What Happened to German Pacifism?

The country’s aversion to war has run up against its own limits.

By Anchal Vohra, a Brussels-based columnist for Foreign Policy who writes about Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.

Demonstrators hold up a giant heart reading "Peace instead of NATO" during a demonstration against the Munich Security Conference on February 17, 2018 in Munich, southern Germany.

February 7, 2023, 1:25 AM

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A banner recently hung on the facade of Germany’s national theater in Weimar read, “Diplomatie! JETZT! Frieden!” (or “Diplomacy! NOW! Peace!”), in reference to the war in Ukraine. These words had not been casually scribbled down but rather were carefully designed to represent the traditional German viewpoint of pacifism.

The dispossession inflicted by the two world wars, the shame of the atrocities committed by the Third Reich, the subsequent division of the country, and the nation’s remilitarization during the Cold War rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union—all of this has left deep scars on the German psyche and made pacifism a part of its national identity. Over time, pacifism became a matter of pride. Germany avoided involvement in the Iraq War in 2003 and the First Libyan Civil War in 2011 in part thanks to this culture of pacifism.

Although pacifism has played a significant role, it never fully shaped the national political culture. War became an impolite word and military intervention a taboo, but there was little enthusiasm for exiting NATO’s protective umbrella. And now, the country has moved closer to an all-out war footing than it has in decades—without any major sign so far of outrage among the German public.

The truth is that pacifism has undergone a slow transformation in Germany. As the country’s economic stature grew and it was called on to stop genocides elsewhere, “never again Auschwitz” came to be accepted as a more worthy goal than “never again war.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has once again exposed the contradictions inherent in pacifism and revealed its limits to Germans.

Some say that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s generally cautious policy in the Ukraine conflict, including his resistance to provide weapons to Ukraine and his delayed visit to Kyiv, were designed (at least in part) to appease pacifists in the country, specifically in his own Social Democratic Party (SPD). The most recent example was his government’s monthslong delay in announcing the supply of German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine.

Bernhard Blumenau, a German historian, said there is some truth to that theory. He said pacifist factions in the governing coalition as well as pacifist attitudes in the German population influenced the government’s policy to some degree. “The current coalition includes parties that draw their inspirations from the pacifist movement, like the SPD and Greens. In SPD, Scholz has a majority, but it has to be maintained,” he said. “Germans are much more reluctant to adopt military means when compared to the English or the French, and the long-standing tradition of pacifism cannot be changed overnight. These attitudes prevail in German population. That is one of the factors influencing government policy.”

In May 2021, Jürgen Trittin, the former leader of the Greens party, told German network RND that exporting arms to Ukraine, “would contradict our principle that we do not export arms to war zones.” In April 2022, 28 intellectuals wrote an open letter to Scholz asking him to stop arming Ukraine. “The escalating arms buildup taking place under pressure could be the beginning of a global arms spiral with catastrophic consequences,” it said.

A look at Scholz’s twitter feed gave a glimpse into the kind of opposition he faces. On Jan. 25, he tweeted that he had informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of Germany’s decision to send the Leopard 2 tanks in close cooperation with international partners. Amid an outpour of gratitude from Ukrainians and Germans applauding it as the right move, there was also a barrage of warnings from his compatriots. They accused him of ignoring the lessons of World War I and World War II as well as severely chastised him for supporting war against peace. It is a position that naively assumes the Kremlin would be ready to negotiate only if Western powers, and foremost Germany, focused on talks instead of arming Ukrainians.

“Not in my name,” said a tweet, referring to the “Ohne mich” or “without me” campaign in the 1950s against remilitarization of East and West Germany. Scholz’s government has not learned anything from history and was leading Germany again toward war, the tweet said in German. Other Germans cried they wanted “peace,” not arms shipments to Ukraine—as if refusing weapons to Ukraine and letting Ukrainians die in Russian bombardments would usher in peace. Some people threatened to relaunch the peace movement of the 1980s, organized back in the day to block the stationing of nuclear weapons in Germany.

It is true that Germans were nearly split down the middle on the question of supplying Leopards to Ukraine. According to a Forsa poll, as many as 80 percent called for a quick end to the war even if Ukraine didn’t win. But it is unclear how many of these people are pacifists. As Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a scholar at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, pointed out, there have been no mass rallies by “organized pacifists” since the start of the war in Ukraine. Several German experts seem to think pacifism is on a decline and has failed to impact the government’s policy in real terms.

Kleine-Brockhoff said Scholz wants to help Ukraine but does not want Germany to come across as the leader of the war effort against Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We can assume, I can assume, from conversations with officials concerned with foreign policy in his office that he intends to not escalate, not become party to the war, and not lead.”

Yet other experts said pacifist sentiments in German society have been exploited by Scholz to try to circumvent tough decisions and cater to those in the coalition who still secretly hope to resume ties with Moscow.

Katja Hoyer, a German journalist and historian, said she suspected elements of the SPD in particular are still looking for ways to resume ties with Moscow. “I think the pacifism-reluctance line is an effective means to deflect from this, at least to an extent,” Hoyer said. “There are still genuine inhibitions towards what some see as militarism, but on the whole, I think economic and security concerns are behind the reluctance.”

Over the last few decades, Germany has been forced to confront its responsibility to stop genocides. The Srebrenica massacre in 1995 played a huge role in the transformation of pacifism and led to a change of heart among the staunchest of pacifists, especially in the Greens. Germany joined NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia’s wars, breaking its vow since 1945 to never intervene militarily. Years later, German troops were deployed alongside the Americans in the Afghan theater against the Taliban. The changing course of German foreign policy revealed a silent admission that, at times, military involvement was necessary to bring about peace.

The war in Ukraine once again forced pacifists in Germany to confront that reality. But the conflict has also further exposed contradictions in German pacifism. On one hand, while pacifists are among those calling for an end to the provision of weapons to Ukraine, the response to Scholz’s announcement to increase defense spending at home has been given a silent nod.

On Feb. 27, 2022, a few days after Putin ordered Ukraine’s invasion and NATO nations feared they could be next, Scholz promptly announced a loan of $113 billion to buttress German defenses. “Germans are beginning to realize that Germany needs a strong military to defend itself,” Blumenau said. Although Scholz’s attempt to revive a dilapidated Bundeswehr has largely been accepted by Germans, they are divided over aiding Ukrainians militarily so they too can defend their homeland.

One German journalist (my husband), who was on the ground in Kyiv on New Year’s Eve as Russia rained missiles, said German military aid was saving lives and to be pacifist now would be a dereliction of duty to humanity. He said had it not been for the German air defense systems protecting Kyiv, many Ukrainians could have died that night.

Germany’s pacifists may still be a presence in the country, but in the face of Russia’s crimes in Ukraine, their philosophy is facing an unprecedented test about what it can achieve. But Scholz, too, faces a test: how to manage the remaining pacifists in the public and within his party.