Monika Jung-Mounib / Mar 2025
Photo: Shutterstock
The unclarity around US commitment to Ukraine and its future military and financial for Kyiv since the Trump-Zelensky clash is topped by one overriding and unchanged clarity: Putin has as no incentive to stop his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, with European leaders attempting to come up with a common European position and meaningful support for Ukraine, Germany remains a shaky candidate.
Friedrich Merz, the country’s future chancellor, has repeatedly stated that he is committed to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and that he understands the epochal task in front of him is, which includes having to find the financial means to increase spending on defence. However, there is no guarantee that Merz will be able to tackle the other challenge which comes with it: To transform deeply entrenched German strategic fears and inertia around the main principle of Germany’s foreign and security policy and vow to abstain from the ‘use of force’.
However, facing the reality of a Russian president who gets encouraged by signs of weakness to go further than Ukraine, there is now an unquestioned urgency for Germany to re-visit the principles of its security policy and the country’s future use of military means.
To do so, a new maxim of “never again ignore” could work as a game-changer in Germany as it adds a new ideational resource of purpose and action to the country’s foreign and security policy, thereby impacting its self-identity, narrative and actions. At its core, the new maxim acknowledges the prevalent German ‘fear of losing one’s innocence again’ around the ‘use of force’.
“Never again ignore” sets out by addressing the origins of the German ‘paralysis dilemma’. In the 80 years since the end of World War II, Germany’s self-identity has been built on a powerful memory culture which aims to atone for the country’s historical legacy and accept the idea of a ‘special historical responsibility’ as its main message. The latter spilled over into the country’s foreign policy and is deeply engraved in its concept of civilian power (Zivilmacht) and its three core maxims of ‘never again’, ‘never again alone’ and ‘never again Auschwitz’. However, when Russia retreated to the use of military force as its foreign policy tool towards Ukraine in 2014 and later in 2022, Germany’s reluctance to apply military means did not waver. In sum, Berlin’s bottom-line was that the more aggressive Russia became, the tighter it held on to Zivilmacht and thereby hollowed it out in practice.
In principle, “never again ignore” reveals how Germany to this day has failed to derive from its sense of ‘historical responsibility’ an adequate international role or a sufficient foreign policy concept towards Russia and Ukraine. The reason for this lies in the fact that its foreign and security policy foundation was derived from its memory culture. However, for many years, German memory culture focused on the Holocaust. The peoples of the former Soviet Union, for example, Ukraine, were largely neglected. Thus, German memory culture is asymmetric as it has been incomplete. Nevertheless, despite this shortcoming, memory culture’s main message of ‘historical responsibility’ shaped the attitudes, behavior, and actions of German policymakers. The result has been a ‘Russia-first’ policy based on false assessments of Russian realities and intentions. Worse even, German alertness towards the security needs of newly independent Ukraine was paralysed.
In practice, between 2014 and 2022 Germany translated its historical legacy into inadequate actions by holding on to its core beliefs. Berlin opted for a political solution only and instead deepened its relationship with Moscow by focusing on an energy security relationship and circumventing Ukraine which was perceived by Russia as a “strategic nuisance”. Even voices such as Hans W. Maull, the father of Zivilmacht, were not heard in 2014[1] when he warned that Zivilmacht was never intended to prohibit military means for deterrence and defense.
While Germany participated in NATO military measures to reassure the Baltic states and Poland, it vetoed the permanent stationing of NATO troops in these countries. Germany also refused to accept that Russia’s actions in Crimea had effectively killed off the NATO-Russia-Founding-Act of 1997. In addition, Germany, and other European countries, except for the United Kingdom, opted to not deliver any weapons to Ukraine. In fact, it took Trump’s first presidency to change that: under Trump, weapons were delivered to Ukraine and more US troops were stationed in Europe. In retrospect, it seems not unlikely that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine could have been stopped had more weapons been delivered earlier to Ukraine. Moreover, a stronger Ukraine would have been better equipped to defend itself.
Taken all together, “never again ignore” originates in Germany’s ignorance of Ukraine since 1991. It focuses on what drives German policymakers to ignore strategic realities regarding Russia and the essential strategic role Ukraine plays for the security of Europe and has always had since the break-up of the former Soviet Union. The latter includes acknowledging the extent of ignorance when it comes to Ukraine and the history of German Nazi occupation of Ukraine as well as recognizing the meaning Ukraine played in Nazi strategic and military thinking.
Therefore, “never again ignore” addresses the German inhibition around the ‘use of force’ by highlighting how the unconscious ‘fear of losing one’s innocence again’ has guided German policymakers into trying to not make the same mistakes as their ancestors, thereby avoiding to act potently when needed. Instead, in aspiring to not repeat their ancestors’ mistakes, “never again ignore” offers to Germans today to choose to say ‘we want to be measured by our deeds and not by those of our Nazi ancestors’. By doing that, Germans can become aware of the moral connection which still exists between them and their ancestors when dealing with Ukraine. Since unconsciously, their Nazi ancestors still act as an inner measure to which Germans today compare themselves. Thus, now is the time and chance for Germans to build up a new positive heritage.
‘Never again ignore’ offers a pathway for Germans to release hidden and undealt fears around their difficult history, particularly regarding Ukraine and Russia. If Germans deal with their history, they can emancipate themselves from the German past, whilst maintaining moral awareness, as an inner guide, as to which lessons are the right ones be drawn from German history to expand its sense of self, its narrative, and its foreign policy behavior.
Hence, ‘never again ignore’ proposes a tool for Germans to transform their historical legacy into action which matches its ‘historical responsibility’. In the current situation, it provides a foundation to re-visit the origins of Zivilmacht to avoid continuously categorizing the ‘use of force’ for defense and deterrence as unthinkable. For the same reason, the new maxim opens the mental space to turn NATO-membership of Ukraine or the “West German solution” into something thinkable, or to fasten Ukraine’s membership in the European Union as a means to institutionalize Ukraine’s connection with the West. In the future, after Germany has built up sufficient military capacity enabling it to defend itself and to deter, “never again ignore” even holds the potential for a promising iteration of Zivilmacht.
[1] Hans W. Maull: Hanns W. Maull: Lehren aus der Ukrainekrise: Der Stellenwert des Militärischen, Kurz gesagt, 22.05.2014, Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Politik: “It is wrong and possibly dangerous in the current crisis to brand any military reaction as a step towards escalation or warmongering. The commonplace that there is no alternative to political solutions should be phased out as quickly as possible.”
https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/ueber-kluge-machtpolitik
