Germany: Leading Figure of German Greens Indicts Current Party Leaders Post Mortem

A founding member of the German Green Party, Antje Vollmer, passed away on March 15 at age 79 after a long illness. In the political testament she left, entitled “What I Would Still Like To Say”, she blasts the war-mongering current leadership of the Greens. This position is genuine for Vollmer, a Lutheran theologian, who throughout her political life was an outspoken pacifist, including during her mandate as vice chairwoman of the German Bundestag from 1994 to 2005. As one of her last public interventions, she was among the first to sign the Wagenknecht-Schwarzer Manifesto for Peace.

Referring in her testament to Economy Minister Robert Habeck and in particular to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Vollmer wrote: “The German economy minister is attempting to replace the old dependencies on Russia and China with new dependencies on countries that can in no way pass for model democracies. The foreign minister is the shrillest trumpet of the new antagonistic NATO strategy.”

“The justifications of the Greens are astonishing in their argumentative simplicity. At the same time, the cost of armaments and the influence of the arms and energy companies are growing immeasurably. The war senselessly devours the billions that would be urgently needed to save the planet and fight poverty in the global South. The rising China, however, is propagandistically identified as a new geopolitical opponent and is constantly provoked on  the Taiwan question. All of this does not augur well.”

Vollmer wrote that she feels haunted by her “very personal defeat”, namely that her party, the Greens, are now wasting the opportunity they had to change the world for the better. “What has enticed the Greens of today to give all this up for the mere goal of playing along in the great game of geopolitical poker?”

She took western and in particular German leaders to task for failing to recognize the enormous significance of the historic decisions Moscow took in 1989 to allow a peaceful reunification of Germany and to withdraw all military forces from once Warsaw Pact member countries. But German President Steinmeier did not even have the decency to attend the funeral of the man who had allowed it, Mikhail Gorbachev. Just days later, he stood together with all other western leaders at the grave of Queen Elizabeth. Instead of showing gratitude, they are involved in a war in Ukraine that could lead to the destruction of the planet.

However, the rest of the world is no longer willing to go along with the West’s arrogance, in Vollmer’s view. Therefore, “My hope is that out of all this, a new Non-Aligned Movement will emerge” to re-assert the rule of international law.

Antje Vollmer’s political testimony is a wake-up call to all pacifists and those who oppose NATO’s war strategy to become much more active in the public eye, with anti-war events such as the traditional Easter Marches and the Manifesto. If this develops into the creation of a new political party over the course of this year, one may assume that had she been still alive, Antje Vollmer would likely have become a founding member of it.