Oh, the selfishness.
I don't make posts about Germany more often, even though I live there, because if there is one thing I have learned it is that Germany knows how to defend itself much better than I can. But several people from Italy have asked me, so I'll make a (rare) post about it.
So, from the point of view of the man in the street, what you see is that the condominiums and buildings turn on the radiators only at night, but the rest hasn't changed much.
At the beginning of the crisis there was much discussion about the "permission" that the law had given to local gas companies, the StadtWerke (the Italian municipal companies), to pass the increases onto the population. So we wondered what the bills would be like. I must say that with the latest government decision, we know that the bills will remain stable. Having said that, apart from that companies are starting over with the home office abbestia, to save on heating (prices increase for them), I have not seen much change. I repeat: as a man on the street.
On the political level, the argument is that the world "outside Germany" always makes the same mistake. He says "if they feel that everyone hates them, they will change policy". But German mass psychology is unique, and it is not like that of other nations. Germany has already lived as a pariah for generations after the Nazis, and therefore moral isolation is just a deja vu. What they do in those conditions is to say "well, it's time to focus on domestic politics".
The German politicus does not fight if there is nothing to win. But especially, when you isolate him, he doesn't feel alone: he feels free.
I mean, he feels he has his hands free.
The second mistake committed against Germany is not understanding that the government reads foreign newspapers and how. Asking the German government to team up with Europe means that they are wondering if Europe teams up with Germany.
But what they have learned in this crisis is that if it is Germany that is at risk of disaster, the others start giggling with the pleasure they have in the back desks when the top of the class makes a chapel. While when the storm arrives on the rest of Europe, then "we need to team up".
German, also reading foreign newspapers (here at school they do English AND another European language of your choice), becomes more and more convinced that Europe is hostile when there is bad news for Germany, while it asks to do team when the bad news reaches others.
The problem would be small if this coincided with an increase in AfD. The problem comes when politicians like Mertz begin to say it, even if in half words. I mean the leader of the CDU.
Because it means that it is the opinion of the "average" German, the non-polarized one. And that, yes, is a problem. But it will emerge in the local vote in some time.
Then, inevitably, it will be reflected in general politics.
Another key point to consider is that political German is not affected by propaganda. He does it, he knows he does it, but if he fights a war he fights in the war that is, not in what the TV says.
Let's imagine a planet in which it is not bad Russia that is at war with good Ukraine, but the USA that caused this war, and already wanted to do it at the time of Clinton, to destroy Europe (and its industry ) in a local nuclear war.
If this is the case, the US will tell the tale of good Ukraine against bad Russia on that planet anyway. And on that planet, the Germans will pretend to believe it. With words.
But in fact, they will fight the real war, that is, the undeclared one.
On our planet they do not behave very differently. They are not concerned with disproving propaganda, and they are well aware of the power of the media over the masses. So they will leave the propaganda and narrative part intact. But then their government will react to reality. Without ever saying anything about the real battlefield.
Ultimately, and it should have already been noted by Merkel, German political psychology is:
- I'm not talking about the war.
- I'm not saying I'm fighting.
- I'm not saying who I'm fighting against.
- If anyone else talks about the war, I don't contradict it.
- The important thing is to get out of the war well.
So, if you ask yourself what the ratio of German shares is, you don't have to look at the official battlefield, as the media sell it, but you have to look at the real one, which is not to be siphoned.
And in the real world, the $ 200 billion move makes total sense.