Intro

The question “Germany – where are you going?” comes from a novel published in 1895, 130 years ago. It was written by the Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz and is titled “Quo Vadis.” This story is set in the year 64 AD and deals with the persecution of Christians in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. Henryk Sienkiewicz describes how Christians were tortured and burned alive as torches.[1] Rome was an empire in decline at that time. It is characteristic that the decline was not perceived by contemporaries. However, internal and external violence is apparently a characteristic of empires in decline.[2]

In July 64 AD, Rome burns to the ground. The tribune Subrius Flavus blames this fire on an arsonist: Emperor Nero himself.[3] The fact that elites turn into psychopaths and monsters also seems to be a characteristic of decadence.[4] 

In today's Germany, there is once again persecution of dissidents who deviate politically and ideologically from the line taken by the power elites, as was the case with the early Christians. Public burnings are also celebrated, albeit not in a physical sense, but in a figurative sense. The fate of political scientist Prof. Ulrike Guérot, judge Christian Dethmer, and the illegal termination of my teaching position at the University of Kiel are examples of these methods: the censorship complex publicly pillories dissidents, ruins their reputations, enforces dismissals and de facto professional bans, and destroys livelihoods. Journalists and representatives of aid organizations are placed on sanction lists beyond the law and all rights guaranteed by the constitution.

The players include government agencies and supranational organizations such as the EU, the hired pens of the propaganda press, GONGOS (government-organized non-governmental organizations), secret services, digital corporations, the self-proclaimed online encyclopedia “Wikipedia“[5] – the forgery workshop of the power elites and a weapon of the secret services in the battle for public opinion – and all ideological apparatuses: schools, universities, churches, clubs, associations, and trade unions. Censorship is enforced in a manner contrary to the constitution, e.g., by banning Russian media, and the population is intimidated by house searches and criminal proceedings,[6] children and other relatives are held collectively responsible. Anyone in Germany today who follows the words of the Sermon on the Mount,[7] and is guided by the peace imperative of the Basic Law,[8] finds themselves exposed to political persecution,[v] while the powerful, supported by the judiciary, publicly incite hatred against Russia, spread racism, and drive people into new wars. The criminal prosecution of political opponents, censorship, the destruction of democracy, and the preparation of new wars are two sides of the same coin.[9]

These processes combine to form an anti-democratic “censorship industry” through which governments, with the help of secret services, digital companies, transatlantic think tanks, the aforementioned GONGOS, media, and associations, control and monitor their citizens and combat undesirable opinions.[10]

The Western elites in the EU, Israel, and the US exhibit a kind of “Nero syndrome“[11]: Narcissistically disturbed psychopaths provoke wars of aggression that violate international law, such as against Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya and Syria in 2008, against the Palestinians and Iran, in order to give themselves a sense of self-efficacy and to erotically stimulate themselves with their destructive megalomania.[12] 

The German Chancellor comments on Israel and the US's war of aggression against Iran, which violates international law, with the statement: “That's the dirty work Israel does for all of us.“[13] EU governments remain silent on the genocide of the Palestinians. The subtle sadism of power is shedding its cloak and presenting itself publicly in an obscene manner—a regression to a pubertal form of political necrophilia.[14] 

Germany is a hub of this imperial Western hubris. As reported by the New York Times, combat operations in the Ukraine war are being organized from the US military base in Wiesbaden, including the targeting of artillery and rocket launchers.[15] In Israel's war of aggression against Iran, which violates international law, a German Air Force tanker plane circled over Jordan with its transponder turned off, most likely supplying US fighter jets – and perhaps even Israeli bombers – with kerosene.[16] The Kiel shipyard supplies Israel with submarines equipped with a section for missiles that can be used as carriers for nuclear warheads.[17]

Why is Germany destroying the remnants of its parliamentary democracy and, orchestrated by NATO and its leading power, the USA, rushing into new wars after the devastating wars of annihilation that originated on German soil in the 20th century? One almost believes one can sense that death wish that Nero had the knife placed at his throat.[18]

You just have to look. That is precisely the job of a journalist: “See and tell,” as my American friend Patrick Lawrence puts it.[19] That is the status quo. This raises the question of why, a look back in anger, and of future courses of action – quo vadis. I focus on the present, past, and future from a military, political, economic, and cultural perspective—following Clausewitz's reasoning that war is “nothing but a continuation of political relations by other means,” a “conflict of major interests that is resolved bloodily“.[20] This gives rise to an overall picture that shows Germany as an example of the decline of the West.[21]

1. Status Quo

Germany is in a bind. It has been maneuvered into a corner by its own degenerate elites. The Federal Republic has so far played a pivotal role in the war in Ukraine. This is a war waged by the United States of America and its NATO vassals against the Russian Federation on Ukrainian soil. Ukraine is the sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter. Germany is a tool in Washington's hands.[22] The Federal Republic is being restructured under the tutelage of the United States. Germany is acting as a bellicose model student and serving Washington in the Europeanization of the war, led by accomplices, a comprador regime that stands like an occupying power in its own country. The chancellor acts as the representative of the US financial industry, with a keen eye on the profit interests of his former employer, Blackrock.[23] Lars Klingbeil also follows in the tradition of transatlantic subjugation.[24] 

For such vassals, the meeting between US President Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage triggers anger and rage: Washington is pursuing its own economic interests and abandoning its slaves.[25]

For the US, the war in Ukraine is a “war of choice,” a war that can be fought or not fought; for Moscow, however, it is a “war of decision,” a decisive battle in which everything is at stake.[26] The Kremlin is fighting an existential war in Ukraine, because Ukraine's NATO membership and the deployment of US nuclear missiles 500 kilometers from Moscow would be a knife to its throat.

Berlin is a willing executor in this geopolitical game of encircling Russia and plundering Russian natural resources. Germany has become a tool of the Americans, who are themselves in decline. Russia is doing better than Western observers can see. In contrast, Berlin is unable to formulate its own foreign policy.

The terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipeline, which investigator Seymour Hersh attributes to Washington, is accepted. The Federal Republic of Germany is now dependent on expensive US fracking gas. This means that the energy trap has snapped shut on Germany.

The federal government and the ruling party cartel are behaving not only like vassals, but like representatives of the US on German soil. They are holding their own population of 85 million people hostage for a failed policy. Germany is becoming a target for Russian nuclear missiles due to its indirect involvement in the war and the planned deployment of new US medium-range missiles. In doing so, the federal government is acting against the interests of the German people and behaving like the governor of a transatlantic elite. For Germany, this war is like dancing on a volcano.

Economically, the sanctions against Russia have backfired. They are destroying the competitiveness of German companies, which was largely based on the use of inexpensive Russian gas and oil supplies. The economy is shrinking, and the process of deindustrialization is in full swing. The United States, on the other hand, has succeeded in eliminating Europe as an economic competitor. This is precisely what the RAND Corporation planned and organized in its political scenarios.[27] The goal was to use the Green Party to draw Germany into the war in Ukraine and to weaken the German economy in the long term by cutting it off from Russia. In doing so, the US has achieved an important goal of the war in Ukraine.

But that's not all. Even business associations consider the “deal” between EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump to be a farce in line with Hemingway's motto: The winner takes it all. With the agreement in the tariff dispute, the EU has committed to purchasing energy from the US—fracking gas, oil, and nuclear fuels—for USD 750 billion and to investing an additional USD 600 billion in the US. The tariff rate for most imports into the US—including cars, semiconductors, and pharmaceutical products—is to be 15%, while tariffs on steel and aluminum will remain at 50%. The US continues to export duty-free.[28]

Apart from the fact that the EU cannot actually conclude such deals because the member states are responsible for this area, the US does not have the production capacity for energy supplies and arms exports on this scale.[29] This shows how out of touch Western politics has become – announcements replace real achievements; empty promises replace actual results, and political fairy tales replace security. What is actually being delivered is not weapons, gas, or aircraft, but headlines, stock market bets, and political illusions. This may be promising in the short term, but it fails in the face of reality.[30] 

Now one might ask: What is this short-term benefit for the EU Commission? Well, there are around 32,000 bureaucrats in Brussels who are not democratically controlled, and if we add the ECB to that, the total comes to a maximum of 60,000. This EU bureaucracy is driven by its own interest in gaining as much power as possible. This power is over the member states, as manifested in the law, to make its own customs, tax, and budget decisions over the heads of national governments. From the perspective of this EU bureaucracy, submission to NATO and the US is a way to gain financial sovereignty and armed power.

The right to legislate and enforce laws, access the money of subjects, and maintain an army are factors that constitute statehood. Von der Leyen and her staff are striving for quasi-feudal statehood. From this perspective, the economic weakening of member states is not a disadvantage but an advantage. Absolutist princes strive to disempower the provincial nobility. In the case of Germany, this is achieved, among other things, by the fact that with the 18th sanctions package, the only step that could slow down economic decline – the recommissioning of the undamaged Nord Stream pipeline – would only be possible at the price of leaving the EU.[31] 

The people of Germany are paying the price for this. The population is becoming impoverished, and billions in tax revenue are being poured into armaments in order to achieve the so-called 5 percent target. The beneficiaries are US arms manufacturers and US energy giants. With rising armament costs and skyrocketing energy prices, the rate of exploitation is increasing. However, consumer spending is coming at the expense of education, infrastructure, housing, and social services. The dismantling of the German welfare state is in full swing. NATO's arms policy is an attack on its own population. Billions in tax revenue are flowing from the pockets of German citizens into the pockets of US arms, energy, and digital corporations. 

This is accompanied by cultural regression on a historic scale. A NATO propagandist named Florence Gaub, who is presented as an expert, is allowed to say on the Markus Lanz show: “We must not forget that even though Russians look European, they are not Europeans, at least not in a cultural sense,” and that they “have a different relationship to violence and death.” There is “not this liberal postmodern approach to life as a project that everyone shapes individually.” Life expectancy there is rather low: “So you just deal with the fact that people die differently.“[32] The host leaves this uncommented.

Former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declares before the Council of Europe: “We are fighting a war against Russia.“[33] With regard to EU sanctions, she remarks: “This will ruin Russia.”[34]

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul is quoted as saying: “Russia will remain an enemy to us forever.”[35] The image of Russia as an enemy is to be anchored even more firmly in German politics.

Ten years ago, such remarks would have ended political careers. But today, bellicose rhetoric, hatred of Russia, and racism shape the thinking of the political elite. As a result, Germany's political culture is moving away from the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment and Classicism and falling back into provincialism and political irrationalism. A process of decay has begun, leading to dreams of imperial superpower status, political megalomania, and anti-democratic thinking.[36]

This destruction of reason is accompanied by a widespread political failure on the part of intellectuals. To quote historian Karl-Dietrich Bracher: The synkrisis of German intellectual life with the imperial propaganda of NATO and the US is disturbing not only in view of the primitiveness of the conglomerate of ideas that feeds Russophobia and war hysteria, but even more so because of the blind submission to its emphatically intolerant claim to exclusivity. But this only demonstrates the process of self-alignment, which extends from constitutional lawyers to economists, from historians to Germanists, from philosophers to natural scientists, from publicists to poets, musicians, and visual artists. Byzantinism, manipulation, and coercion are inextricably intertwined.[37] Bracher examines the role of intellectuals in Hitler's Third Reich. But their alienated intellectual abilities can serve any propaganda. The lack of conviction among intellectuals, the prostitution of their beliefs, is, as Georg Lukács put it, “only comprehensible as the culmination of capitalist reification.”[38]

What we are seeing here overall is the exhaustion of German democracy. Following the coronavirus spectacle, the majority of the population has reached a state of resigned burnout, sedated by propaganda and disoriented by aggressive diversity lectures. The mass anger triggered by the neoliberal attack on the welfare state and reasonably secure employment is being used by the political-media complex as fuel for a new affect economy.[39] At the same time, we are turning our backs on international law and turning to the law of the jungle – a process of deliberate de-civilization that paves the way for new wars.[40] The slippery slope onto which the imperial fantasies of a transatlantic elite and finance-driven capitalism, as well as “the toxic cocktail of austerity, free trade, debt bondage, and poorly paid precarious jobs”[41] have led us, ends in a new barbarism. 

The social model of the future resembles a dystopia based on the Hollywood blockbuster “Mad Max”.[42]

2. Looking back in anger

Article 24 of the Basic Law states:

“The Federation may join a system of collective security for the purpose of preserving peace; in doing so, it shall consent to the restrictions on its sovereign rights that are necessary to bring about and secure a peaceful and lasting order in Europe and among the peoples of the world.”

Article 24 of the german Basic Law

Germany is not in a military alliance with either Israel or Ukraine. Military support for these countries does not serve to preserve peace and is therefore unconstitutional, as are foreign missions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Jordan.[43]

Article 2 of the Two Plus Four Agreement, which forms the basis of German unity and formally ended World War II, states:

"The governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic reaffirm their declarations that only peace will emanate from German soil. According to the constitution of the united Germany, actions that are likely to and intended to disturb the peaceful coexistence of peoples, in particular the preparation of a war of aggression, are unconstitutional and punishable by law. The governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic declare that the united Germany will never use any of its weapons except in accordance with its constitution and the Charter of the United Nations."

Article 2 of the Two Plus Four Agreement

With the announcement by Chancellor Friedrich Merz to make Germany the strongest military power and the permanent stationing of German troops in the Baltic states, the Federal Republic has broken this treaty.[44]

In Moscow, the German government's policy is seen as participation in the war in Ukraine, and the Federal Republic is regarded as an enemy state. Today, Germany is Ukraine's most important supporter in the war against Russia, German tanks are rolling again in Donbass, and there are serious discussions about attacking the Russian hinterland with long-range missiles such as Taurus.

It was the leaders in Moscow who made German reunification possible, withdrew their troops from the territory of the GDR in 1994, forgave the 27 million victims of Germany's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union in 1941 – 1945, granted independence to the vassal states of the Soviet Union, accepted NATO's eastward expansion at least until Putin's speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, and made the German economy internationally competitive again through the energy partnership by building the Nord Stream pipeline.

In contrast, the US is a country of permanent wars. In July 2023, the Congressional Research Service listed a total of 219 wars, military interventions, or covert operations since 1798.[45] Since 1945, Washington has waged more than 100 wars of aggression, not counting CIA operations such as the “Arab Spring,” targeted political assassinations, and other covert operations.[46] According to a study by Brown University, 4.5 to 4.7 million people have been killed in US wars since 2001. One wonders where the EU's sanctions against these wars have gone.[47] Not to mention the wars of aggression against Serbia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya and Syria in 2008, and Iran in 2025, which violated international law and in which NATO countries were involved.

As a NATO member, Germany is part of the most dangerous military alliance in the world. This is by no means a “system of collective security” that brings about “a peaceful and lasting order among nations.” NATO does exactly the opposite. This makes Germany's membership in NATO unconstitutional.

Over many years, this alliance has brought Ukraine up to NATO standards, heavily armed it, and thus systematically brought about the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, as recently leaked secret documents from 2014 show.[48] It was Putin who tried almost everything to avoid war.[49] 

This was preceded by the coup orchestrated by the West on the Maidan in February 2014, the military action against the rebellious population in Donbass since early April 2014, which, with more than 14,000 deaths, amounts to genocide, and the deliberate disregard of the Minsk II agreement—all of which are violations of international law.

In this war, which began in 2014 and not in 2022, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg knew,[50] the West criminally underestimated Russia's military capabilities. It was clear from the outset that Ukraine could not defeat the Russian army on its own.[51] But it was believed that Russia could be brought to its knees in a hybrid war through a combination of military aid to Ukraine, sanctions, political, cultural, and economic isolation, and propaganda portraying Russia as a pariah state.[52]

Russian troops have already largely captured the important logistics center of Pokrovsk (Russian: Krasnoarmeisk). Further west, only the less fortified cities of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk remain, protecting the plains that lead directly to the Dnieper River. But apart from the capture of the entire Donetsk Oblast through Pokrovsk and the recently captured Chasov Yar, the supply of weapons to the Ukrainians and the deployment of troops along the entire line of conflict will be prevented. This means that Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the east, could fall not because of stormtroopers or bombs and missiles, but simply because of the Ukrainian defenders' inability to continue fighting due to a lack of supplies.[53]

The Institute for the Study of War, led by Victoria Nuland and her neocon clique, describes this—like most Western observers—as minor Russian territorial gains.[54] In doing so, they only prove that they are victims of their own propaganda. The narrative of a possible Ukrainian victory must be maintained at all costs. They understand little about what is actually happening. Russian combat tactics are not primarily about territorial gains; the space is used to lure the enemy in and then destroy them. The number of Ukrainian casualties proves that this strategy is working.

According to secret information from the Ukrainian General Staff, 1.7 million Ukrainian soldiers have already been killed or are missing.[55] The West is also partly responsible for this disaster. The front is crumbling, Ukraine has lost the war.[56] The alternative today is not a compromise peace or the recapture of the four lost oblasts; the alternative is a compromise peace or the collapse of the 1,400-kilometer-long front, the conquest of further oblasts by the Russian army, and the reduction of Ukraine to a non-viable rump state.[57]

Washington has succeeded in dragging Germany into a war that the Biden administration knew from the outset Ukraine could not win.[58] Its goal has always been to weaken Russia. Now that the Ukrainian army has been largely wiped out, the German elites, together with their partners in Washington, want to turn Germany into the actual frontline state. There is open discussion about sending 25,000 German soldiers to Ukraine – a suicide mission.[59]

This marks the culmination of Berlin's policy of subordination to US interests. This sadomasochistic gesture of submission is entirely in line with Germany's free-riding imperialism: it wants to grab a share of the spoils from the economic and political colonization of Eastern Europe in the slipstream of the US.

When the United States orchestrated the coup on the Maidan in February 2014, representatives from Germany were also at the forefront. Shortly before then-Foreign Minister Steinmeier negotiated a peaceful transition of power with democratically elected President Yanukovych in Kiev on February 20, 2014, his ambassador Christof Weil held talks with fascist leader Andriy Parubiy at the German embassy—a final planning meeting at which the armed ultras were given the green light.[60] As if at a bazaar, EU representatives had previously negotiated with Ukrainian fascists about the number of murders they considered necessary to force Yanukovych's resignation. The study by Ivan Kachanovski describes in detail that not only Galician snipers were involved in the murders themselves, but also Georgian, Polish, and Lithuanian snipers, a total of at least 80 militarily trained forces.[61] That's what I call a successful dual strategy. 

With the end of the Schröder era in 2005, Germany fell into line with Washington's tactic of offering apparent concessions at the negotiating table while sticking to its strategy of weakening and economically subjugating Eastern Europe and Russia. This is evident in the failed Minsk II process, which was explicitly intended to deceive the Russians and give Ukraine time to rearm.[62] This approach continued until the failed peace talks in Istanbul in the spring of 2002, which were apparently used to persuade the Russians to withdraw their troops from Kiev. This shows, as does the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline, that Germany today is, as Emmanuel Todd put it, “once again an occupied country.”[63]

In January 2022, the RAND Corporation wrote a paper for the US government stating that the economic problems of the US could only be solved by bringing capital and production from Europe. A key role was assigned to the German Green Party. They are described as a “highly dogmatic, if not zealous movement” that could easily be steered transatlantically, whereby “the personal characteristics and lack of professionalism of their leaders – above all Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck – suggest that it is almost impossible for them to admit their own mistakes in time.”[64] The goal was to involve Germany in a war in Ukraine, portray the Russians as aggressors, and subsequently cut off the country's Russian energy supply in order to destroy its competitiveness. Everything went according to plan. It should be noted that the authenticity of the RAND paper was immediately denied.

For Washington, these things are going according to plan. The Ukrainian war has bound Europe's vassals more closely to Washington, the destruction of Nord Stream has interrupted their supply of cheap energy, and they have been weakened economically in the long term. President Trump has also succeeded in Europeanizing the Ukrainian war and persuading NATO partners to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. Now the Europeans can only watch helplessly as the US withdraws from the war and prepares to do good business with Russia again, while they themselves continue the war.

In a unipolar world, the hegemon—the US—sets the rules and ensures compliance with military means. This unipolar moment is now over. In a multipolar world, the rules must be negotiated or fought for between the superpowers.[65] Claims are staked out, revolver in hand. Within the respective zones of influence, allegiance continues to be enforced. This is achieved with the help of economic and political pressure, but also with agents of influence who guarantee the primacy of US interests in the provinces.

In order to obtain such representatives of American interests, the political, economic, and academic elites must be corrupted across the Atlantic.

The economic basis for this was created by the tax exemption on capital gains granted by the Schröder-Fischer government in 2002. This enabled banks to sell their industrial holdings tax-free and invest in structured securities. This had two consequences: First, German banks were quickly caught up in the maelstrom of the 2008 financial crisis, which they might have been spared had it not been for this restructuring. Second, the international financial industry was able to buy into German companies.

The financial crisis represents a turning point at which two decisive structural changes in the financial system began: a shift from bad loans to government bonds and from banks to the shadow banking system. According to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, bailing out the banks with taxpayers' money has led to a reduction in risks in the banking sector, while at the same time the debt burden of governments has risen to levels never before seen in peacetime. At the same time, fund assets have migrated from bank balance sheets, while hedge funds, investment funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and financial investors have seen dramatic increases. This increases the risks, because in the shadow banking system, investments are often leveraged with derivative mechanisms in order to take full advantage of price fluctuations while at the same time reducing equity capital. This increases the risk of procyclical fire sales and can destabilize government refinancing conditions.[66] As a result, Germany's budget has fallen into the Babylonian captivity of international financial investors in the largely unregulated shadow banking system, who are earning billions from the war in Ukraine and can put pressure on any country that wants to withdraw from the front lines of the warmongers by selling off its bonds.

Secondly, US financial investors were able to buy into German companies. Today, only about one-third of the shares in the 40 DAX companies are still in German hands. Investors from North America in particular have increased their holdings to more than 25%. Foreign investors hold majority stakes in more than half of the DAX companies.[67] Germany is no longer master in its own house; decisions are made elsewhere. The economic base has increasingly fallen under the control of US financial investors. Ultimately, this also leads to political dependence. This explains why the business community has accepted the devastating sanctions policy.

These sanctions have backfired. By cutting off energy relations with Russia, the German economy has fallen into a recessionary spiral.

Competitiveness is crumbling, deindustrialization is in full swing, companies are closing or relocating their production facilities, and jobs are being cut. This deindustrialization process has now reached the tipping point where it has become irreversible. The last resort for restoring profitability and generating new growth is to make lucrative investments in countries that are not yet fully integrated into the financial cycle, such as Ukraine – or to engage in massive rearmament.

At the same time, Washington, alarmed by the refusal of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, French President Jacques Chirac, and Russian President Putin to follow the US into the war against Iraq in 2003, which violated international law, has increased its influence on the academic elites.

Transatlantic corrupt elites act as accomplices of the hegemon and ensure that the former export world champion sacrifices its economic independence and energy infrastructure, commits itself to military readiness, and stations new long-range US missiles, which make Germany a target for Russian hypersonic and nuclear missiles. It is no exaggeration to see this as not only “apocalypse blindness,”[68] but a kind of necrophilia, a death wish on the part of degenerate elites. A nation risen from the ruins is willingly and knowingly marching into conflict with a nuclear power.

But there is method in this madness, as Nel Bonilla has explained in her excellent analysis.[69] US hegemony is institutionalized in Germany today. The United States has succeeded in establishing “cultural hegemony” among Europe's academic elites, a kind of intellectual kidnapping. The behavior of the economic, political, and academic elites is not irrational; they are merely loyal to their US shareholders and trust their transatlantic authorities unconditionally.

Over the past 20 years, the US has intensified its soft power through knowledge networks. The constant flow of people, ideas, and money is institutionalized through organizations such as The Fulbright Program, German Marshall Fund, Atlantik-Brücke, European Council, the Munich Security Conference, and the Bilderberg meetings. In these institutions, young professionals are socialized, their thinking shaped, careers organized, financial support provided, and networks built—they act like transatlantic conformity machines. The empire assimilates its governors.

Foundations and think tanks such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the RAND Corporation, Brookings, Carnegie Endowment, and The Center for American Progress act as transatlantic integration engines. Western “think tank pipelines” shape, mold, and bind European and especially German elites. The result is that the foreign policy goals of the US are not imposed, but come from within, as it were. This is ensured by the German Council on Foreign Relations, which copied the Council on Foreign Relations from 1955 onwards, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantic Institute, the Atlantik-Brücke, the Atlantic Council on Germany, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. These think tanks produce a constant revolving door effect, with academic elites circulating between universities, politics, parties, foundations, and transnational organizations such as NATO or the EU Commission.

It is about promoting young talent, establishing a transatlantic consensus, and leveraging the influence of individuals in key positions. At the same time, this approach successfully translates the hegemony of Big Brother into the psychology of the individuals involved—in the various ideological and political apparatuses of society. Want some examples? Friedrich Merz: Atlantikbrücke and former head of Blackrock Germany; Sigmar Gabriel: Atlantikbrücke; Josef Joffe, Kai Diekmann, Stefan Kornelius, Klaus Kleber: Atlantikbrücke; Lars Klingbeil: Atlantikbrücke. Overall, these transatlantic networks act like consensus factories in the interests of US hegemony. The result is an intellectual filter bubble in which the intellectual horizons of its inhabitants are limited, their emotional reflexes are conditioned, their imagination is stunted, and behavioral control is not perceived as coercion. All of this completes the German elites' loss of touch with reality.

This conformity on several levels explains why the political elites in Germany and Europe immediately fell into line with NATO after the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, and, contrary to their own lip service to fundamental rights, broke off contacts with Russians on an economic, cultural, and personal level, thereby falling back into a new form of barbarism: People who had nothing to do with the war were made pariahs, not for what they had done, but for what they are: Russians. This is called Russophobia and racism. It is the same racism that accompanied Hitler's fascism. 

3. Quo vadis?

In his story, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Henryk Sienkiewicz sends the Apostle Peter to Rome: "In the simplicity of his heart, Peter marveled that God had given Satan such incomprehensible power to oppress, confuse, and trample the earth, to squeeze out its blood and tears, to sweep it away like a whirlwind, to rage upon it like a hurricane. His heart was frightened by this thought, and he spoke in spirit to his master: O Lord, where shall I begin in this city to which you have sent me? It owns seas and lands, the animals of the field and all creatures of the water; it possesses kingdoms and cities and thirty legions to guard them; but I, O Lord, am only a fisherman on a small lake!"

But where do we go then? Looking at Germany – what can we hope for? After all, this is one of Immanuel Kant's three core questions of philosophy.[70] What is there left to hope for in a country that, as the driving force behind the Eurocrats in Brussels, tried with all its might to thwart the summit between Trump and Putin on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage? The dream of a victorious peace for Ukraine is ridiculous and only shows the triumph of delusion over reality. But the summit brought geostrategic rivalries to the fore: the rapprochement between the two nuclear powers is based on hard-nosed economic calculations.

The entire US defense and security apparatus is guided by the Wolfowitz Doctrine. According to this doctrine, the main goal of American foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any rival that could threaten the hegemony of the US. This is precisely what the war in Ukraine is based on. Washington orchestrated the coup on the Maidan in 2014, installed a Russophobic government, supported that government's attack on the population in Donbass, armed Ukraine to the teeth, and rejected Moscow's proposals for a mutual security agreement starting in December 2021. This put Putin under massive pressure to end the genocide in the Donbass republics by a NATO-trained Ukrainian army. There, the population says: “Putin has abandoned us. He should have invaded in 2014!”[71] To this day, Washington has not given up on its goal of destabilizing Russia.

The entire NATO military-industrial complex needs an enemy. That is the reason for the regime change wars we have seen since 1999. Now the war in Ukraine is being handed over to the vassals. Europeans can buy weapons in the US. Berlin is at the forefront of this. Friedrich Merz was chairman of the supervisory board of Blackrock Germany, his pension depends on this corporation, he represents the interests of Blackrock and thus his own. The chancellor behaves like a branch manager of the US financial industry – based on the correct realization that the refinancing of the German state has fallen into the hands of US financial investors. Rosa Luxemburg wrote: “Dividends rise, proletarians fall."[72]

If Trump really wanted peace, then the US would not need to sell weapons to the Europeans, station its new medium-range missiles in Germany, or have its vassals engage in provocations in the Baltic Sea. Furthermore, the US would not attempt to use its control over the Sangesur corridor in the South Caucasus as leverage against Russia, China, and Iran, thereby encircling Russia. The faltering hegemon is constantly opening new proxy wars against Russia and China.[73] While Russia is bleeding Ukraine dry, the US has continued its encirclement strategy elsewhere: Sweden and Finland have been pushed into NATO by their political elites; the Baltic states are continuing their provocations against tankers carrying Russian oil; Moldova, Serbia, and Georgia are to be drawn into the Western sphere of influence; in Syria, Moscow suffered a painful defeat; Israel's attack on Iran came at an inopportune moment for the Kremlin.[74]

One could speak of a geostrategic stalemate. Such a stalemate paved the way for a compromise in Anchorage: the meeting recognizes Russia's victory. Moscow is back as a superpower on the political stage. Trump now rejects a ceasefire and is seeking a comprehensive peace agreement instead.[75] After that, the two oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk could be completely ceded to Russia, the front lines in Zaporizhzhya and Kherson could possibly be frozen – or Russian troops could continue to advance.[76] Ukraine will not be admitted to NATO, and sanctions will be partially lifted. This marks the end of the concept of a unipolar world. Ukraine will be divided, but Trump has saved it from collapse. This is good news for millions of people in the war zone: they will no longer have to die for NATO interests. The summit in Anchorage has also reduced the risk of a nuclear conflict.

The Europeans, especially Germany, have failed completely. They are in danger of losing all significance. They have to respond. The transatlantic rift, as Nel Bonilla has correctly analyzed, is a myth.[77] German free-riding imperialism works according to the franchise system. As long as US companies earn money from this type of structured sales and a large part of the returns flow back to the US, European investors can do whatever they want. If the colonies threaten to become independent from the perspective of their guardian, or if the tributes paid fall, intervention will follow – in the form of tariffs, sanctions, political pressure, regime change, bribery, blackmail, the removal of unwelcome politicians, military interventions, or an attack on the critical infrastructure of a vassal.

Support for Ukraine has driven public debt to such heights that the German state has become a pawn of precisely those financial investors who are profiting from the war. There is no escape from the transatlantic energy trap. The EU's Ukraine policy has ended in political, economic, and moral disaster. Now the credibility of the entire political class is at stake. If it publicly admits its failure, the only option left is to resign. The question of criminal responsibility would be obvious. The last option is to continue the war, but that is precisely what Europeans cannot do without the US.[78] Now they are waiting to see which faction in the US power apparatus will gain the upper hand: Trump's pragmatic course or the neoconservative Russia-haters.

The war is driven by economic constraints. As Robert Brenner has shown, these constraints originate in the falling rate of profit in developed industrialized countries.[79] This describes the ratio of capital employed to profits and has also been demonstrated for Germany.[80] The rate of profit fell sharply, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis. The cause is chronic weak growth, which in turn is due to overaccumulation. Overaccumulation means that capital owners cannot find investment opportunities in the real economy that will generate the desired returns.[81] The new value creation model is digital capitalism—and its midwife is war. This is because war ensures that massive government subsidies flow into companies. The state becomes the “initial venture capitalist.”[82] War can generate new growth, modernize production, conquer new markets, secure inexpensive raw materials, and drive down wages. Ukraine promised all of this – including for the sluggish German economy. But the war ended with the defeat of the West.

This shows that war is not an expression of moral duty, as the propaganda about the “unprovoked war of aggression” would have us believe, but rather a business model. The bloodlust of propaganda aims to restore a meaningful cohesive force to an EU in which centrifugal forces are growing and the interests of member states are diverging: Having failed as a peace project, it is now to lead a zombie existence as the war machine of the pan-Germanic drive to the East. But without the US, Europeans cannot stand up to Russia.

In the run-up to war, profits for steel companies, arms manufacturers, and defense investors rise exponentially, and for the ruling party cartel, war is the last resort. Friedrich Schiller puts the following words into the mouth of his character Marina: “War is the best farmer; it turns iron into gold.” Schiller's Marina also expresses imperial hatred of Russia: “What you are now losing in Poland will be found tenfold in Moscow.”[83] However, generations of German politicians who have dared to “reach for world power”[84] have already failed in this illusion. 

It is worth taking a look at the specifics of the massive rearmament currently underway in Germany and consulting George Orwell. In his dystopian novel “1984,” he describes how wars are not only directed against an external enemy, but also serve to maintain a system of rule internally, i.e., to enforce obedience among the population and increase the rate of exploitation of dependent employees and the middle class.[85]

The German government intends to build up Europe's strongest conventional army and reduce its military dependence on the US. However, Israeli-Hungarian security expert Robert C. Castel has reasonable doubts as to whether this armament program is actually intended to ward off a Russian attack. While Poland is buying tanks, artillery, HIMARS anti-tank missiles, and helicopters, Germany is only procuring 20 Eurofighter fighter jets and 1,400 troop transporters.[86] However, drones, ballistic missiles, and artillery form the basis of modern warfare. This means that German procurement policy is not based on the lessons learned from the Russian-Ukrainian war. The vehicles are more suitable for militarized police tasks.[87] 

One possible explanation is that the German government is not preparing for war against an external enemy, but rather for combating internal civil unrest. Robert Castel interprets this as “preparation for a European or German civil war”[88] – and thus as preparation for maintaining the US-controlled comprador rule of a transatlantic elite against its own population by force of arms.

This could be organized in accordance with the constitution by declaring a state of emergency with a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag (German parliament) in accordance with Article 80a of the Basic Law. Such a step would require a serious foreign policy conflict situation, which is currently being talked up. In a state of tension, legal provisions such as service obligations, emergency regulations, residence and travel restrictions, reporting requirements, bans on assembly, etc. would become applicable. Democratic rights would be largely suspended in practice.

War and the destruction of democracy go hand in hand in Germany. This is possible because the population offers no resistance. Civil courage and democratic fighting spirit have apparently completely waned—a country without opposition. A look at the causes:

The transition from neoliberalism to digital capitalism is leading to fundamental changes: in neoliberalism, companies operate on the market. The market is essentially a neutral entity. The leading companies of digital capitalism—Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook—ARE the market. They control who has access to the market, who receives information about market data, and they control performance and price.[89] This makes it possible in digital capitalism for political subjects to be subsidized as consumers and at the same time systematically dispossessed in the work process: risk cascades flow from top to bottom, while profit skimming flows from bottom to top. People are sedated as consumers by free digital offers. The result is a blocked conflict that is not resolved but passivated.[90]

This puts digitalization in obvious conflict with democracy. On the one hand, leading digital companies act as political sedatives. On the other hand, the surveillance state accesses these companies and establishes a new form of rule by controlling the information space. Through this state regime of truth and the privileging of political conformity, proprietary markets act as consensus machines that undermine the subjects' capacity for resistant action and democratic self-determination.[91]

The subcutaneous consensus pressure results in significant psychological changes. It is no longer possible to deal with inner representatives. The Oedipal conflict is no longer fought out; authority figures are trusted unconditionally. This gives rise to a new form of authoritarian character among digital natives. However, this is essentially an anti-democratic attitude, since democracy is fundamentally based on mistrusting political power and therefore restricting it.[92]

Secondly, we are experiencing a process of de-literacy, a relapse into a new illiteracy. The ability to understand complex texts is being lost on the way to an “age of idiocy”.[93] The loss of written culture in turn leads to a crisis of tradition: this opens the door to the recoding of history, a reframing in the service of ruling propaganda, and the implementation of historical lies. In Germany in particular, reinterpreting history in view of the singularity of Nazi crimes not only against Jews but also against Soviet citizens is fatal, as it enables a psychological reversal of guilt and thus a shift of aggression towards Russia as the enemy.[94]

An attack on writing is always also an attack on the Enlightenment's claim to universality. When writing loses its significance as a tool of communication, historical experiences are lost – which condemns us to repeat them. If the word tends to become obsolete, the analytical power of written symbols is also lost. Visual media become the dominant matrix of truth, as they are much more effective at undermining reason and appealing directly to emotions.[95] This, in turn, is a gateway for NATO's “cognitive warfare,” which aims to push emotions ahead of reason in order to limit the ability to think and, by promoting Russophobic and racist resentment, to provide “the ferment of a new pre-war period.”[96] In an attempt to create a war mentality, numb the public and at the same time whip them into a bloodlust, the German media in particular are proving to be intelligible NATO whores.[97]

Cognitive warfare, subcutaneous fear-mongering, rewriting of history, problem surrogates such as diversity, de-literacy, and digital conflict blockade combine to create a sealed-off public sphere in which dissident positions are immediately denounced as conspiracy theories—a country “on autopilot” and without opposition.[98]

However, the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage on August 15, 2025, has given the geostrategic rivalry a new direction. The US is trying to draw Russia closer to itself and break it away from its close cooperation with China. The US president has thus maneuvered Germany into a dilemma: either go along with the change of course or continue the war in Ukraine alone. One thing is clear: without cheap energy, Germany is heading for economic decline.[99] Berlin now stands amid the ruins of its misguided Ukraine policy. The self-proclaimed quality media sit like bedwetters in the puddle of their racist and bellicose lies. The loss of legitimacy of both is fundamental: people will increasingly turn away from the ruling political-media power cartel. A change of course would also have to consider withdrawal from the EU and NATO. But that presupposes that the ruling functional elites are first replaced. That is why the participation of a transatlantic-oriented AfD in government is much more likely.

A departure from the German functional elites' course toward war can only be forced through fundamental opposition.[100] Here, it remains to be seen whether the coming massive social cuts will prompt people to take their protests to the streets. The prerequisite for this is the creation of islands of cultural hegemony from which those forces oriented toward the peace imperative of the Basic Law can reclaim the public space colonized by the propaganda of the warmongers. This can only be successful if those who support the system, i.e., employees, the middle class, and students, develop the capacity to act and a democratic fighting spirit beyond corrupt organizations such as churches and trade unions. This is certainly provided for in the German Basic Law. Article 20, paragraph 4 states:

“All Germans have the right to resist anyone who attempts to abolish this order if no other remedy is possible.”

Résumé

Once again, Henryk Sienkiewicz. The year is 64 AD. At dusk, Peter stands with the Christian woman Lygia against the backdrop of Rome, in all his despair before this city: “How can I defeat its wickedness?”

“The whole city seems to be on fire,” Lygia interrupted his musings. The sun was just setting in wonderful splendor... and as the sun sank, the glow became redder and redder. ‘The whole city seems to be on fire!’ Lygia repeated. Peter held his hand over his eyes and said, ‘The wrath of God rests upon it!’"[101]

The same will happen to the Western hegemonic power and its vassals. They cannot seriously believe that the people in the Global South will ever forgive us for the genocide in Gaza, the genocide in Donbass, the provoked war in Ukraine, the more than 20,000 sanctions against Russia. Nothing will be forgotten. Germany once again sits defiled among the nations—defiled with the blood of those who lie in the streets in our imperialist wars. Those who cling to falling empires will be dragged down with them.

[1] Sienkiewicz, Henryk: Quo Vadis. München 1954.

[2] „The initial response of Roman emperors to the arrival of large numbers of univited outsiders, many of them armed and well-organized, was – unsurprisingly – hostility and suspicion. As with Valens and the Goths of 376, this usually led to military confrontation…“ Rapley, John u. Peter Heather: Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West. London 2023, S. 90

[3] Subrius Flavus: „Odisse coepi, postquam parricida matris et uxoris, auriga et histrio et incendiarius extitisti.“ (“I began to hate you after you showed yourself to be the murderer of your mother and wife, a charioteer, an actor, and an arsonist.”) Tacitus, Publius Cornelius: Annales 15, 67. Auch: 15, 44: “But neither human help, nor imperial gifts, nor appeasement of the gods could dispel the shameful rumor that the conflagration had been ordered.”

[4] “The old is dying and the new cannot be born: it is the time of monsters.” This quote is attributed to Antonio Gramsci. However, in Volume 3 of his Prison Notebooks, he writes: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born: in this interregnum, a variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Gramsci, Antonio: Gefängnishefte, Bd. 3, Hamburg 1991, S. 354, zit. n. Becker, Lia u.a. (Hg.): Gramsci lesen. Einstiege in die Gefängnishefte. Hamburg 2013, S. 305

[5] Pohlmann, Dirk: Wikileaks und Wikipedia. Free 21, 02.02.2021, https://free21.org/wikileaks-und-wikipedia/

Buyinski, Helen: Wikipedia: Ein Sumpf aus üblen Machenschaften. Teil 1-3. Free 21,

19.04.2020, https://free21.org/wikipedia-ein-sumpf-aus-ueblen-machenschaften-teil-1/

16.06.2020, https://free21.org/ein-sumpf-aus-ueblen-machenschaften-teil-2/

15.08.2020, https://free21.org/wikipedia-ein-sumpf-aus-ueblen-machenschaften-teil-3/

[6] Eugyppius: German police conduct coordinated nationwide raids for the pseudo-crime of „hate posting“ in their ongoing battle against freedom of expression. Substack, 25.06.2025, https://www.eugyppius.com/p/german-police-conduct-coordinated

[7] “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God... Make peace with your adversary quickly, while you are still on the way to court with him. Otherwise, your adversary will bring you before the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the bailiff, and you will be thrown into prison.”

https://www.hanglberger-manfred.de/bergpredigt-text-mt-kap-5-7.htm

[8] The preamble to the Basic Law states that the “German people,” “inspired by the will to serve world peace as an equal member of a united Europe,” have adopted this Basic Law by virtue of their constituent power. Furthermore, Article 1(2) of the Basic Law declares that the German people “acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every human community, of peace, and of justice in the world.” Article 26 of the Basic Law contains four sub-provisions: a) the prohibition of “preparing for a war of aggression” (sentence 1), b) the prohibition of all “acts which are likely to and are intended to disturb the peaceful coexistence of peoples” (sentence 1 of the Basic Law), c) the mandate to the legislature to criminalize all violations of this constitutional verdict (Article 26(1) sentence 2 of the Basic Law), and d) the requirement for a license for “weapons intended for warfare” (Article 26(2) of the Basic Law). These provisions are binding on all German authorities at home and abroad, as well as on all natural and legal persons, both German and foreign, residing in the federal territory. This also applies to foreign armed forces stationed in the federal territory, which are therefore required to observe domestic law here, even under NATO law. This means that they too are prohibited from preparing or waging a war of aggression on German territory or supporting such a war from here. Nor may they engage in any “disturbance of the peace” within the meaning of Article 26 of the Basic Law or receive support for such activities from here.

[9] Meyen, Michael: Cancel Culture. Wie Propaganda und Zensur Demokratie und Gesellschaft zerstören. Berlin2024, S. 9f.

[10] MacMahon, Collin: Der Zensur-Komplex. Wie Regierungen, Geheimdienste und NGO’s ihre Bürger überwachen und politisch unerwünschte Meinungen bekämpfen. Rottenburg 2025, S. 11-17

[11] Tacitus speaks of the “furor principum.” Historian Ludwig Quidde lists the following key elements: belief in one's own divinity; extravagance; theatricality; a voracious appetite for military triumphs; a tendency toward paranoia. Quidde, Ludwig: Caligula. Eine Studie über römischen Cäsarenwahnsinn. Leipzig 1894, S. 7, https://digi.bib.uni-mannheim.de/fileadmin/digi/452081106/452081106.pdf

[12] "The same applies to aggression, narcissism, and ambivalence: the restrictions imposed and the means made available to satisfy these urges vary depending on the social location... Accordingly, the structure of the connection between narcissism and aggression is also different in each case. My thesis is that domination is the social location from which the constellation of these three elements produces its most destructive effects. There are hardly any social limits to narcissism there, ambivalence has become uncontrollable due to the breakdown of human relationships, and both can thus drive aggression to extremes... It explains the large amounts of aggression that the ruling class acts out against the rest of society, to the extent that the foundations of the respective culture are destroyed." Erdheim, Mario: Die gesellschaftliche Produktion von Unbewußtheit. Frankfurt a. M. 1992(4), S. 390

[13] https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Merz-Israel-macht-fuer-uns-im-Iran-die-Drecksarbeit-article25840522.html

[14] Erich Fromm defines necrophilia as "the passionate attraction to everything that is dead, decayed, rotten, and diseased; it is the passion to transform what is alive into something lifeless; to destroy for the sake of destruction; the exclusive interest in everything that is purely mechanical. It is the passion to dismember living connections... It hardly needs to be emphasized that severely necrophilic individuals are very dangerous. They are the haters, the racists, the advocates of war, bloodshed, and destruction." Fromm, Erich: Anatomie der menschlichen Destruktivität. Hamburg 2015 (25), S. 373, 414

[15] Entous, Adam: The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine. This is the untold story of America’s hidden role in Ukrainian military operations against Russia’s invading armies. New York Times, 29.03.2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/29/world/europe/us-ukraine-military-war-wiesbaden.html

[16] Warweg, Florian: Unterstützte ein Luftbetankungs-Airbus der Luftwaffe den israelischen Angriff gegen den Iran? Nachdenkseiten v. 17.06.2025, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=134602

[17] Jann, Timo: TKMS: „Meilensteine“ im U-Boot-Bau. THB Info13.11.2024, https://www.thb.info/login.html?redirect_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thb.info%2Frubriken%2Fschiffbau%2Fdetail%2Fnews%2Ftkms-meilensteine-im-u-boot-bau.html

[18] Sienkiewicz, Henryk: Quo Vadis. München 1954, S. 367

[19] Lawrence, Patrick: Journalisten und ihre Schatten. Zwischen Medienkonzernen und unabhängiger Berichterstattung. Wien 2025, S. 194

[20] Clausewitz, Carl von: Vom Kriege, Berlin 1827, S. 592, 107 (E-Book)

[21] „Global financial crisis in 2008 was quickly followed by a Great Recession and then a Great Stagnation. A mere decade after its 1999 peak, the West’s share of global output had shrunk by a quarter: 80 per cent of Gross Global Product had become 60 per cent. And although the worst immediate effects of the crash were quickly contained as both governments and central banks flooded their economies with money, Western countries have since failed to restore the growth rates of old, whereas growth rates in key parts of the developing world stayed high. As a result, the West’s share of GGP continues to slide. And it’s not just in economics that the West has been rapidly losing ground. The once-shiny Western ‚brand‘ has lost ist aura, now often presenting outsiders with an image of deeply divided indecision in democracies that increasingly seem to deliver benefits mostly to the few, restoring lost credibility to authoritarian leadership and one-party models of economic and political direction. For some Western commentators, Gibbon’s diagnosis of Rome’s fall offers an obvious solution. The West is losing its identity in a tide of foreign, especially Muslim, migration; it must shore up ist defences, and reaffirm core cultural values, or it is destined to tread the same path to imperial Armageddon. Roman history as it is understood in the twenty-first century, however, offers some startingly different lessons for the modern West.“ Rapley, John u. Peter Heather: Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West. London 2023, S.26

[22] Altwegg, Jürg: „Russland hat den Krieg gewonnen.“ Die Weltwoche, 21.05.2025, https://weltwoche.ch/story/russland-hat-den-krieg-gewonnen/

Altwegg, Jürg: „In diesem Krieg geht es um Deutschland.“ French historian Emmanuel Todd predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, he sees the US in decline. Die Weltwoche, 07.01.2023, https://weltwoche.ch/story/in-diesem-krieg-geht-es-um-deutschland/

[23] Rügemer, Werner: BlackRock im Kanzleramt? Nachdenkseiten, 13.02.2025, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=128643

Rügemer, Werner: Black-Rock Germany. Berlin 2025

[24] „Lars Klingbeil (Vice-Chancellor & Finance Minister) – learns through crisis and socialization: – 9/11 Internship (2001, Manhattan): The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) the SPD’s political foundation – placed the 23-year-old political science student in a Manhatten-based NGO during the September 11 attacks. This formative experience became the emotional cornerstone of his Atlanticist worldview. In his own words: ‚After that, I engaged very intensively with foreign and security policy. I later returned to the U.S. to Washington and wrote my master’s thesis on U.S. defense policy there. My relationship with the Bundeswehr and military operations changed fundamentally through these terrible attacks. Without 9/11, I might never have discovered my interest in security policy and perhaps wouldn’t have ended up on the Defense Committee.“ – Georgetown exchange & Hill internship, 2002-2003: Lars Klingbeil returned and took part in a U.S. exchange program in 2002-03 at Georgetown University in Washington to study American defense policy; this U.S. exposure gave Klingbeil a transatlantic outlook from the start, effectively a ‚soft capture‘ baptism into American strategic thinking. During his time in Washington, he interned on Capitol Hill in the office of Congresswoman Jane Harman (then a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the future president of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a CIA-linked think tank). Harman’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence oversaw: NSA mass surveillance programs and post-9/11 ‚Global War on Terror‘ legislation.“ Bonilla, Nel: Elite Capture & European Self-Destruction: The Hidden Architecture of Transatlantic Hegemony. Substack, 28.06.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-164671977

[25] Fazi, Thomas: Trump's Ukraine endgame. An American retreat will be disguised as peace. Unherd, August 20. 2025, https://unherd.com/2025/08/trumps-ukraine-endgame/

[26] Macgregor, Douglas: The war in Ukraine and the decline of the West. De Nieuwe Wereld, 25.06.2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ0hMXRWxms

[27] Rand Corporation: Weakening Germany, strengthening the U.S. Executive Summary. January 25, 2022, confidential, https://disk.yandex.com/d/jxD85BQemPfz1A/P3.jpg

Andersson, Markus: Shocking document: How the US planned the war and energy crisis in Europe. NYA Dagbladet, 15.09.2023, https://nyadagbladet.se/utrikes/shocking-document-how-the-us-planned-the-war-and-energy-crisis-in-europe/

Röper, Thomas: Wie die USA die wirtschaftliche Vernichtung Deutschlands und der EU geplant haben. Anti-Spiegel, 19.09.2024, https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/wie-die-usa-die-wirtschaftliche-vernichtung-deutschlands-und-der-eu-geplant-haben/

[28] Ploppa, Hermann: EU-Deal in Schottland: USA kriegen alles, die EU kriegt nichts. Apolut, 02.08.2025, https://apolut.net/eu-deal-in-schottland-usa-kriegen-alles-die-eu-kriegt-nichts-von-hermann-ploppa/

[29] „The EU’s defence spending pledge, the investment promises that can’t be enforced, Trump’s theatrical Boeing ‚orders‘, and the Brussels elite’s maneuvring and offers to buy American LNG despite material constraints; it is the increasing divergence between political spectacle and material reality. The whole series of Trump deals look increasingly hollow… They are pyrrhic victories in many cases. From von der Leyen’s point of view, the logic is clear: she played a limited hand and got what she most wanted; that is, continued American security commitment to Europe. In her calculus, conceding on secondary matters such as high tariffs on EU exports, zero tariffs on U.S. goods, a non-deliverable investment offer, a reality defying LNG commitment and a symbolic $750 billion in future military orders was a tactical price worth paying to bind the U.S. to Europe’s defence architecture. But this strategy, if there was one, is built on fragile foundations… The assumption that these proimises will convert into real-world leverage ignores the structural limitations of the U.S. defence-industrial base. American contractors are already stretched, their production pipelines claimed for years ahead, their incentives tied more to backlog growth than actual delivery. Worse, von der Leyen’s political gambit has exposed the fragility of European consensus. The strong reactions from France’s Prime Minister and the Federatrion of German Industries underscore how thin Brussel’s mandate really is. While von der Leyen may have secured American attention, she has deepened fractures within the EU by subordinating economic and strategic interests of key member states to a centralised and highly contestable vision. The LNG offer only amplifies the unreality. Brussels more than likely knows the U.S. cannot deliver the gas volumes promised at competitive prices.“ Powell, Warwick: Imaginary Deals and the Temporal Moment. Pyrrhic Hollowness when Theatre Ignores Material Capacity. Substack, 29.07.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-169527607

[30] „Across both sides of the Atlantic, and elsewhere, these deals reflect a troubling reality: we are mistaking announcements for achievement, backlog for capability, and narrative for security. The true delivery in this cycle isn’t weapons, gas or planes. No, instead, it’s headlines, financial leverage and political illusions. These illusions may be profitable in the short term. But they are brittle. And when the time comes for delivery – not of promises, but of capability – they may not hold.“ Powell, Warwick: Imaginary Deals and the Temporal Moment. Oyrrhic Hollowness when Theatre Ignores Material Capacity. Substack, 29.07.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-169527607

[31] Henn, Dagmar: Von der Leyen ruiniert Europa – für die Brüsseler Bürokratie. RT Deutsch, 29.07.2025, https://rtde.org/meinung/251894-von-leyen-ruiniert-europa-fuer/

[32] Mielke, André: Florence Gaub bei Markus Lanz: Vielleicht sind die Russen ja doch auch Europäer? Berliner Zeitung, 20.04.2022, https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-mind/florence-gaub-bei-markus-lanz-vielleicht-sind-russen-ja-doch-auch-europaeer-li.223137

[33] Gehrke, Christian: Außenministerin Annalena Baerbock: „Wir kämpfen einen Krieg gegen Russland.“ Berliner Zeitung, 26.01.2023, https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/ukraine-krieg-aussenministerin-annalena-baerbock-we-are-fighting-a-war-against-russia-li.31097

[34] „Das wird Russland ruinieren.“ EU will Putins und Lawrows Vermögen einfrieren. Manager Magazin, 25.02.2022, https://www.manager-magazin.de/politik/eu-will-vermoegen-von-putin-und-lawrow-einfrieren-a-e3e6dec6-b250-4732-8e21-bd77e61dca29

[35] Klöckner, Marcus: „Russland wird für immer ein Feind für uns bleiben“ – das Feindbild Russland wird noch fester in der deutschen Politik zementiert. Nachdenkseiten, 30.04.2025, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=132269

[36] The political opinions and attacks of a group of publicists and intellectuals would not mean much for the political mindset of a nation if they remained limited to small circles of dissatisfied and intellectual know-it-alls. However, a brief glance at the political reality immediately shows that anti-democratic thinking was not a matter for esotericists. It served to ideologize numerous political groups and even parties that were consciously working toward the overthrow of liberal democracy." Sontheimer, Kurt: Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. München 1992(3), S. 17

[37] Bracher, Karl Dietrich: Die Deutsche Diktatur. Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des Nationalsozialismus. Köln u. Berlin 1969, S. 274

[38] Lukács, Georg: Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein. Darmstadt u. Neuwied 1975(4), S. 194

[39] "In addition to the generalization of competitive arenas and the dissolution of solidarity-based milieus in today's market societies, the economic dynamics and social models of information capitalism have created specific conditions or architectures in which structural populism has made resentment an integral part of the capitalist affect economy. It functions both as a product and as a productive force, and its political and social erosive forces contribute to the stabilization of the financial capitalist economic system." Vogl, Joseph: Kapital und Resasentiment. München 2021(2), S. 181

[40] Nachtwey, Oliver: Entzivilisierung. Über regressive Tendenzen in westlichen Gesellschaften. In: Geiselberger, Heinrich (Hg.): Die große Regression. Eine internationale Debatte über die geistige Situation der Zeit. Berlin 2017, S. 215-231

[41] Fraser, Nancy: Vom Regen des progresiven Neoliberalismus in die Traufe des reaktionären Populismus. In: Geiselberger, Heinrich (Hg.): Die große Regression. Eine internationale Debatte über die geistige Situation der Zeit. Berlin 2017(2), S. 77-91

[42] Van Der Meer, Sam: Analysisi: Mad Max: Fury Road. Flixist, 20.02.2020, https://www.flixist.com/deep-analysis-mad-max-fury-road/

[43] Hoffnung auf Frieden oder Ur-Katastrophe Europas? Kann Trump den Stellvertreterkrieg beenden? General a. D. Harald Kujat im Interview mit Patrik Baab, 25.04.2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sYhk-vaC1o

[44] Ungar, Gert Ewen: Merz-Rede: Der (Alb-) Traum von Deutschland als Militärmacht ist zurück. RT.de v. 25.06.2025, https://de.rt.com/meinung/249005-merz-rede-alb-traum-von/

[45] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42738

[46] https://internetz-zeitung.eu/index.php/860-us-kriege-suez-krise-%C3%A4gypten,-26-07-1956-bis-15-11-1956-1958-operation-blue-bat-libanon,-15-07-1958-bis-20-10-1958-1958-%E2%80%93-1963-taiwan-stra%C3%9Fe-23-08-1958-bis-1-06-1963-1960-%E2%80%93-1962-kongo-14-07-1960-bis-1-09-1962-1962-%E2%80%93-1963-kuba-krise-weltweit,-24-10-1962-bi

[47] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary

[48] "In July that year, a precise blueprint for the current proxy conflict was published by the Institute for Statecraft, a NATO/MI6 cutout founded by veteran Bristish military intelligence apparatchik Chris Donnelly. In response to the Donbass civil war, Statecraft advocated targeting Moscow with a variety of ' anti-subversive measures'. This included 'economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations', as well as 'propaganda and counter-propaganda, pressure on neutrals.' The objective was to produce 'armed conflict of the old-fasioned sort' with Russia, which 'Britain and the West could win." Klarenberg, Kit: Declassified: CIA's Covert Ukraine Invasion Plan. Substack, 17.08.2025, https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/declassified-cias-covert-ukraine?pub=

[49] Mearsheimer, John J.: Der Ukraine-Krieg wird auf dme Schlachtfeld enden. Weltwoche, 20.08.2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Qa70-UaHU

[50] „Actually since 2014, NATO has implemented the biggest reinforcements of collective defense in a generation, because the war didn‘t start in February last year. It started in 2014… We decided the battlegroups in 2016. And we actually increased our presence also in the months ahead of the invasion because the invasion was no surprise. This was an invasion we knew was coming and therefore we were prepared when it happened.“ Pre-ministerial press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ahead of the meetings of NATO Defence ministers, 13.02.2023, https://www.nato.int/cps/ru/natohq/opinions_211689.htm?selectedLocale=en

„And the third thing was that NATO Allies have really now demonstrated that they are delivering on the commitment we made in 2014, because the war didn’t start in February last year. It started in 2014. The full-fledged invasion happened last year, but the war, the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia went into eastern Donbas in 2014.“ Opening remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the joint meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcomittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) followed by an exchange of views with Members of the European Parliament, 07.09.2023, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm?selectedLocale=en

[51] „When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, President Joe Biden set three objectives for the U.S. response. Ukraine’s victory was never among them. ‚We were deliberately not talking about the territorial parameters,‘ says Eric Green, who served on Biden’s National Security Council at the time, overseeing Russia Policy. The U.S., in other words, made no promise to help Ukraine recover all of the land Russia had occupied, and certainly not the vast territories in eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula taken in its initial invasion in 2014. The reason was simple, Green says: in the White House’s view, doing so was beyond Ukraine’s ability, even with robust help from the West.“ Shuster, Simon: Why Biden’s Ukraine Win Was Zelensky’s Loss. Time, 19.01.2025, https://time.com/7207661/bidens-ukraine-win-zelensky-loss/

„Unless the coalition reoriented its own ambitions, General Donahue and the commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, concluded, the hopelessly outmanned and outgunned Ukrainians would lose the war.“ Entous, Adam: The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine. The New York Times, 29.03.2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/29/world/europe/us-ukraine-military-war-wiesbaden.html

[52] „Everyone (and common sense) knew that the Ukrainian army was in no position to defeat Russia on its own. The idea was to defeat Russia through a combination of sanctions, political and cultural and economic isolation, and a narrative that would turn Russia into a pariah state.“ Baud, Jacques: The Russian Art Of War. How The West Led Ukraine To Defeat. Paris 2024, S. 36

[53] Simplicius und Drohnenkrieg

[54] „Russian forces advanced in the Toretsk direction and likely completed the seizure of Toretsk… Russia’s occupation of the four oblasts is neither inevitable nor imminent, as Russian forces will face serious operational obstacles in what are likely tob e multi-year endeavors.“ Institute For The Study Of War, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, 07.08.2025, https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-7-2025

[55] https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1958095123352301682 

[56] „The Russian calculation is that lost ground can be regained, while human lives cannot. Forced into action by their Western sponsors, the Ukrainians have not integrated this factor into their operational thinking. This is why they will suffer considerably higher losses than the Russians, but will have to protect a decisive narrative if they are not to discourage the West.“ Baud, Jacques: The Russian Art Of War. How The West Led Ukraine To Defeat. Paris 2024, S. 69f.

[57] Mearsheimer, John J.: Der Ukraine-Krieg wird auf dme Schlachtfeld enden. Weltwoche, 20.08.2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Qa70-UaHU

[58] „When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, President Joe Biden set three objectives for the U.S. response. Ukraine’s victory was never among them. ‚We were deliberately not talking about the territorial parameters,‘ says Eric Green, who served on Biden’s National Security Council at the time, overseeing Russia Policy. The U.S., in other words, made no promise to help Ukraine recover all of the land Russia had occupied, and certainly not the vast territories in eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula taken in its initial invasion in 2014. The reason was simple, Green says: in the White House’s view, doing so was beyond Ukraine’s ability, even with robust help from the West.“ Shuster, Simon: Why Biden’s Ukraine Win Was Zelensky’s Loss. Time, 19.01.2025, https://time.com/7207661/bidens-ukraine-win-zelensky-loss/

[59] https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1958095123352301682

[60] „The final planning meeting, at which the armed ultras were given the green light, took place at the German Embassy in Kiev on the evening of February 20, a Thursday. So before Foreign Minister Steinmeier began negotiations with Yanukovych, his ambassador had chaired a meeting attended by US Ambassador Pyatt and other NATO diplomats, at which Andriy Parubiy, the head of the armed uprising, was also present. The man responsible for the deadly shootings that day and on the 18th appeared in combat gear and a balaclava and threatened that if Western governments did not take decisive action against Yanukovych, the whole process could take on an even more threatening dimension." Van der Pijl, Kees: Der Abschuss. Flug MH 17, die Ukraine und der neue Kalte Krieg. Köln 2018.

Higgins, Andrew u. Andrew E. Kramer: Ukraine Leader Was Defeated Even Before He Was Ousted. New York Times, 03.01.2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/world/europe/ukraine-leader-was-defeated-even-before-he-was-ousted.html

[61] Numerous pieces of evidence and witness statements in Kachanovski, Ivan: The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine. The Mass Killing that Changed the World. Cham CH 2024, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-67121-0

[62] „Trump has previously employed confrontational language toward Moscow while simultaneously advocating for renewed talks. His administration has presented Russia’s core security concerns, such as NATO expansion, as either irrelevant or non-negotiable. This pattern aligns with earlier strategies that appeared to offer concessions while pursuing unchaged policy objectives, such as the failed Minsk process.“ Final Talks Before Escalation – Trump’s Meeting with Putin. Global Geopolitics, Substack, 06.08.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-170308034

[63] „Le sabotage de Nord Stream a par exemple prouvé que l’Allemagne était à nouveau un pays occupé.“ Todd, Emmanuel: Le retour de la question allemande. Entretien dans Weltwoche, 22 mai 2025. Substack, 10.06.2025, https://emmanueltodd.substack.com/p/le-retour-de-la-question-allemande

[64] „The present state of the U.S. economy does not suggest that it can function without financial and material support from external sources… There is an urgend need for resources to flow into the national economy, especially the banking system. Only European countries bound by EU and NATO commitments will be able to provide them without significant military and political costs for us. The major obstacle to it is growing independence of Germany. Although it still is a country with limited sovereignty, for decades it has been consistently moving toward lifting these limitations and becoming a fully independent state… An increase in the flow of resources from Europe to U.S. can be expected if Germany begins to experience a controlled economic crisis… The current German economic model is based on two pillars. These are unlimited access to cheap Russian energy resources and to cheap French electric power, thanks to the operation of nuclear power plants. Halting Russian supplies can well create a systemic crisis that would be devastating for the German economy and, indirectly, for the entire European Union… The only feasable way to guarantee Germany’s rejection of Russian energy supplies is to involve both sides in the military conflict in Ukraine. Our further actions in this country will inevitably lead to a military response from Russia. Russians will obviously not be able to leave unanswered the massive Ukrainian army pressure on the unrecognized Donbas republics. That would make possible to declare Russia an aggressor and apply to it the entire package of sanctions prepared beforehand… The prerequisite for Germany to fall into this trap is the leading role of green parties and ideology in Europe. The German Greens are a strongly dogmatic, if not zealous, movement, which makes it quite easy to make them ignore economic arguments… Personal features and the lack of professionalism of their leaders – primarily Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck – permit to presume that it is next to impossible for them to admit their own mistakes in a timely manner.“ Research Report – Executive Summary. Distribution: WHCS, ANSA, Dept. of State, CIA, NSA, DNC. Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, 25.01.2022 – Confidential.

[65] Diesen, Glenn: The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order. Atlanta 2024

[66] „For instance, with broker-dealer balance sheets having smaller heft in the financial system post-GFC, liquidity in sovereign bond markets increasingly relies on open-ended mutual funds, hedge funds and other asset managers. These entities often face significant liquidity mismatches, rely on short-term funding backed by government securities as collateral or are either frequently highly leveraged or exhibit leverage-like behaviour. As a result, their liquidity provision is less stable and more likely to evaporate during periods of market stress. Hedge funds, in particular, have increasingly become a significant source of procyclical liquidity, especially in government bond markets. These investors actively pursue relative value trading strategies that seek to exploit small price differences between related financial instruments. To boost the returns on these small price differences they heavily leverage their positions. One method often used is to pledge government securities as collateral in the repo market to borrow more cash with which to purchase additional government securities. This practice has further evolved in recent years, with investors borrowing amounts equal to or higher than the market value of the collateral provided… Hedge funds‘ relative value strategies are highly vulnerable to adverse shocks in funding, cash or derivate markets, as evidenced by some recent episodes. During the market turmoil of March 2020, for instance, margin calls in Treasury futures markets triggered fire sales, resulting in destabilising delevageraging spirals." Tooze, Adam: Chartbook 401: The dollar system in an age of market-based finance – financial globalization beyond banks, Substack, 25.07.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-169614598

[67] DAX-Konzerne überwiegend in ausländischer Hand. Ernst Young, Stuttgart, 31.07.2025, https://www.ey.com/de_de/newsroom/2025/08/ey-wem-gehoert-der-dax-2025

[68] “We are no longer ‘actors’, but merely co-actors – the telos of our actions has been dismantled; therefore we live without a future; therefore without an understanding of the end of the future; therefore ‘apocalypse-blind’.” Anders, Günther: Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Bd. 1, München 1983 (6), S. 286

[69] Bonilla, Nel: Elite Capture & European Self-Destruction: The Hidden Archgitecture of Transatlantic Hegemony. Substack, 28.06.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-164671977. Ich folge hier dieser Analyse.

[70] “All the interests of my reason (both speculative and practical) are united in the following three questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What should I do? 3. What may I hope for?” Kant, Immanuel: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Bd. 2, Werkausgabe Bd.IV, Frankfurt a. M. 1974, S. 677

[71] Baab, Patrik: Auf beiden Seiten der Front. Meine Reisen in die Ukraine. Frankfurt a. M. 2023, S. 167-186

[72] Luxemburg, Rosa: Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie. Politische Schriften, Bd. 2, Frankfurt a. M. 1975 (2), S. 19 - 152 - 157, hier: S. 151

[73] "More importantly, why has Washington suddenly struck a massive blow against Russia, China, and Iran in the South Caucasus by obtaining for 99 years the Zangezur Corridor that runs along Iran's northern borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan? This move by the Trump regime is a strike at the heart of China's New Silk Road, BRICS, and Russia's influence in former Soviet provinces, and it completes Washington's encirclement of Iran. Washington is opening more points of military confrontation with Russia and its allies while Russia backs away, thereby inviting more provocations." Roberts, Paul Craig: Putin's Meeting with Trump: The Triumph of Delusion Over Reality. Paul Craig Roberts' Institute for Political Economy, 11.08.2025, https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/08/11/putins-meeting-with-trump-the-triumph-of-delusion-over-reality/

[74] “I am optimistic.” Harald Kujat on the Trump-Putin summit and the path to peace in Ukraine.Weltwoche Daily-Spezial, 12.08.2025, https://weltwoche.ch/daily/ich-bin-optimistisch-harald-kujat-ueber-den-trump-putin-gipfel-und-den-weg-zum-ukraine-frieden/  

[75] Röper, Thomas: Der Erfolg, von dem keiner so genau weiß, worin er besteht. Anti-Spiegel, 16.08.2025, https://anti-spiegel.ru/2025/der-erfolg-von-dem-keiner-so-genau-weiss-worin-er-besteht/

[76] Trump Backed Plan to Cede Land for Peace in Ukraine. The New York Times, 16.08.25, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/world/europe/trump-putin-red-carpet-photo-op.html

Holland, Steve, Andrew Osborn, Tom Balmforth: Trump told Zelenskiy after summit that Putin wants more Ukraine, source says. Reuters, 16.08.2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-told-zelenskiy-after-summit-that-putin-wants-more-ukraine-source-says-2025-08-16/

[77] Bonilla, Nel: The Transatlantic Split Myth: How U.S.-Europe Militarization Thrives Behind the Rhetoric. Substack, 23.05.2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-163635768

[78] Henn, Dagmar: Deutschland jenseits des Kipppunkts?

Teil 1: Vernetzte Industrie und Deindustrialisierung. RT.de, 05.07.2025, https://freedert.online/meinung/249820-deutschland-jenseits-kipppunkts-teil-1/

Teil 2: Staatshandeln und politische Veränderung, RT.de, 06.07.2025, https://rtde.press/meinung/249823-deutschland-jenseits-kipppunkts-teil-2/

[79] Brenner, Robert: Boom & Bubble – Die USA in der Weltwirtschaft. Hamburg 2002

Brenner, Robert: New Boom or new bubble? The trajectory of the US economy. New Left Review II/25, 2004, S. 57-100

Brenner, Robert: The economics of global turbulence. New Left Review, I/229, 1998, S. 1-265

[80] Priewe, Jan u. Katja Ritzler: Deutschlands nachlassende Investitionsdynamik 1991-2010. Ansatzpunkte für ein neues Wachstumsmodell. Bonn (FES) 2010

[81] “Even automotive companies became banks with affiliated automotive production.” Deutschmann, Christoph: Warum tranken die Pferde nicht? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25.09.2013, S. N4

[82] "Während die öffentliche Hand als initialer Risikokapitalgeber in Vorleistung geht, profitiert also am Ende beinahe ausschließlich der private Sektor." Staab, Philipp: Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit. Berlin 2020(2), S. 267

[83] Schiller, Friedrich: Demetrius-Fragment, Erster Aufzug: Der Reichstag zu Krakau, https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/schiller/demetriu/demetriu.html

[84] Fischer, Fritz: Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914/18, Düsseldorf 2013 (1961)

[85] "The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist." Orwell, George: 1984, Free Ebook at Planet Books, S. 250f.

[86] https://de.rt.com/inland/252496-bundeswehr-bekommt-1400-neue-transportfahrzeuge/

[87] Ungarisch-israelischer Militärexperte: „Deutschland rüstet auf gegen Bürgerkrieg“, Unser Mitteleuropa, 02.08.2025, https://www.unser-mitteleuropa.com/173173

[88] Robert C. Castel: Németország nem Oroszország ellen fegyverkezik, hanem a saját népe ellen + videó, Magyar Nemzet, 01.08.2025, https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2025/08/robert-c-castel-nemetorszag-nem-oroszorszag-ellen-fegyverkezik-hanem-a-sajat-nepe-ellen-video

Németország hadra készül – tömegek csatlakoznak a Bundeswehrhez, Mandiner, 31.07.2025, https://mandiner.hu/kulfold/2025/07/nemetorszag-hadra-keszul-tomegek-csatlakoznak-a-bundeswehrhez

[89] Philipp Staab speaks of four control functions "that are fundamentally characteristic of proprietary markets: Information control ensures the exclusive appropriation of transactions, inventories, and prices... This allows access control to be exercised, which enables the scarcity of either supply or demand: the meta-platforms control what supply consumers get to see. It is also within their power to restrict or completely cut off access to consumers if suppliers do not accept the conditions of the respective market. Proprietary markets thus not only make it possible to artificially restrict the supply of non-scarce goods. Ultimately, market prices can also be dictated to the manufacturers of such goods (price control). At the same time, the platforms set standards for the goods traded on them (performance control). Staab, Philipp: Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit. Berlin 2020(2), S. 209f.

[90] “Any political spark would therefore have to overcome not only the habitualization of the consumer role, but also the conflicts of interest within political subjects, who are subsidized as consumers in digital capitalism while being systematically dispossessed as workers.” Staab, Philipp: Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit. Berlin 2020(2), S. 285f.

[91] Staab, Philipp: Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit. Berlin 2020(2), S. 296, 300f.

Meyen, Michael: Cancel Culture. Wie Propaganda und Zensur Demokratie und Gesellschaft zerstören. Berlin 2024, S. 7ff.

[92] Baab, Patrik: Unter Feuer. Medienkampagnen im Digitalen Kapitalismus. In: Broecker, Hannah und Dennis Kaltwasser (Hg): Mediensystem und öffentliche Sphäre in der Krise. Frankfurt a. M. 2024, S. 225 – 266

[93] Peter Scholl-Latour: "We live in an age of mass stupidity, especially mass stupidity in the media... If you take a look at how one-sidedly the local media, from taz to Welt, report on events in Ukraine, then you can really speak of disinformation on a grand scale, flanked by the technical possibilities of the digital age. You can only conclude that globalization has led to a sad provincialization in the media world." Schack, Ramon: Das Zeitalter der Idiotie. Wie Europa seine Zukunft verspielt. Berlin 2023, 9f.

[94] "In terms of collective behavior... we still act as if it wasn't us who invaded the Soviet Union, brought it to the brink of defeat, and inflicted unspeakable suffering upon it. We have not taken responsibility for our guilt, but have repressed, split off, displaced, and projected it. This defense mechanism was paved and reinforced by the memory of the suffering that the Russians inflicted on us during the invasion. We still believe the Russians are capable of what they did to us, but unconsciously we also project onto them what we did to them. This ‘projective reversal’, i.e., perpetrator-victim reversal, was a popular topos of the Adenauer era – and is apparently being passed on from one generation to the next. Thus, the grandchildren and ‘green’ great-grandchildren of the German war generation who are in power today can simply assume, without need or proof, that Vladimir Putin wants to restore the status quo ante of the Soviet Union and, after Ukraine, perhaps invade the Baltic states or Finland. And since today's decision-makers in politics, the media, and culture see themselves as “good democrats” and consider themselves hypermoral, they don't even notice that they have long since returned to the ideological sphere and are following in the bloody footsteps of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, whitewashed with black, red, and gold!“ Schneider, Michael: Das große Karthago führte drei Kriege. Nachdenkseiten, 27.07.2024, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=118765

[95] Wiegerling, Klaus: Medienethik, Stuttgart u. Weimar 1998, S. 4

[96] Vogl, Joseph: Kapital und Ressentiment. Eine kurze Theorie der Gegenwart. München 2021(2), S. 182

[97] Vgl. dazu Baab, Patrik: Propaganda-Presse. Wie uns Medien und Lohnschreiber in Kriege treiben. Berlin 2024.

[98] "Anything that contradicts the official explanation is a conspiracy theory and therefore out of the question. This informal guideline is the ultimate meta-falsehood. And society has become accustomed to it. It will probably be difficult to find a way out of this situation at some point... Later, years after 9/11, the method became established in other areas as well: Russia, climate, migration. Here, too, debate, understood as respectful discussion with an open outcome, is no longer permitted. With COVID-19, certainty is crumbling, but only slightly. The topics mentioned are more or less off-limits, and this is... considered correct by a significant portion of the public." Schreyer, Paul: Auf Autopilot. Multipolar, 11.08.2025, https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/auf-autopilot

[99] “This conflict has caused enormous damage to Germany.” Prof. Hassan Alkas on the economic consequences of this war. Substack, 13.08.2025, https://blingbling.substack.com/p/dieser-konflikt-hat-deutschland-enorm?r=9vuj8&triedRedirect=true

[100] “Only fundamental opposition is interested in relentlessly exposing political and social injustices.” Agnoli, Johannes: Die Transformation der Demokratie, Frankfurt a. M. 1978 (2), S. 81

[101] Sienkiewicz, Henryk: Quo Vadis. München 1954, S. 190