat [Revanșă: Cum a creat Putin cel mai periculos regim din lume]. Munich: CH Beck, 2023;

– Reinhard Bingener and Markus Wehner, Die Moskau-Connection: Das Schröder-Netzwerk und Deutschlands Weg in die Dependency [Legătura cu Moscova: Rețeaua Schroeder și calea Germaniei spre dependență]. Munich: CH Beck, 2023;

– Winfried Schneider-Deters, Russlands Ukrainekrieg und die Bundesrepublik: Deutsche Debatten um Frieden, Faschismus und Kriegsverbrechen, 2022-2023 [Războiul Rusiei în Ucraina și Republica Federală: Dezbateri germane privind pacea, fascismul și crimele de război, 2022-23]. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2023.

While other books thus provided important information before and after Adler, her study was conducted in 2022 and thus remains in 2023 one of the most important contributions to Germany’s current rethinking of the so-called Ostpolitik (literally: Eastern Policy ) after the end of the Cold War. Germany’s attitude towards Eastern Europe was, in turn, one of the most important international relations in all of Europe. It was so in the past, so it is today and perhaps it will be so in the future. It is a relationship designed to jointly define the direction in which Europe will move in the coming years.

Adler (like me) is an East German, not a West German, with considerable life experience in the former Soviet bloc. With his experience in the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR), Adler offers a somewhat different background and perspective compared to West Germans’ views on Russia, Ukraine, and Germany’s role in Eastern Europe. Adler joins a number of other influential East German analysts of Eastern Europe with an original biography in the GDR in his longstanding and strong skepticism about Putin, as well as his pronounced sympathy for Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. These include, among others, the late Werner Schulz, a long-time member of the German Parliament and the European Parliament from the German Green Party, Stefan Meister of the German Council on International Relations (DGAP), Jörg Forbrig of the German Marshall Fund (GMFUS). ) and Andre Hertel from the German Institute for International Affairs and Security Affairs (SWP). Like these prolific East European experts, Adler was for more than two decades among those German analysts of the post-Soviet world who, through his written publications and oral interventions, prepared the recent radical change in Berlin’s attitude toward Russia and Ukraine.-Read the full article and comment on Contributors.ro