Упрощенная HTML-версия
Author : V. Vasiliev
Doctor of Science (Political Science), Senior Research Associate, Department for European Political Stud-
ies, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences
AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT in 1955 of
diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union
and what was then West Germany, Russia and
Germany have accumulated an impressive reserve
of confidence and traversed a difficult historic
path of conciliation between them. Despite tur-
bulent times, Moscow and Berlin for a long time
gravitated towards each other and valued this.
THE CURRENT CRISIS in relations between
Moscow and Berlin is impossible to comprehend without assessing the experience of the
Ostpolitik (Eastern policy) of Chancellor Willy Brandt, who was in office from 1969 to
1974. That policy varied in nature depending on historical periods.
After Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel became chancellor in
2005, relations between the two countries were initially constructive.
Merkel's tough defense in 2012 of the three Russian women who had put up the notorious
blasphemous concert at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior caused disappointment
and bewilderment in Russia. While Brandt supported the thinker and writer Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, Merkel chose to support young women with suspicious reputations.
THE CRISIS IN UKRAINE, the events in Crimea, and the referendums in the regions
of Donetsk and Lugansk have speeded up Berlin's diversion from its former course. State-
ments by Chancellor Merkel, President loachim Gauck and the foreign and defense min-
isters, and what has been said by lawmakers during Bundestag debates on Ukraine and
anti-Russian sanctions have meant that the German political class is taking a harder line
on Russia. Words such as friendship between Russians and Germans or historic reconcil-
iation between the two nations have been disappearing from the political vocabulary of
German leaders and lawmakers.
Nobody has any doubt that German business circles have little interest in participating in
economic retaliation against Russia but are forced to go along with the German chancellor,
who seeks approval for her moves from Washington and Brussels and possibly sees the
sanctions as a substitute for Ostpolitik.
But the Ukrainian crisis is not the only or the main cause of the strained Russian-German
relations.
Merkel can hardly be accused of ignorance. She holds an academic decree, and possesses
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Germany's Ostpolitik: Controversial Evolution