The drums of war are beating louder in eastern Germany: ‘Here, we still remember what Germany owes to Russia’

Wünsdorf is only 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Berlin, but a vast chasm separates this town in eastern Germany from the thoughts of the country’s political and intellectual elites. Just as the Bundestag is racing to spend whatever it takes to confront Vladimir Putin’s Russia, here, in this locality that during the Cold War hosted the largest Soviet military base outside the borders of the USSR, time seems to pass more slowly. Here, the 20th century is still very much in focus. And it serves to answer many of the questions of the 21st century.

Some 20,000 people a year visit the fascinating row of bunkers built in Wünsdorf by the Nazis in 1939. From this tiny town, transformed during World War II into a major communications center, Hitler’s army directed its offensive against the USSR. Outside the tunnels, in the sunlight, the remains of Wehrmacht buildings still remain. Soviet troops burned them in 1946, after their victory in the war, as part of their commitment to eliminate all traces of the criminal regime that turned Europe into a vast cemetery.

Thirty years after the last Red Army soldier left, the Soviet legacy shapes local residents’ views on current issues such as the war in Ukraine, Russia’s imperialist ambitions, and Europe’s urgent need to rearm. Their views, for the most part, clash head-on with those of Germans in the old West.

Sylvia Rademacher is the head of the company that manages the bunkers in Wünsdorf. At 61, she perfectly remembers what life was like before 1994, when the last Soviet soldiers left, a contingent that during the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) numbered more than half a million. “They are not leaving as occupiers, but as friends,” Chancellor Helmut Kohl said at the time. These memories, and this special relationship with Russia, shape the perspective through which Rademacher assesses events such as the large-scale invasion of Ukraine ordered by Putin three years ago. “They want to paint a picture in which the Russians are the bad guys, with horns and a tail. But things are more complex. Here, people, with their first-hand experience, see things differently. We still remember what Germany owes to Russia.”

The political differences between the so-called new states — the five eastern territories that joined the Federal Republic in 1990 — and the rest of the country were once again evident in the elections held on February 23. While the western part of the map was tinged with black — the color of Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union — the eastern part saw a landslide victory in the blue of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party that, in addition to its anti-refugee and environmentalist campaigns, has championed opposition to aid to Ukraine. Parties such as The Left and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, both critical of NATO, also received significant support.

Since the outbreak of the war in 2022, the Forsa opinion poll has noted the enormous disagreements in Germany on all issues related to Russia and Ukraine. “It is undoubtedly the issue that most divides the two sides of the country,” says Peter Matuschek, manager of this firm. Sending arms to Kyiv receives majority support in the west and strong opposition in the east, where fears of the war spreading to Europe are very evident. “Last week, we asked about constitutional reform to increase military spending: 75% of West Germans said they were in favor. In the east, that percentage remained at 51%. And plans to reinstate military service received 62% support in the west, compared to a meager 52% in the east,” Matuschek continues.

The explanations for these differences on both sides of the former Iron Curtain are very complex. Journalist and writer Sabine Rennefanz, born 50 years ago in the former GDR, has attempted to explain them in books such as Iron kids: The quiet rage of East Germany’s ‘Wende’ generation. “Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers left Germany without firing a shot. Gorbachev’s commitment not to intervene allowed us to achieve a peaceful reunification. I think that has shaped the image we’ve long had of Russia, regardless of how the country has evolved since then,” she says in a Berlin café.

Rennefanz deploys a very nuanced discourse, full of darkness and light, in which she recalls that children her age saw the Russians around them at the same time “as friends and as rulers,” and anecdotes such as that of her grandfather, who despite having been imprisoned in Siberia during Stalin’s time still maintained a positive image of the Soviets.

New times are forcing Germany to confront far-reaching debates. How to address the necessary modernization of the military in a world where the United States is no longer a loyal friend? The possibility of reintroducing military service, or the shock of sending weapons to Ukraine that could end up killing Russians, something that reminds many Germans of their darkest past. “Fear of Russia is greatest in the east, where echoes of the former GDR’s propaganda in favor of peace and against NATO and the West still resonate,” says historian Jan Claas Behrends.

Back in Wünsdorf, Mayor Wiebke Sahin-Connolly admits that the shared history, the fact that many of her fellow citizens have drunk vodka with Russians, makes political debates about war and weapons almost personal. Rademacher defends the values and culture of her region against what she calls the “arrogance” of West Germany, which, she says, has never treated them as equals. She recalls the time when tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers and their families lived in this city, then nicknamed “Little Moscow,” with its own schools, theaters, museums, a hospital, and a direct train to the Russian capital.

The head of the company dedicated to preserving the memory of what happened here throughout the 20th century denounces a media straitjacket that prevents dissenting opinions from being expressed. “Of course, the war is a mess and it has to end. But it’s not just one person’s fault,” she says, before pointing fingers at both the West and Ukraine, without mentioning Putin at all. She concludes with a halo of optimism regarding the new occupant of the White House: “At least Trump is now trying to end the massacre after Biden did so many things wrong.”

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