On Sunday, February 27, 2022, the diminutive new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, of the Social-Democratic Party, approached the Bundestag podium to address a full audience regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz’s Bundestag speech will go down in history as one of Germany’s finest moments.
Scholz spoke in measured tones to the entire spectrum of German politics -- to his “traffic-light” coalition and to the opposition. Point by point, Scholz overturned sixty years of German foreign policy known as Ostpolitik. Uncharacteristic of sober German politics, ovations interrupted Scholz’s speech as he threw out the policy of accommodation to Russia, rejected Germany’s pacifism and its policy of treating Russia as “business as usual.”
