If it is true that an image can describe a moment more than many words, to best explain the relationship between Russia and Germany it is enough to observe the photo of Angela Merkel sitting next to Putin with his labrador resting his head on her legs.
In 2007 Merkel visits Putin at his dacha in Sochi. The Russian president, knowing full well that the chancellor was very afraid of dogs, left his black labrador Koni free to wander around the meeting room. The dog approaches Merkel and places its head on the Chancellor’s legs, paralyzed in an expression of cold fear, completely concentrated on not letting any sign of discomfort show. On the contrary, Putin seemed amused by the scene. Indeed, it certainly was. Never was a photo more explanatory.
Angela Merkel, who in her recent biography claims to have always known that Putin was an enemy for Europe, she didn’t seem so convinced of the danger of the Russian president at the time of his chancellorship. Just as his predecessor Schroeder was not, who in fact became a member of the board of directors of Gazprom. And probably not even our former president Prodi (see the photos of the Prodi-Putin-Schroeder trio for the inauguration of the Amber Room in St. Petersburg in 2003).
Gas itself is the key element to understand a certain “submissiveness” of the chancellor towards Putin. Just as she tolerated the presence of the feared dog without batting an eyelid, so Germany has always overlooked Russia’s contradictions in exchange for a continuous and cheap supply of gas, the true engine of the German industrial machine.
The German industrial system has based its success on two factors: low-cost labor coming from the countries of the European periphery (thus explaining the pressing desire to progressively enlarge the Schengen area for the free transit of workers), and continuous, low-cost energy. cost coming from the nation of the “enemy of Europe” Putin. From here too the iron will to build the Nord-Stream 2 gas pipelinestrongly supported by Merkel, whose end should have been, imagine, the city of Greifswald in Germany. Not to mention the very close Germany-China relationship on exports.
Therefore, a diversified economy and very much centered on the relationship with the “bad” countries.
Putin, as a great connoisseur of Germanic things given his previous service as a KGB agent in East Germany, knew very well that the German industrial sector was dependent on Russian gas, just as the Americans knew who, not by chance, imposed the sanctions system not to harm Russia, as anyone can see, but in order to cut off the legs of the German economy closely linked to Moscow.
Angela Merkel was the great architect of this economic system. But if the chancellor’s memory is short, that of the Russians is not, who have indicated Berlin as a possible target for intercontinental missiles. Never forgetting the millions who died during the Great Patriotic War against the invading Nazis, hatred towards the Germans was tempered, as always happens, only by economic interests. Once those were abandoned, every seal could fail. To everyone’s ruin.
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