Russia Rage in Berlin

Ersatz “Russiagate” is now the last refuge of Germany's traditional establishment

Germany’s current political elites are even more submissive toward the US than those of West Germany during the Cold War. Which is ironic, as the Cold War has long been over, and America has never treated Germans as atrociously and with such open contempt as now. But clearly, bad old habits are dying hard in Berlin.

In fact, they are mushrooming as if there’s no tomorrow. It’s no surprise, then, that Germany’s mainstream political culture is also returning to smearing the domestic opposition as in cahoots with – drumroll and very scary music – Moscow!

To be fair, in a way, this is the perfect fusion of something traditionally German and dutiful copying of the US: the nasty old trick of deriding the opposition as “vaterlandslose Gesellen” (meaning, in essence, a fifth column) rooted in the mean, militarist politics of semi-authoritarian Wilhelmine Germany – and originally applied, mostly, to Social Democrats – combined now with an imitation of American-style Russia Rage. The “long-way-West” cult still so beloved by orthodox German Atlanticists meets pre-World War One info-warring.