...about Ukraine, the European Union, and what to do to save the planet from Russia, nationalism and planet War III?!
Karol Chejarek (Karol): – Dear Professor, what is left present of the “Eastern Policy” of your late Father in the context of the current war in Ukraine? Do you accept Russia's attack on an independent state as Ukraine has been so far, and how do you measure the procedures of the fresh American administration under Donald Trump's presidency to temporarily suspend the war effort that would lead to peace between these countries?
Peter Brandt (Peter): – I do not see myself as the appointed interpreter of my father Willy's east policy. At the time, I supported her in a critical way (with emphasis on support), and in peculiar in the 1980s, I would have seen the request for a stronger emphasis on the impulses going beyond and overcoming the political blocs of that time. I can besides put it another way: it was a position that overcomes the position quo that was contained in this concept. What remains is the unification of Germany and the liberation of Central east and South east Europe from russian curatela. Of course, the German relaxation policy, or the east policy, has not led to this consequence alone and directly, but it seems to me to be 1 of the crucial reasons that cannot be overlooked.
Nor should we forget that in the times of the erstwhile East-West conflict we were surviving in a constellation of the permanent danger of self-destruction due to the large atomic war (which we managed to avoid many times, and the most dangerous was the Cuban crisis in October 1962). In the case of a war in Europe, conducted by conventional means, and shortly presumably with tactical atomic weapons, Germany – and Poland – would most likely besides be annihilated. I mention all of this to remind you of the rational core of West German east politics and its precursors since the 1960s. And another European countries, last but not least, besides practiced a kind of relaxation policy in their own interests.
From my point of view, the failure of the pan-European peace order is not simply a consequence of Russia's actions and its interior development. The genesis of the war in Ukraine and the context of the planet policy in which it is going on are somewhat more complicated than is suggested by the publicist mainstream. Unlike the majority in Poland and Germany, I consider the United States and NATO, which were always an instrument of American hegemony in Europe, to be a large part of the problem, not a solution. This does not change the fact that Ukraine is conducting a legally sanctioned defence war, in accordance with the United Nations Charter. I hope, although I am skeptical, that part of Europe that forms the European Union will usage the situation of the actual declaration of the Atlantic safety Partnership by the US as an chance to become a stand-alone entity in the planet and to focus its attention not only on military defence.
Karol: – All right, but tell me, how do you mention to the situation of Russia's current war against Ukraine, or will the ceasefire possibly lead to a fair peace treaty? What would this treaty gotta be, so that Ukraine would not be considered a lost state in it?
Peter: – I am a pessimist not only due to the changed priorities of the fresh United States government. Contrary to the public opinion, which has been shaped by mainstream countries in the European Union, I consider Russia's reservations (not only Putin implementing the imperial agenda) to be understood and indeed legitimate to include Ukraine in NATO or its membership in its structure. On the another hand, in no way can Russia's claim to have east Ukraine's circuits be regarded as a legal formalised claim without any unquestionable consultation of its residents upon the return of the refugees. (Crim, despite the designation of the conflict with global law of the seizure and annexation of this territory by Russia, is simply a peculiar case.) Given the military situation and the pressures of the US, it will most likely be essential to reconcile with the annexations. I am convinced that in the earlier stages of the war the chances of peace, which would be more acceptable by both sides, would be greater, although it is hard to prove it. The only affirmative thing about the current U.S. efforts (of which it is not even known if they will be effective) will be the ending of the mass death of people on the fronts, the horror caused by attacks on civilian institutions and massive destruction. In general, we should fear that, alternatively of a unchangeable pan-European peace order, which is simply a continuation of the process initiated in Helsinki and referring to the Paris Charter of November 1990, we will relive the Cold War era. Russia will, of course, be an accessory to this state of affairs, although it will not be the only guilty party. Equally crucial are the US's geopolitical interests and ambitions. The situation is not only regrettable, but besides in view of the global threats of human civilization, it is dramatically wrong.
Karol: – Mr Professor, thank you for your honest answer. The sad thing is, in general, you think the current situation is bad. Me, too. I will ask you, therefore, do you believe in the ability of the EU to oppose, even without the US, threats from the East? And could the erstwhile pacifism of German society give way to militarism?
Peter: – Security experts and military experts (which I do not belong to) do not agree whether Russia's reaching for further European states, including NATO members, will be a amazing or alternatively a possible threat. For example, the secret services of the United States are very restrained in their assessments; in addition to assessing the intentions of a possible opponent that we do not know, it besides needs to be taken into account to analyse its real possibilities. Military safety must take account of both issues. At the same time, in view of its own interest in surviving and maintaining peace, it must include the recognition of possible opportunities for bilateral arms control, in the most advantageous case of installing a unchangeable pan-European safety structure.
The U.S., whose engagement in Europe after 1945 resulted from their interests (not from a charitable attitude), turned – besides following their interests – already behind the presidency Obama more towards the Asian continent, where China became the second planet power of the 21st century. Trump has now brutally expanded this reorientation. Therefore, but not only for this reason, a more integrated Europe of EU countries, which understands democracy in its own way and has developed its own model of civilization, must become a stand-alone global origin and thus besides be ready to defend itself. In the second respect, this does not mean that the continental atomic power of France (or France together with the United Kingdom) must accumulate a likewise expanded atomic arsenal, like the US, Russia, and China as well.
Karol: - You have made a very interesting point about European safety (not only the EU) thesis! Let us so decision on to the question of "pacifism and militarism" of German society, which I asked about.
Peter: – The pacifism does not seem to me to be the right word for the attitude of German society in fresh decades. After planet War II, most Germans, including those in West Germany, did not want to hear about military service again – besides considering the threat of a fratricidal war between Germany. Re-armament was accepted by the majority over the 1950s, with any reservations about the clear danger of full demolition of the country in the event of war.
However, the universal orientation of external safety and the perceived request for it have partially combined supporters and opponents of concrete arms measures, specified as the deployment of mid-range ballistic missiles with atomic warheads in the early 1980s.
Charles: – And how, according to your assessment, did the safety situation make after the unification of Germany?
Peter: “After the unification of Germany and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the vast majority of the population (as well as most politicians) assumed that at least in Europe the threat of war would no longer exist. This presumption turned out to be wrong, but I do not see anything like militarization in reasoning and attitudes of today's Germans.
Charles:–However, different answers are obtained to the question of national security, depending on the way in which specified questions are raised, as well as on the opinion survey centre.
Peter: – Yes, I agree with you! However, whether we should see a change in the direction of the UNSC's safety and defence policy and the focus of most media on the militarisation of political reasoning is simply a substance of perspective.
Charles: – I would be inclined to say no to her. And the Professor?
Peter: – We agree on the assessment of this situation, Mr Charles!
Karol: – I will ask, then, what function did Stasi agent G. Guillaume play in the fall of the east Father's policy? Didn't he resent the GDR?
And last but not least: what is your professor's opinion on the causes of the weakness of the present SOCIALDEMORATION, not only in Germany (but besides in Poland) and, frankly, in the full Europe?
Peter: – I answer a question about Guillaume: Since the beginning of 1967, I have lived in West Berlin distant from my family, who, from my father Willy's appointment as Minister of abroad Affairs, stayed in Bonn. That is why I alternatively watched from a distance what happened later. However, during this peculiarly crucial period, from the summertime of 1972 until the spring of 1974, I moved for applicable reasons (archives, etc. in close geographical institutions) frequently respective weeks in my parents' apartment, which gave me insight into any matters. I uncertainty Günter Guillaume's real influence on fresh East Policy. He was incapable to give anything serious to his powers about her. However, it is clear that it straight affected the resignation of the national Chancellor, nevertheless not he himself caused it. My father Willy felt restrained towards the management of the GDR and left direct talks to others. It was not until 1985 that he met Erich Honecker in East Berlin.
Charles: – What about the weakness of social democracy?
Peter: – As regards the weakness of social democracy, the Social Democratic parties in Western Europe, as well as the trade unions after 1945, were incapable to implement their then programme to overcome capitalism, but the unexpected economical prosperity that he accompanied from the early 1950s. An unexpected increase in the standard of surviving besides in the working layer, created the anticipation of a historical compromise between the state, capital and work.
This phase of the regulated state of prosperity in the second half of the 1970s came to an end for various reasons, and the social democratic parties were under force again released in a way exacerbated by globalised capitalism, most frequently called neoliberalism, which was then driven by inventions related to fresh information technologies and supported by financial markets, primarily in Anglo-Saxon countries, where it was besides politically promoted.
However, I do not think that there is any natural correctness here, but it would require much greater readiness to enter into conflict.
Instead, they have adapted (later besides in the East of Europe) to the common trend, and this seems to me to be 1 of the crucial reasons for alienating social democrats from social democratic parties. This state of affairs, as a trend to turn the workers and the intellectual workers of the lower level to the populist and extremist right, is compounded by the contemporary social-cultural democracy of progressiveism, consisting in unilateral emphasising individual freedom and self-determination of the various groups that are on the margins of social life. Of course, it is right to end discrimination specified as homosexuals, but it is crucial to keep appropriate proportions.
Charles: – Thank you, Professor, for that opinion! I'm not going to comment on it, I'm leaving it to our readers. However, from politics to science, I would like to ask about your achievements in this area.
Peter: – Of course, I am not the right authority to measure the quality of my work. The opinions and assessments of colleagues of my specialty or reviewers have always been affirmative or very positive. 1 decision I made early: alternatively of limiting my full life to 1 era or to 1 subject, for example, to the first republic from 1918/1919 to 1932/33 (which can be easy and reasonably studied throughout my life), I wanted to grow my position and make different subjects.
The apparent drawback of specified an approach is that then you cannot become an absolute expert in a given area.
However, the advantages of this position seemed to me and inactive seem bigger: the horizon is constantly expanding, and thus besides deeper knowing for the full historical process. That is why I have been tempted to give more insights and reasons for the events of the 16th and 17th centuries.
I started my investigation in the mid-1970s with a doctoral dissertation on contemporary history. It was my first work in history, dedicated to the rebirth of the German labour movement, as a bottom-up movement immediately after planet War II, on the example of the city of Bremen.
In addition to another organizational forms, I besides studied on selected examples a crucial phenomenon in quantitative terms, as were the Anti-Fascist Commissions. This phenomenon is inactive not appreciated, and so I took care of it almost simultaneously with my colleagues, as a consequence of which there was a collective work taking them into account throughout Germany.
Source editions, monographs (one and 2 together with my academic teacher Reinhard Rürup) were later created, as well as articles on the revolution and fresh democratic strategy in Germany, especially in Baden, 1918/1919, then a volume devoted to the social past of the Prussian state in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Charles: – Impressively much, Professor! I am full of admiration for the amount of work you have done! And what was the subject of your habilitation and alleged professorial achievements?
Peter: – The subject of my 1988 habilitation proceeding was the genesis and past of the first German student movement Burschenschaft, created in 1814/15 as part of the then national and liberal-democratic currents. From 1989 to 2014, I was prof. of newer past [in German historical studies it is counted from the beginning of modern times – from around 1500 to the beginning of the 20th century – the crowd.] Germany and the past of Europe at the University of Distance Education in Hagen.
Karol: – I ask for a short “history” of this university, due to the fact that erstwhile I worked at the Academy of Humanities in Pułtusek, our dream was to work with your university.
Peter: – It is simply a university that was created 50 years ago, which allows to survey (longer, respectively) people who are active, and is besides a "normal" university with the right to give doctoral degrees, habilitations, etc. Teaching forms are there in addition to fixed classes (e.g. on weekends), so-called. Lehrbriefe, i.e. learning materials sent to students; in addition, teaching online.
I never truly tried to quit my occupation at Hagen.
At this university from 2003 to 2017, I besides directed the interdisciplinary Institute of Sciences on European Constitutions and I was the author and co-editor of the first volumes of ambitious, planned for 9 volumes, the plan of a textbook of the pan-European past of the constitution (in the broad sense of the word) since the end of the 18th century.
In combination with this, but not limited to the improvement of the constitution, I could make closer access to the North European past through various publications, as well as through the cognition of Scandinavian languages. I will possibly mention a brief past of the German Socialism since its beginning in the mid-19th century, which I published with Detlef Lehnert in 2013; in 2023 an updated version of it was published, extended to the present times.
Two printed speeches were published in Polish, which I do not know. In addition to learning, I have always tried in word and writing to guarantee the popularization of history. I could mention my political publishing.
Karol: – prof. Honorable, then I ask for a fewer more sentences about your “political publication”.
Peter: – From 2010 to 2020 I was the publisher of an online magazine GlobekultI published a lot. Its thought was to give an chance to talk to people who actually represent a rather broad spectrum of political views and to bring at least indirect dialog between them. erstwhile this expression stopped functioning correctly, I resigned as a publisher. On occasion, I print there, as well as on another blogs, despite the different political correctness. I compose rather regularly for the magazine Neue Gesellschaft/Frankfurter Heftewhich is de facto a social democratic body. Of the journals closest to me Berliner Zeitung, where I compose on various occasions with Michael Müller and Reiner Braun about war and environmental threats to human civilization. In general, I am not afraid of contacts with another political environments, specified as Conservative magazines or very leftist ones. I have strong support in 2 discussion circles, whose participants have leftist-pluralist views. These are: The ellipse of Willy Brandt (Willy-Brandt-Kreis) and the fresh Start Group (Gruppe Neubeginn) where you can talk full openly. any of the results of the discussions there are published.
Karol: – The prof. besides dealt with the problem of the “unification of Germany”?
Peter: – Of course!
Since my youth, and in a deepened way in the 1980s and 1990s, I dealt intensively with both scientificly and as a associate in political disputes, the issue of division and the fresh unification of Germany, which I besides wrote about. 1 publication in this field was a volume of papers entitled “Levice and the National Issue” (Die Linke und die nationale Frage) who met with a live reception. It appeared in 1981 and contained extended introductory texts to the problem. I besides tried to have individual contacts with the GDR, especially with opposition activists, but not just with them.
Karol: – Thank you very much for all your answers! You are besides present in Polish publications (which you mentioned) published in books published by the Alexander Gieysztor Academy of Humanities: “Poland between Germany and Russia” (under the editorial board of mine and prof. Tomasz G. Pszczółkowski, Pułtusk 2011) and in the second part of the Polish-German biography “History of Memory written”, Pultusk 2017 (edited by Karol Chejarek, Tomasz G. Pszczółkowski, co-operation: Axel Schmidt-Gödelitz). So, as it turns out, we have been working together for a long time, for which, at the end of our conversation, I would like to express my gratitude to you!
I besides express my gratitude to prof. Tomasz G. Pszczółkowski, who, as a political scientist and Germanist, gave the answers to prof. Peter Brandt the right language form, and who personally besides knows prof. Brandt since, as members of the board of the German Academy of Humanities Interdepartmental investigation Center, we have collaborated with the German association "ost-west-forum Gut Gödelitz".
Peter: – Let me besides thank both of you for their hard work and inspiring questions. I'm glad we met again after years. Finally, I warmly greet Readers in Poland, adding best wishes to you and your country.
