In the context of Germany’s unprecedented support for military aid to Ukraine and consensus on the Russia-Ukraine war within the German government, pro-Kremlin forces (they still are active in Germany) attempt to stop weapons supply to Ukraine.
In opposition to massive rallies supporting Ukraine across Germany and the world on the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale war aggression against Ukraine, pro-Russian activists organized a protest called “Stand up for Peace!” in Berlin.
Its main goal is to demand the German government stop supplying weapons to Ukraine. The demonstrators held banners with slogans ‘Negotiate, not escalate’, ‘Not our war’ and ‘Stop NATO’ (as if it was NATO who invaded Ukraine, not Russia). Up to 13 thousand people participated.
Pro-Putin forces in Germany try to help Moscow by hiding behind “Stop war” banners
However, halting the weapons supply to Ukraine will not stop the war. There is only one solution to stop the war – Russian troops must leave the Ukrainian lands, stop violating international law, and stop terrorist-style missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine needs weapons to defend itself against Russian missile strikes and military assaults in the east.
Without Western weapons, Ukraine would be less protected and more vulnerable, and that’s the goal of the pro-Russian political figures, who hide behind ‘Stop war’ banners but act in Putin’s interests, to help the Russian regime win the war. Stopping the weapons supply may push the war closer to European borders.
On the other hand, thousands participated in rallies in support of Ukraine across Germany, Berlin, Munich, and other cities. The participants asked for more help for Ukraine, more weapons to counter Russia’s war, and held banners “Light will win over darkness”.
Due to the consistency of the so-called anti-war protests with the Kremlin’s official agenda and the rally’s initiators’ close ties to Russia, this event and its organizers deserve special attention.
Erich Wade behind pro-Russia events in Germany
The rally was initiated by the owner of the German feminist media platform EMMA, Alice Schwarzer, the Bundestag member from the pro-Russian leftist Die Linke party, Sarah Wagenknecht, and retired Bundeswehr Brigadier General Erich Wade, according to the Ghall media.
Among the organizers of the rally, former security adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bundeswehr Brigadier General Erich Wade deserves the most attention because of his connections with one of the most wanted criminals, accused of working for Russian intelligence, in particular in the Novichok case and who is under FSB protection in Russia, Jan Marsalek.
The German government demands the extradition of Marsalek from Russia.
Read also: How Russians organize rallies in Germany and get neo-Nazis support
In 2017, Erich Wade participated in a security dialogue paid for by Jan Marsalek at the Käfer restaurant in Munich with the participation of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. German experts suggest a connection between Erich Wade and the former head of intelligence under Gerhard Kjol, Bernd Schmidtbauer, and Jan Marsalek in one of the biggest scandals in German history in the fraud of Wirecard AG worth at least 1.9 billion euros.
In 2019, Erich Wade called the occupied Crimea “historically Russian territory reclaimed from the Turks” during a seminar on security policy at the Reinhold-Würth-Haus in Bad Mergentheim.
Alice Schwarzer: pro-Moscow and anti-West views
Co-organizer Alice Schwarzer is a former member of the leftist feminist movement Mouvement de libération des femmes in France and the leftist Frauenbewegung movement in Germany in the 1970s, which the then USSR Communist party heavily influenced.
Schwarzer has systematically taken a position of support for Russian policies. Both after 2014, justifying Russia’s occupation of Crimea in “Why I Understand Putin Against All Odds,” and after February 24, 2022.
At the end of last year, on November 29 on the German TV channel ARD, Alice Schwarzer again said that “the U.S. is waging war against Russia at the hands of Ukraine” and that German arms supplies to Ukraine were “prolonging the war.”
Wagenknecht: path from GDR Communists to Die Linke and Moscow support
The third co-organizer of the rally was Sarah Wagenknecht, one of the leading politicians of the German leftist Die Linke party. She has been a member of the East German Communist Party since 1989.
In her statements, Wagenknecht called the GDR “a better Germany” and the wall between the FRG and the GDR “a necessary evil.
Wagenknecht condoned Russia’s war of aggression
After 2014, Wagenknecht stated about the “legality of the referendum” in Crimea, justifying the peninsula’s occupation, and called the Ukrainian authorities a “fascist regime”. In 2023, Wagenknecht condoned a full-scale war against Ukraine, calling it a “brutal but unavoidable special military operation.
In 2019, Sarah Wagenknecht founded the leftist “Stand Up” movement, one of whose goals was “rapprochement with Moscow. After the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in October 2022, the “Stand Up” movement, together with Ulrich Hayden, a German journalist based in Moscow since the 1990s who had worked as an observer at “referendums” in the Russia-controlled regions “DPR” and “LPR,” held a video conference entitled “Russia from Within”. It aimed at justifying the “referendums” in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, occupied by the Russian army.
Promotion of pro-Russia narratives and nuclear blackmail
The organization of the February 25 rally was accompanied by an appeal by Schwarzer, Wada and Wagenknecht to the German public to sign the so-called “Manifesto for Peace”.
The manifesto is based on critical narratives used by the Russian regime representatives and Moscow propaganda about “the threat of nuclear war as a result of weapons supplies to Ukraine” and “the need for dialogue for peace” (while the Russian army continues assaults on Ukrainian towns and cities).
On the day of the manifesto’s publication, 69 German cultural and artistic figures, politicians, and social activists became its signatories.
Putin’s regime can be proud of these statements
Although there is no evidence of these people’s collaboration with Russian intelligence, the Putin regime would be proud to have such valuable agents in Germany.
Among the first signers of the manifesto was Antje Vollmer, former Vice-President of the Bundestag from the Union 90/Greens party, a German politician and former activist of the Maoist anti-imperialist League.
The politician was a member of the German committee of the St. Petersburg Dialogue Club, created under the patronage of Russian president Vladimir Putin and former Chancellor of Germany and current Gazprom board member Gerhard Schroeder. In 2014, Vollmer justified the occupation of Crimea by referring to the case of Kosovo. Putin used the same argument about the “legality” of the Crimean occupation.
Among the politicians, one of the first signatories was Peter Gauweiler, former deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU. In 2014, Gauweiler, like most other rally organizers, justified the occupation of Crimea by referring to Solzhenitsyn’s letter to Yeltsin about “Novorossiya” and territories beyond the Dnipro “that never belonged to Ukraine.”
At the opening of the Year of German Language and Literature in Moscow in September 2014, Gauweiler criticized Germany’s sanctions policy against Russia, calling it “cowardly”.
It is worth noting that practically all of the individuals mentioned above have been signing appeals to Chancellor Olaf Scholff since April 2022 about the need to stop weapons supplies to Ukraine.
Fortunately, the pro-Kremlin forces in Germany have now less impact as Russian propaganda media were banned, and the RT propaganda channel in Germany was closed. Still, viewers should be careful, as some others, such as Rutply, continue operating.
Read also: Revelations on Russian spy in Germany, and West’s crackdown on Moscow spy networks
Pro-Russia agents of influence target weakening Ukraine
Seeing these tainted personalities among the event organizers, we can guess that the campaign to stop weapons supplies to Ukraine is not based on the desire for peace but on the biased pro-Russia position, personal ties with the Moscow regime, and a longstanding pro-Kremlin policy.
There is only one solution to stop the war – Russian troops must leave the Ukrainian lands, stop violating international law, and stop terrorist-style missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine needs weapons to defend itself against Russian missile strikes and military assaults in the east.
Without Western weapons, Ukraine would be less protected and more vulnerable, and that’s the goal of the pro-Russian political figures, who hide behind “Stop war banners” but act in Europe to undermine unity and to help Putin’s regime win the war. Instead, the Russian military and political leadership must be punished for the war crimes that Germany has evidenced.
