SOME world events can look different to those of us in Berlin. God knows, here too I’m frightened at what Trump, Vance and Musk are doing and planning. Nor do I love Putin. But what I hate above all else is war, which is looks — and is closer over here.

I’m not a total pacifist, I see the need to fight back against Francos and against Hitlers. And yet I must always rejoice whenever slaughter and destruction can be stopped! Right now that means that I am hoping — yes, damn near praying — for a ceasefire and a negotiated end to the Ukraine war.  

I can well understand the feelings of many patriotic Ukrainians on fighting back. And I can empathise with Americans and all the others who were appalled at the conduct of that dangerous clown Trump and his sidekick at their meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, a meeting which looked carefully prepared.

Yes, one could certainly feel scorn for Trump at that moment and sympathise with poor Zelensky. And yet, such sympathy has limits. I can neither forget nor forgive him for leading the cheers for old Yaroslav Hunka in the Canadian Parliament in September 2023.

Few Canadians may have known it, but Zelensky knew full well that Hunka had once volunteered for the Ukrainian Division of the Nazi SS in World War II. At the same time American and Canadian troops were fighting on Normandy beaches in 1944 their Red Army allies, in a huge, bitter battle in Ukrainian Brody, were defeating a major Nazi army which included Hunka’s unit, with its mass killers of Russian, Polish and especially Jewish civilians.

I have never heard a word of regret from such veterans, or from Hunka. Or Zelensky.  

Nor can I forget how Andrij Melnyk, then Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, when presented by a journalist with a wartime leaflet of Ukraine’s legendary hero Stepan Bandera saying “Muscovites, Poles, Hungarians and Jews are your enemies. Destroy them!” first tried vainly to deny the validity of the leaflet but then snapped back, “I will not say today that I distance myself from it. And that’s that!”

That was too embarrassing; Melnyk had to be withdrawn from Berlin. After a brief stay out of the limelight as ambassador to Brazil he is now due to become Ukraine’s UN ambassador!

It is absurd to call Zelensky a fascist. But what about all too many of those around him?

This same Melnyk also mixed directly in German politics — like Elon Musk. “Personally I trust Friedrich Merz, whom I know well,” he said. “Merz could advance an ambitious European defence programme if he can find coalition partners who support the same plans.”

Merz found them — and will soon be Germany’s new chancellor. Dictatorial, widely unpopular, some refer to him as “Dr Blackrock.” While his moderate nemesis Angela Merkel led his party (and the government) he took a break from direct politics, became a millionaire lobbyist and, from 2016 to 2020, headed the German section of Blackrock, the world’s biggest asset manager, which holds key financial assets in Lockheed Martin ($9.7 bn), Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman and holds second place financially in Germany’s main arms company, Rheinmetall.

Even a hint of peace in any conflict zone is followed by a slump in those companies’ shares values. When Merz stated “Freedom is more important for us than peace. You can find peace in every graveyard” it is easy to understand what he, or Blackrock, mean with “freedom”!

Merz often expresses such principles: “We must do everything to support Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian aggressor... in order to defend its freedom but also our own. Because their commitment is part of the commitment of all of us for a world of freedom and justice.” He also extends such longings elsewhere: “A government led by me will strengthen our relations with Israel.”

The new government now shaping up in Berlin will be based on all such commitments. The ill-starred Greens, most bellicose of all parties, cannot become junior partners of Merz’s CDU-CSU; they lost too many Bundestag seats to be useful.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won a frightening second place, is still taboo (for now). Only the Social Democrats remain. Their election results were the worst in their entire history but still supply just enough deputy seats to permit a joint government — after they hastily eliminated the few courageous but weak voices in their ranks who had spoken up for peace, including Olaf Scholz, who had see-sawed on such issues, opposed giving giant Taurus missiles to Kiev and was not a gung-ho vanguard crusader.

In his stead, the Social Democrat most likely to keep his job as Minister of Defence is Boris Pistorius, loudest of all in demanding more and more billions for Ukraine and “to defend” Germany from that imminent danger he is constantly warning about. Russia, of course, although the two countries have no mutual borders, any Russian idea of attacking Germany, or any Nato member, would amount to total insanity — and would be a total reversal of over 200 years of historic invasions.

Few abroad can have an idea of the current militarist build-up in Germany, based on the mass media’s constant attempts to spread fear. Test alarms, talk of air-raid cellars, growing pressure for conscription, male and female, and a military expense account zooming down like a typhoon, more and more hundreds of billions, to the joy of giants like Rheinmetall and the fears of those low on the economic ladder, for it is they who will pay for it.

Echoes of past hubris grow ever louder; the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm, of Adolf Hitler, of Konrad Adenauer, the constant talk of “defence,” a thin camouflage for growing projects of eastward expansion, already encompassing German troops stationed in Lithuania, naval bases in the Baltic and war games in Poland, strengthening those rail lines, highways and ports which are suitable for heavy clanking tanks and artillery, and more swift aircraft for carrying Hiroshima10 bombs — plus calls for a German share in atomic weapon decisions.

With Trump seeming to back away from Europe, hitherto less open calls for a strong European army, led by its strongest member, Germany, are now loud and frequent; we can almost hear the clicking of military heels and shouts of “Achtung” (Attention)!

As for freedom, its defence always seemed to require a diabolic Beelzebub to arouse popular rage, if possible an easy target for media caricaturists. No matter whether he was truly evil, truly good, or some mixture, for anyone in the way the spiked tail and horns were ready at hand: Stalin, Fidel, Gadaffi, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Assad and since about 2000 — “Vlad” (Putin).  

The man in the White House represents a giant danger to all Americans except for the wealthiest at the top, now often at his side (even literally). But even at the rude Oval Office bullying session, one question stuck out, despite the rubbish: Trump’s words to Zelensky: “You’re gambling with World War III!”

Aside from all questions as to who bears the most blame, those who did the provoking or the side which felt provoked and sent in the tanks – like a cornered bear, surrounded by a narrowing circle of snarling dogs, being the first to slash out first a heavy-clawed paw. I see a continuation of the war as only bringing misery to all those affected and a course which can lead only to more deaths – and explosion.

In Germany it has already led to almost total rule of the “Deutschland uber alles” (Germany above all else) crusaders, with France and Britain rivalling for second place. They all want to regain past strength and glory, and stay in office. In Bibi’s related war against Palestine even more is at stake: keep on killing or “go directly to jail.”

Why has Trump opened a door to peace? I don’t know. Maybe to get at those mineral riches. Maybe to clear things with Russia so as to move on to China, after splitting the two adversaries.

At least one thing was clear. The prospect of possible peace scared the daylights out of war-lovers on both sides of the Atlantic, especially the bosses of Rheinmetall, Lockheed Martin and their like, who rejoice at shovelling in billions but salivate for more!

Assisting them are those crusading pundits who roundly condemn all of Trump’s sins but never forget to include his alleged kowtowing to Putin.

So the politicians and pundits debate on how Ukraine can be kept fighting, no matter what it costs, with honour and freedom their words of choice! And some quite good folks, also old friends, still support the war and denigrate anyone calling for peace. Some are even within the Linke (Left) party, which was always proud to be the “Peace Party.” Luckily their positions do not go unchallenged.

But for US Americans a major dilemma arises: it is vitally necessary to fight back against Trump’s terrible threats in every field: union rights, defence of immigrants, schools, environment, science, racism, LGBTQ rights, even Greenland and Panama — with one exception, at least for now.

Any potential move to achieve peace, no matter how motivated, must not be attacked – but supported! War or peace; this remains, by far, the most crucial question of all in today’s threatened world.

This is an abridged version of Victor Grossman’s Berlin Bulletin.