Published: 06/05/2025

bearbeitet: 24.09.2025

re-published: 24.01.2026

Writers Note (updated Version): I rewrote this text. The first two versions were written in anger and despair. This version tries to hold on to that urgency while thinking more clearly. At least this is what i hope to do. It is public thinking.

“Soldiers! Brothers! If you are ordered to shoot at your brothers, then remember: no enemy stands before you — you are being told to shoot your brothers — your brothers, workers and proletarians like you! Refuse! Refuse to shoot!”
Rosa Luxemburg.

(This quote should now include “sisters,” “female soldiers,” “female workers,” and “female proletarians.”)

Just yesterday, I requested the Wehrmacht records of my grandfathers.

I do not yet know what I will find. I already know the familiar fragments, the stories of being “just a soldier.”

But what does that mean?

Did they kill civilians?

Did they obey every order?

Did they take part in the systematic murder of families while living their lives as “ordinary” Nazi soldiers?

What does it mean to be aware of German history today?

Does it mean ignoring international law?

Does loyalty to Germany’s so-called Staatsräson require silence while Palestinians starve?

As the grandchild of Nazi soldiers, do I have to stay quiet to prove that I have understood the Holocaust?

How can silence in the face of crimes against humanity be understood as remembrance?

I am confused.

I have received the first files on one of my grandfathers. Not the full record, only information about the divisions he served in. The next step will be to trace where these units were deployed and under which orders.

There is no question about this: Israel must be safe.

Jewish life must be protected.

The international community has a responsibility to ensure that safety, including through armed force if necessary.

Full stop.

At the same time, German media report that many Israelis want the war to end so the hostages may be released.

Is that really the only reason?

I refuse to believe that.

I believe many Israelis want this war to end because they know it offers no future. Not for Palestinians. Not for Israelis.

The hostages must be released.

Immediately.

Without conditions.

German journalism often follows a familiar pattern:

“Critics say the situation could resemble genocide.”

Politicians respond: “Terrible. Beyond imagination. Humanity must be upheld.”

And then the conversation ends.

No sustained discussion of starvation as a weapon.

No clear accounting of destroyed hospitals.

No mention of medical personnel killed while on duty.

No mention of German weapons.

The newly appointed German foreign minister attempts to balance critique and solidarity. But still there is no unequivocal condemnation of the starvation of civilians, framed as a measure “against Hamas.”

Is this the new moral baseline?

That starving children can be tolerated, as long as the language remains legally cautious?

For the German government, the lesson of the Holocaust seems singular: stand with Israel. And in principle, this is correct. The Shoah remains a unique crime of industrialized mass murder. Protecting Jewish life and fighting antisemitism are non-negotiable obligations.

Post-war Germany needed Israel. It needed forgiveness.

Former Nazis and their children approached survivors and asked for absolution, or for something that felt like it. Some found gestures of reconciliation. Far more than they deserved.

That act of forgiveness remains one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of human strength in modern history.

Today, Germany calls Israel a friend.

But friendship does not mean silence.

In the current conflict between the Israeli military and Hamas, the protection of Jewish life is no longer the sole or even the primary issue. Nor is this about freeing hostages or dismantling Hamas alone. What we are witnessing is the large-scale destruction of Palestinian life and the displacement of survivors.

Whether some are Drive by Fantasien of real-Estate Utopias or territorial expansions remains spekulative. What is clear is that neither a two-state solution nor peaceful coexistence is the objective.

The United Kingdom historically reluctant to shift its position, has begun to move toward recognizing Palestine. That recognition comes late and imperfectly, but it signals that something fundamental has changed.

I believe in a quality often overlooked in discussions of “German culture”: honesty.

German history is horrific precisely because it was carried out openly, bureaucratically, and with chilling clarity. That honesty was perverted, but honesty itself is not the problem. It can also be a path forward.

Richard von Weizsäcker’s speech on May 8, 1985, embodied this. He insisted that German responsibility did not end with the passing of generations.

What does that responsibility demand today?

A position fully conscious of the Holocaust.

A position that recognizes the threat posed by Hamas, by Iran, by an unstable global order, and by an Israeli prime minister fighting for political survival.

True friendship requires honesty.

Not silence.

Internally and externally, Germany currently has no coherent position. Political leadership fails. Much of the media follows. A serious fight against antisemitism would not dismiss criticism of Israeli military actions but confront it openly and responsibly.

A Germany that wished to be more than a subordinate actor would name crimes against humanity clearly, protect civilians, sanction perpetrators, and pursue legal and diplomatic paths toward ending the catastrophe instead of continuing arms exports.

Imagine Germany and Israel as close friends.

What do you do when someone you love is losing control?

You do not walk away.

You intervene.

You stand in their path.

You insist, with care and determination, that something must change.

That is what solidarity looks like.

Instead, political leaders sit comfortably at home, twisting language, reframing facts, postponing responsibility.

That is not friendship.

It is moral avoidance.

We speak often about visions, but we have lost the courage to imagine them.

What if international leaders went to Gaza and physically stood between civilians and bombs?

What if those who claim to seek peace put their bodies where their words are?

That is a naive thought.

But perhaps we need naive thoughts again.

I could not have written this text in German.

The Nazis used the German language to construct terror. That language is still recovering. Writing in German about this conflict would feel like reclaiming it, but I am not there yet.

And that is tragic, because German is a language of roots and branches, of Wurzelgeflechte and Verästelungen. These are not Nazi words. They belong to us. They deserve to be reclaimed.

The far right is not a marginal phenomenon, and its voters are not simply ignorant. Gaza is not an abstraction. The mass killing of Palestinians cannot be denied. Israel is not merely a victim state. Like all states, it exercises a monopoly on violence.

To acknowledge this is not antisemitism.

It is honesty.

And honesty is the only ground on which peace can grow.