There are at least two men in the present US government, who with their own words regard Europe as “pathetic“.
I refer, of course, to Mr Hegseth and Mr Vance and their exchange of thoughts via Signal, which involuntarily became public. The disdain coming with the adjective “pathetic” was directed against the whole of Europe. But, concerning Mr Vance’s previous and recent remarks about freedom in Germany and his support of a right-extremist German party, we Germans must take these statements more seriously than just spontaneous utterances from relatively young and inexperienced politicians.
Some politicians on our side of the Atlantic may hope that Vance and Hegseth referred to military capabilities, only. But I do not think so. I think the obvious disdain was the verbal outflow of a deep anti-european and, taking into account the open support of an extremist party in Germany by Vance and Musk, of an anti-democratic ideology. We got a first hand impressions of the ideas of Vance and his support of far-right organizations during his speech at the MSC in February.
But, also the latest events and comments from the US government fit into the general pattern:
Last Saturday morning one of the disturbing news from the US was that J.D.Vance condemned the categorization of the German party AFD, a truly extreme right wing and in large parts neo-fascistic party, as being “assured extremist”. This characterization was the result of a thorough investigation of an inner German secret service organization over years. Mr Rubio, without citing or referring to evident contents of the investigation, even called it a form of “tyranny” exerted by the state. While the latest version of the investigation is not public, a previous version became public in February 2025. See e.g.
Already the contents of this version proves clear objectives of leading members of the AFD directed against basic democratic principles of our democracy and our constitution.
For us democrats in Germany this means: Leading representatives of the US government support and defend and openly support a party whose objectives are basically incompatible with our values and our democratic constitutions. In very many contexts of politics and state administration, regarding civil rights, integration of all groups in our population, a free and independent press and a fight against fake news in public information media. A party with objectives, last but not least, incompatible with and in contradiction to the traditions and results of independent science.
I originally wanted to write a post about the expression “pathetic” – directed against us Europeans. But the latest statements of Vance and Rubio regarding the AFD deserve a clear answer first.
Intermezzo – no friends any more – but obviously partners of the antagonists of our democracy
Firstly, I want to state that we elderly people in Germany probably know more about fascism and tyranny than an ideological extremist like Vance. And we know very well when movements or parties, which want to abolish our democracy, must be fought and stopped. This is really not the first time.
We, who are now retired people or close to retirement, have intensively talked with our grandparents and parents who had lived through the darkest and most anti-democratic decades of Europe. We have directly experienced thoughts and consequences of illiberal ideologies in our youth ourselves – in our frequent arguments with plain anti-democrats – whether with old Nazis in Western Germany or with the henchmen of the communistic dictatorship in Eastern Germany.
We have heard, seen and experienced what vocabulary the right extremists use and how their “logic” works. During the times, when the NPD got more than 12% of the votes in my home region, during times when the extremist parties “Republikaner” and “DVU” openly uttered Nazi-terms and sang Nazi-songs in bars and public traffic vehicles in the city of Munich where I studied in the 80s.
So, Mr Vance – do not lecture us about threats to our democracy.
By the way: Only uneducated people not following political debates (and related scientific publications) in Germany would need a report over 1100 pages to come to the conclusion that the AFD is a party led by antidemocratic extremists. We see and hear their representatives and followers every day – inside the parliament and outside of it. We hear them on the streets. Their hear their statements, we see their disruptions of parliamentarian processes. The actions of their forefront organizations against democratically elected politicians speak for themselves. But, I doubt that Vance or Rubio understand German and read serious German studies and publications aside of what they consume in their echo chambers on X and Facebook.
So let me say it in plain English: We need no lectures or lessons about fascism or the meaning of democracy from people who are not even ashamed to fight the independence of science and universities in their own country. We need no lessons on freedom from people showing a right hand gesture clearly reminding of a Nazi salute and of someone who accepts a brainless and historically wrong characterization of Hitler as a communist by the present leader of the AFD in a talk on X.
We, elderly Europeans, know by first and second hand experience what the ideological roots of organized tyranny, dictatorships and fascism look like. I will give you some examples of my own past below and in forthcoming posts.
The conclusion that elderly German citizens like me must draw these days, unfortunately, is very clear:
We cannot and should not regard Vance, Rubio, Musk and alike as potential friends or allies any longer. People who favor or directly promote a party that paves a way leading straight away from our democracy to an illiberal state are NOT our friends, but our opponents.
By the way: If something deserved a description by the word “pathetic”, it was the “conversation” between Musk and the leader of the AFD ahead of the parliament elections in Germany – in particular regarding the obvious lack of understanding of history and political developments, and concerning the general intellectual level.
Let me remind my readers in the US that even some members of the conservative parties in Germany would be regarded as liberal leftist in the US. And would be condemned by Trump’s adulators for their European ideas of what a free and liberal society means. A fact which only shows how little the presently leading class in US and we Europeans, who still are proud of the traditions of enlightenment and try to follow them in political discourses, had and have in common. We like to work based on reproducible or provable facts – and not on just asserted, but unfounded false “alternative” facts.
To say it clearly: We do not even want to have anything in common with illiberal ideologists like J.D. Vance or to name another representative of an anti-european and openly anti-democratic ideology, namely with Vance’s mentor Peter Thiel.
Fortunately, there is almost no serious political discussion on public German TV these days with political and military experts during which the consequences of this insight is not stressed and underlined strongly: Unfortunately, we have to define and develop both political as well as military strategies based on a step-wise decoupling from the US. And we have not much time to implement and respective practical measures.
An allegedly “pathetic” Germany – and historic contexts
After this intermezzo, let me start with my criticism of the characterization of Germany, a central European state, as being “pathetic” by Vance and Hegseth. I want to base my arguments both on my own historical political experiences as well as on certain historic agreements regarding the armament of Germany’s military within Nato.
In my opinion, Germany should indeed have reacted to international developments after 2010 with building up much stronger military capabilities. Since at least 2012 and 2014, when the language of the Russian government became aggressive and when Crimea was occupied. And certainly, decisions of the Schröder government and, in particular, of the later Merkel government between 2010 and 2014 regarding continuously growing gas imports from Russia deserve strong criticism. And they got it – from, as Trump would call them, “crazy leftists”. Ironic, isn’t it?
However, there are also some historic facts and developments that let the use of the word “pathetic” look totally unacceptable. For the rest of this post, I will look at certain aspects of the military alliance with the US up to the end of the 70s first – from a very personal experience. For more recent decades see the forthcoming posts.
A look into the past – and a well deserved mistrust against Germany for decades after the war
I am a rather old man with my soon 67 years. To better understand why the term “pathetic” must be regarded as offensive in a majority of the German population and in particular by value-conservative liberals like myself, we need to look a bit into the past.
In my childhood in the 60s, I have seen both my grandfather, who during Worl War II had fought as a drafted soldier of the Wehrmacht in France and in the Ukraine, and my much younger father standing in front of a TV with their right arms and hands up for a Nazi Hitler salute – when the official German military music band of the Bundeswehr was allowed again to march into the Berlin Olympic stadium with military bands of other Nato states. This was almost two decades after the war.
I was very young then, by I never forget it. It taught me some lessons. Especially, as my father at that time was an active soldier with specific tasks – whose meanings and connections to US-guided military strategies I only understood a decade later. See below. One of the lessons was that the ideas of anti-democratic and fascistic ideologies did not disappear after World War II. They have survived even in Western democracies up to this day and unfold their dangerous potential not only within the population, but also in all kinds of state institutions – if not fought continuously.
Side remark: As a physicist, find it deeply disturbing to see a leading technology affine US person, namely Mr Musk, voluntarily making a gesture totally similar to a Nazi salute on TV, these days. Musk, a person, who openly supports a far right extreme party in Germany. This behavior, and not AI, really raises deep questions about intelligence.
I have rather passively lived through a phase at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s when the German society eventually took up the questions of the Nazi regime and its roots, of war, of war crimes and guilt. I was at a German gymnasium with a focus on natural sciences then, becoming a teen. But me and my class mates have very well felt the hate against the active students at that time – i.e. our older brothers and sisters, who went to the street in the 68s – in parallel to their intellectual brothers and sisters in the US. ( I recommend to read P. Austers “4321” for a description of these years in the US).
More than two decades after World War II, questions of ideological manipulation in contrast to values of a living democracy were discussed publicly and seriously, at last. The question what our evolving democratic society needed to learn from the attack on democratic structures during the Weimar Republic and Nazi-Germany’s way to organized mass murder, suddenly became a topic for the citizens of Germany. The discussion process lasted over more than a decade. It affected not only our attitudes and respect for democratic structures, it also triggered scientific research throughout a lot of disciplines and faculties. We have read this stuff – on all levels.
So, again, Mr Vance: Do not lecture my generation about questions of the foundations of democracy or the defense of democratic freedom. Try to learn something about European post war history and its phases of critical reflection regarding democratic structures first.
The political discussions during the late 60s and early 70s in Germany, which basically were discussions about fundamental democratic values and the threats to these values, were not at all welcome throughout broad parts of the German population. It led to deep cracks in post war families – also in my family. Those who raised critical questions, in particular about the origin of fascistic regimes and the contributions of previous generations to the development of a fascistic regime in Germany, were met by disdain and often enough by open hate.
The hate was explicitly directed at intellectuals.
I often heard my mother repeat a famous German saying “Ruhe ist des Bürgers 1-te Pflicht”, notably used with the additionally clearly expressed connotation that “you shall not question exiting established rules”. The deeply anti-democratic message of the quotation was: Do not criticize established structures of power – even if they are not legitimized democratically and even if they proclaim anti-democratic objectives. Sounds familiar?
In my experience based on intensive talks over many decades after 68: My mother’s, my father’s and my grandparents’ generations were still massively influenced by anti-democratic ideologies. No wonder, actually: A lot of the people on all levels of German government during the first two decades after World War II were people who also had worked in the Nazi-regime, in particular officers of the army, but also in other institutions of the federal state administration. Today, my still living mother has become a voter of the AFD. I am not astonished.
To be fair: My grandfather hated the war. He later confessed to me that he often dreamed about the huge piles of burning bodies along the front lines in Russia and the Ukraine. He had seen them when Wehrmacht troops were moved over larger distances by train behind the front. Nevertheless, in his or my grandmother’s opinion all of this disaster was never ever Hitler’s fault. In a complete inability to see the structures of fascist dictatorships they always said: Hitler was a good man – but he should not have done “that” with jews. They never specified what “that” had been – although they admittedly were aware of the existence of concentration camps.
So this was the society we grew up in during the cold war. When Germany had up to 500,000 troops and hundreds of thousands US, British and french troops on our soil to deter the Russians. When we and the US were strong allies. On that background let me now turn to the question:
How “pathetic” was Germany at that time? When the US and Germany were close allies?
German soldiers, American nuclear rockets – and a lingering question of democratic values …
My father was an active “first generation” soldier in the Bundeswehr. My father’s daily drill was to prepare potential strikes against Warsaw and Praha with American “Pershing I” rockets, which in war times were supposed to be equipped with American nuclear warheads. He was a convinced advocate of Nato’s nuclear escalation scheme as part of the necessary deterrence against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact alliance during the era of the “cold war”.
My father and me were always political and personal opponents, distrusting each other deeply up to the last days of his life time. But, regarding his profession as an active US ally:
Was he a typical example of a “pathetic” man? I do not think so.
He knew that in case of a nuclear escalation, he had less than 7 minutes to launch the American rocket he had the responsibility for. He lived with this knowledge and the regular Nato maneuvers every third week. Alarms at night, fast transport to their units and movement of the ballistic rockets to defined places, where they had to be oriented to hit coordinates provided by American command structures.
Despite his trust in Nato doctrines, he never liked the “Americans” – although he had spent several years of his professional life there. In his opinion the Americans should have marched to Moscow in 1945 – together with the Wehrmacht. Educated by Ex-Nazi officers, in the beginning of the 70s, he was still proud of the “fact” that certain circles in the Bundeswehr had discussed a “march to Bonn”, when “the jew Frahm got to power”. A “knowledge” he multiple times stated in family circles. The “jew Frahm” was our chancellor Willy Brandt – democratically elected in 1969.
So, all in all, one could say that a distrust of our Nato allies against Germany at that time would have had some very good reasons. At least regarding basic questions of democracy.
But pathetic regarding his job in the military?
Well, Mr Vance and Mr Hegseth, my father had to and could position and if necessary launch an American rocket with an American nuclear warhead within some minutes. At a command coming through a command chain dominated by Americans. Pathetic? Really?
The question of nuclear armament, nuclear sharing and nuclear destruction
The word “pathetic” regarding the state of European defense appears even more misplaced if one considers other historic facts. An important puzzle piece in the relation between the US and an assumed “pathetic” Germany was (and is) the following:
The NATO membership of Germany in 1955 came with a prohibition to develop and possess nuclear arms. Germany does not possess or develop nuclear arms – due to clear rules agreed upon with our allies, predominantly the USA. The first respective treaty were the Paris agreements, signed in 1954. For detail see e.g. here. I quote:
>>> The third protocol relates to the control of armaments. It is concerned both with armaments which are not to be manufactured in the Federal Republic and those which are to be controlled within the Brussels Treaty countries on the mainland. The prohibited arms, which the Federal Republic of Germany has renounced the right to produce, are atomic, biological, and chemical weapons and guided missiles, larger naval vessels, and strategic bombing aircraft. Unanimous vote of the Council of Western European Union is required to give Germany the [Page 1478] right to produce atomic, biological, and chemical weapons. A two-thirds majority of the Council can give Germany the right to produce guided missiles, larger naval vessels, and strategic aircraft, provided that SACEUR recommends that Germany be given this right. <<<
In addition, Germany has signed the Nuclear-Nonproliferation-Treaty and confirmed the renouncement regarding nuclear, biological and chemical weapons by treaties with nuclear powers (France, USSR, USA, GB) signed during Germany’s unification in 1990.
Our participation in the Nato alliance was historically based on the affirmation that the nuclear part of deterrence and potential steps during an escalation would be taken and fulfilled in the sense of article 5 of the Nato treaty by the US on all levels of the Nato escalation doctrine and, on the strategical level, also by allies as Britain and France.
Germany’s Bundeswehr, for very understandable reasons, “only” got the so called “nukleare Teilhabe” (nuclear sharing) – an expression that describes the fact that German artillery or German war planes would launch tactical nuclear warheads or nuclear rockets when requested in tight cooperation with the American troops and Saceur.
Germany has kept its part of this commitment – up to the last years when the German government ordered American F35 planes to upgrade our capabilities for a fair “nuclear sharing”. “Pathetic“?
Keep this in mind when we later look closer into military consequences of a requested un-pathetic orientation of Europe and in particular of Germany.
A “pathetic” Germany under the permanent threat of a full scale destruction?
In my childhood up to the age of fourteen my parents regularly drove with us children from Bavaria through Germany to the cities of Düsseldorf and Hagen (in Germany’s (north-) west) to visit my paternal grandparents and my motherly great-grandmother there. One thing that I remember very well from that time is the following: The journey of about 600 kms took a whole long day on the Autobahn. Reason: We met hundreds of US military lorries and sometimes multiple large groups of American tanks on different parts of the Autobahn during every travel to our grandparents.
These were the decades of the cold war. We grew up and my parents consciously lived in the very perceptible atmosphere of a permanent war threat. This included the consequences of an escalation scheme up to the nuclear level. What did this mean?
Well, military exercises in the late 60s and the 70s showed very clearly that if a war occurred between Nato and the Warsaw pact states, then the two German states (West- and Eastern Germany) would cease to exist. In a very physical sense. Germany would have been destroyed first by nuclear artillery on the battlefield across both German states – by nuclear warheads shot not only by the Russians, but also by France and US troops. And, due to the consequences of “nuclear sharing” by the Bundeswehr itself. And Germany would in case of a further escalation have been hit by waves of ballistic rockets with nuclear warheads.
So, we Europeans and in particular we Germans were and are “pathetic” regarding Nato?
Germany, a country who during the cold war had hundreds of thousands troops in a broad belt behind its eastern border. A split country with an internal border between two antagonistic blocks threatening and ensuring each other total destruction in case of an escalating war. A country which even in the case of limited tactical nuclear war would have ceased to exist.
A country whose population was nevertheless and over decades thankful for the American military presence. A presence which – among many other things – should compensate for an imposed lack of nuclear capability. A prohibition imposed for the good or maybe today for the worse by the US (among other nuclear powers).
Summary for this post
Germany was declined a nuclear armament – with very good reasons – after World War II. The German governments and its military trusted, however, over decades in a nuclear Nato doctrine which included a potential full scale physical destruction of my home country – if it had come to a war with the Warsaw pact states. Even if only the first escalation levels of the military strategy had been entered.
Our parents lived with this danger. Some of our fathers were even trained and prepared to launch American nuclear rockets – if an enemy like Russia had ever escalated to a nuclear level.
Independent of the question what a better and more independent military strategy for Germany could have looked like: Germany, a pathetic European partner – really?
Remember that Germany accepted a Nato escalation and deterrence doctrine not only to defend our young democracy, which we thoroughly reflected during the 60s and 70s. A nation who has seen how long anti-democratic ideologies unfolded their dark power over multiple generations. A nation with two post war generations willing to defend the freedom of the democracies of our European and American partners on both sides of the Atlantic – even after the iron curtain fell. Democracies built upon values which we shared at that time with the USA.
In the next posts I will look closer at questions of nuclear deterrence. The resulting basic question to Mr Vance, Mr Hegseth and Mr Rubio will be: Have you thought about what it implies if and when Germany really changed its alleged “pathetic” attitude – and made serious steps towards a defense and deterrence based on our own means?