Letters to the editor on "With 'Hurray' into self-destruction - NATO is escalating massively and the German media are going along with it"
June 4, 2024 at 4:09 pm An article by: Editorial

[These letters posted on 6/4/2024 are translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=116192.]

In this article, Tobias Riegel comments on NATO's call to its member states to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons against military targets in Russia. This is another serious escalation in a senseless war that could have been prevented. In addition, the shelling of Russian early warning systems against nuclear attacks increases the risk of a nuclear war "by mistake". Nevertheless, many journalists in Germany fully support this course. We would like to thank you for the numerous and interesting letters to the editor. Here is a selection that Christian Reimann has put together for you.
1st letter to the editor

What drives lemmings to throw themselves off cliffs? What drives people to risk their lives in a nuclear war? Do power-hunger or enemy stereotypes cloud their ability to recognize the corresponding risk? During the Cold War, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate for peace. Why not in a hot war that escalates almost daily on the eastern border of our neighboring country, Poland?

I can only explain this with the long demonization of Putin and the elimination or equalization of the media. That is why I see the danger as it is:
Hardly controllable!
Best regards

L. Salomons

2nd letter

Dear Mr. Riegel,
you took the words right out of my mouth – it is almost admirable with what naïve carelessness, almost glee, the German uninformed or misinformed majority allows itself to be led into the abyss or instrumentalized!

In my opinion, the severe escalations that have been steadily increasing since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, especially on the part of many NATO member states (and here in particular the US government and the EU leadership), are not the result of a desire for peace but of a desire for war! Furthermore, in my opinion, this serious escalation and provocation did not begin in February 2022, but directly after the collapse of the USSR with the massive expansion of NATO to the east – contrary to promises made by NATO – and culminated in the Maidan coup in early 2014, which was financed and provoked by the West (especially the US government), in my opinion, and its consequences.

In my opinion, the Russian government clearly stated the objectives of the military intervention from the outset and was always willing to talk – until today! In my opinion, this Ukraine conflict and the current escalation, with the acceptance of a major (nuclear) war, is deliberate! All that remains for me to say is, in the words of Hannes Wader: "It's (probably again - my note) time" youtube.com/watch?v=WQA2YSl8_gA
Best wishes and hopes

Andreas Rommel

3rd letter
Dear Mr. Riegel,

you speak from the heart. This corrupt caste of politicians, who only represent American interests, sacrifices the lives of people in Europe without thinking and accepts the destruction of large parts of Europe, just to shine for their real employer (it is obviously not the German people).

I am always shocked when I talk to people whom I actually consider to be intelligent and clever, and realize how extremely well the propaganda of the mainstream media works.
Even clear facts, such as the expansion of NATO in 1990 and today, do not make them think.
So whoever withdraws their forces and dissolves their military pact is the aggressor.

How stupid do you have to be to believe this nonsense, which of course is broadcast every day on the radio and television. And the people who spread this misinformation against their better judgment are, in my opinion, CRIMINALS and should be brought to justice for what they are spreading to others, namely hatred and incitement.
Keep up the good work, every voice against this madness is needed.
Best regards
Wolfgang Fehre

4th letter to the editor
Dear NDS editorial team,
You can put the war in Ukraine and the reactions of the West in a time machine and send it back to the time of the NATO war against Serbia.
A part of the article then reads as follows:
In order not to lose the war, Serbia urgently needs all the help that Russia and China can offer.
This includes permission to use weapons from China and Russia against military targets in NATO countries.

This is Serbia's right as an attacked state.
It is therefore reasonable for Russia and China to allow the defense of NATO fighter jets in NATO airspace.

NATO is already dropping remote-controlled weapons over its territory. Protecting the Serbian population from these would only be possible if NATO aircraft were prevented from taking off in the first place. This can only be achieved by deploying the weapons supplied by Russia and China behind the Serbian border.

Only when the situation is reflected and applied to NATO's wars of aggression does it become clear how psychopathic the reactions of the media and politicians of the present day are.
With kind regards

Patrick Janssens

5th letter to the editor
Dear Sir or Madam,
that was and is probably the plan of the irresponsible NATO military strategists, whoever they may be. To speak in poker jargon, the hand is being played out.

Increasingly brazen and now quite openly. This can be seen as a conspiracy against humanity
and the unconditional right to peace. The primary task of politics is to restore peace, and to do so without violence or even the provocation of an escalation with nuclear weapons.

The relevant media landscape still seems to have not yet arrived in reality, believing itself to be untouchable and safe in its air-conditioned editorial offices and television studios. The population is being presented with the further escalation as unavoidable if the "EVIL" is to be defeated and "DEMOCRACY" defended.

"Who says A does not have to say B and "A" may have been a mistake. It is imperative to wake up and commit to peace and humanity before the clock strikes 12.
With kind regards

Thomas Stöbe

6th letter to the editor
Dear Mr. Riegel,

our system of coordinates is still aligned with political reason as the norm – this allows us to understand the escalation fantasies against Russia, written by thoughtless opportunists from the safety of their desks, as an anomaly despite everything.

But what if the appalling level of public opinion and politics – let's say like the anti-Semitic propaganda in the Third Reich – becomes the norm? When will we realize that we have left the realms of civilization behind us and that the scandal of a war-obsessed contempt for humanity is no longer a scandal for a large part of society?

The transition from journalism to pure black-and-white propaganda is palpable (Arte's coverage of the war in Georgia is a prime example – the incumbent government is delegitimized as being subservient to Russia – an elected government as the enemy of the wonderfully democratic EU with its parliament without autonomous powers).
It is difficult to imagine that there is any way back from here.
Something has been unleashed and I fear it is not a good thing.

Best regards, EJ

7th letter
Dear Sir
The European politicians' mafia, with the USA as its leader, can only see one way out .
To cover up the fact that all the European states, faced with debt and warmongering, are slowly but surely realizing that Russia cannot be destroyed in this way, the only thing left for them to do is to provoke a major war .

Then Russia will use nuclear weapons, probably targeting Ramstein first, and I hope the Pentagon! It's time for the USA to have a war on its own soil, as it has done since 1860! So far, it has only left death and destruction in its wake worldwide.
And all because the USA has been planning to destroy Russia for many years.

J. Blumer

8th letter

I'm getting really fed up with these armchair strategists. They think they know everything and can control every situation. Yet they regularly start from completely contradictory premises: Russia is portrayed as both weak (a colossus on feet of clay) and as an overpowering, threatening, aggressive enemy. Both of course without any evidence.

In contrast, they believe that NATO is superior in three key aspects:
NATO's armies, as defenders of freedom and democracy (and due to cultural superiority), have a much higher (combat) morale than any other troops in the world (how was that in Afghanistan?).
The technological superiority of the West is reflected in its advanced weapons systems, which far outstrip all competitors in terms of precision and penetrating power (well, some of the systems supplied to Ukraine cannot be meant by that – even if they are unquestionably orders of magnitude more expensive).
Thanks to their experience and scientific training (as well as their IT support), NATO staffs have access to precise strategic and tactical planning techniques that can accurately assess the ambitions of a potential opponent and guarantee their own success on the battlefield.
Sorry, I was (it was a while ago) a conscript in the staff service of a supply unit. I also experienced what didn't work there and how, in maneuver planning and reports, we worked with nonsensical and unrealistic information. And as far as the "morale of the troops" is concerned, I would like to express some doubts. As far as military efficiency is concerned, I would like to ask: When did the USA actually win its last war (Grenada)?

But now these armchair strategists believe that they can accurately assess and manage the development of a local proxy war into a global conflict with a potentially thermonuclear dimension. And they rely on statements from sources whose vested interests are not questioned. If they already have a safe haven (e.g. in New Zealand) with sufficient resources for the next few decades, this may still seem rationally understandable. For the vast majority of humanity, who do not have such possibilities, this talk is only dangerous.

Klaus Habel

9th letter to the editor
Dear Mr. Riegel,
I can only agree with your article, thank you very much. But I am seized by a sarcastic mood when I read something like this:

"NATO has just called on its member states to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons against military targets in Russia." What else could it be? The USA and the UK financed Ukrainian terrorist groups (Bandera supporters) until the 1950s, who lived in the forests of Ukraine and used their weapons against anything that was somehow connected to the USSR system. Teachers, mayors, kolkhoz chairmen and Communist Party members were randomly murdered in the villages. NATO already existed at that time, and it presented itself to the outside world as a defensive organization. Between 2014 and 2022, Western weapons were not used against Russia, but against hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who lived in the Donbass and were fired upon by Kiev troops on Ukrainian territory , mostly civilians. Not only Russian-speaking Ukrainians, but also 700,000 Russians, citizens of the Russian Federation, were living in Ukraine in daily danger of their lives.
At what number of US citizens would Washington consider it a reason for war? If you, like the USA, with almost 1000 bases around the world, with economic sanctions that violate international law, wars and regime changes , as well as countless other measures , are determined to maintain your world domination against all (!) other countries, then your weapons are always intended to be used against these competing countries, if you think it is necessary. This must take place at a time when these competitors have not yet become too strong. And the USA has missed this point in time with Russia and China. Since their world domination also represents the foundation for the dollar financed debt – house of cards, without which the US – economy would collapse, they are forced to move. They have no choice, even if the most benevolent, cooperative and peace-loving US president were at the helm. The USA is in a kind of last-minute panic, "now or never", if all this development since 1945 and all the trillions of dollars spent on armaments are to have had any "meaning". These decades of investment in armaments and a war pact like NATO cannot have been in vain. Ukraine has been using Western weapons on Russian territory all this time, since it hardly has any of its own. There is nothing new about that. What is more worrying is the fact that the great war against Russia is obviously desired by the Western leading power, the USA, even at the expense of its Western partners in Europe. Who was it that rose to become the leading world power in 1918 and 1945, precisely because all the other states in Europe were lying in ruins after the world wars? The USA was the only beneficiary of the consequences of the war in Western Europe. It had the fewest victims to mourn. No war took place on its territory. Otherwise, it would not have had its "partners" on the credit line. The war in Ukraine and its future expansion is therefore directed equally against Russia and against its own "allies" in the West, who are also playing along with this game. Not only Russia is to be weakened, but all (!) other states. A fantasized attack by Russia on the NATO community would not only be a "suicide mission" but is simply not possible in terms of numbers (the West's tenfold higher defense budget and multiple demographic superiority). We can see right now in Ukraine that it also depends on who runs out of soldiers first. What could Russia, with 146 million inhabitants, do against the human potential of 32 NATO states, and above all, why should it do so? Russia does not have the economic potential of the combined Western states, does not have 1,000 bases and cannot conjure up a world reserve currency worth billions at the push of a button and appropriate goods from all over the world for it. Who was it that withdrew from Central and Eastern Europe (Russia) and who subsequently expanded militarily into these areas (including Ukraine)? German troops attacked Russia or the USSR three times in the 20th century (World War I, the intervention war after 1918, World War II).

Russia has not attacked Germany as an aggressor once in the last 200 years – but the other way around. Ukraine is neither a member of the EU nor NATO. Germany has no business there. On the contrary, it has to take into account a threefold historical debt to Russia. Ukraine was founded as an independent state in 1918 by the Imperial German General Staff as part of the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It was forcibly separated from Russia by Germany in 1918. A governor by the grace of the Germans, named Skoropadskij (translated as "the soon-to-fall"), was appointed, who diverted so much food from Ukraine to feed starving Germany and its soldiers on the Western Front that a famine broke out in Ukraine itself. This was later forgotten to mention in the Bundestag when discussing the Holodomor. The FRG was also created in 1949 as a split-off from a previously unified state and now seems to have phantom pains from the fact that it lost "its" Ukraine as an area of influence to Russia quite quickly in 1918 . After 1941, German troops were thrown out of the Donbass and Crimea just as the German Freikorps troops were in 1918-1920. Stop the thief, cry the three-time unsuccessful thieves, who always had their own influence in mind in an area that belonged to Russia for centuries and was Russia.
Best regards to you and the readers of the NDS

Fred Buttkewitz

10th letter
Good afternoon Mr. Riegel,

I have also noticed that there has been no outcry against the attempted escalation in the Ukraine war, or at least none so far, and this is frightening for me, as I still had parents and grandparents who survived the last World War II with all its horrors. Is the current generation no longer aware of what war or violence can lead to?

I would like to try to give you an approach to think about it in simple words: here in Leipzig there is a memorial church in honor of the Russians....
At the left and right entrance to the winter church there are two war memorial plaques in German and Russian that commemorate the Battle of the Nations:
In memory of the 22,000 Russian warriors who fell for the liberation of Germany in 1813 near Leipzig.

The following took part in the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig from October 16-19, 1813:
Russians 127,000
Austrians 89,000
Prussians 72,000
Swedes 18,000
The following fell in these battles:
22,000 Russians
16,000 Prussians
12,000 Austrians
300 Swedes.

Source: Russian Memorial Church – Wikipedia

Anyone who can read will be able to read and understand who freed us Germans from whom, and today a French President MACRON is standing there and indirectly calling on us to go to war against our former liberators (Russians), what a contempt for the sacrifices made for our freedom.
It may be 211 years since the French lost this battle, and two more wars followed with enormous consequences for the peoples of Europe.
Sometimes I wonder if all this is considered "forgiven and forgotten".
"War is a mere continuation of politics by other means," said Carl von Clausewitz.

Have we all gone mad and are we allowing ourselves to be recruited for the next war by a handful of crazy politicians and greedy companies?
Hasn't enough suffering and loss been our companion in the history of mankind so far that we are already preparing for the next adventure of a world war?

Isn't the sentence "The dead warn us" written on many memorial stones in this country of ours?
Probably people have not or cannot learn from the past or are no longer able to learn enough to draw the right conclusions, so the outcry remains or remained absent.
A French president is calling for the deployment of NATO ground troops in Ukraine against Russia - one should always remember who reads the above-mentioned memorial plaque.

Yes, I think that we should really stop and think about this, because a nuclear war will destroy us all, even the people – people are seduced into running along without thinking.
Maybe Mr. Scholz and Ms. Barley will also pass this church next weekend...
Best regards
R. Wernecke
And another small quote:

I am not sure with what weapons the Third World War will be fought, but in the Fourth World War they will fight with sticks and stones.
– Albert Einstein

Source: I am not sure with what weapons the Third World War will be fought, but in the Fourth World War they will fight with sticks and stones. (poeteus.de)

11th letter to the editor
Dear NDS editorial team,

thank you for your consistent and continuous work, in this particular case I would like to thank Tobias Riegel in particular for the article "With "Hurray" into self-destruction - NATO escalates massively and German media follow suit".
As clearly as the German "leading media" have taken sides with Ukraine and against Russia, it will be very difficult to change anything, even if there are some encouraging exceptions in the media landscape. If an editor were to muster the courage (as the NDS staff do every day) – he or she would probably lose their job. But there are certainly some who only grudgingly join in the Russophobic clamor. Most of them join in without thinking that the danger of a world war is in the air. The "Russian" will also put up with the next red line being crossed, it is thought in the editorial offices, including the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine or the deployment of long-range missiles by Western specialists, possibly to destroy the Crimean bridge. Who knows what will happen then? Do we really know when the last step towards total escalation will force a lethal reaction from Moscow? Nobody knows, but the leading politicians act as if nothing like that could happen and the West could do whatever it wants.
On Welt TV today, the presenter said several times that Putin is "furious" at the new discussions in the West and in NATO (which are not really new in the true sense of the word) – a telling choice of words. I heard Vladimir Putin's statement to journalists while he was on a trip to Central Asia. He seemed calm and level-headed to me. But it can't be what it can't be: Putin is the main enemy, and it is still completely out of the question to negotiate with someone like that. Even sober observations by Harald Kujat, Gabriele Krone-Schmalz and others are of little use – politics and the media in the West are pulling in the same direction, and Hungary, the country in which I have been living for several years, has to put up with constant abuse because it is not willing to participate in the general war movement of the USA, Germany, France, Great Britain and so on.

How long and how far will the warmongering, the striving for "Germany's military preparedness", as Pistorius would like to achieve, continue? When will people finally take to the streets in mass to defend their peace interests? "Swords to plowshares" was once the motto, but today it is viewed the other way around, the Greens, who started out as a peace party, have erased their core idea.
Kind regards
Karl Michael

12th letter to the editor
Dear Nachdenkseiten, Hello Tobias Riegel,
it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that the NATO decision-makers and the associated state leaders are a bunch of mentally disturbed gamblers. I have no desire to go into psychological detail, and if you had a difficult childhood or are otherwise laborious and burdened or religiously exalted: who cares.

But this assessment (or "realization") doesn't really get you anywhere... anywhere: where to? Where do we want to, where do we have to, we who feel no urge at all to help enforce the unipolar world order (the Western democratic one, of course) at the virtual risk of our lives, not even our well-being, because "where"? Can we still slow anything down? Divert it?

My impression that people have made up their minds is growing stronger. And the majority wants it and wants it and WANTS IT THAT WAY. We can talk until we are blue in the face or sing peace songs until we no longer believe them ourselves: in vain. The majority is keen on hard times in the plural!

Let's assume that Putin(tm) is really not quite right in the head, a patriotic, romantic dreamer with obsessive dreams of power, might and greatness and all that, questionable character, obsessive-compulsive . . in short, a person that anyone who values themselves would not want to have anything to do with. (That this is exactly my assessment of this gentleman should be sufficiently clear.) Then it can be assumed with virtual certainty that he will not tolerate any really significant attacks on targets on Russian territory; consequently, he will take any kind of severe retaliation. This is exactly what the NATO leaders seem to be anticipating, and they want to let it come to that. And the majority of citizens as well.

Apart from the fact that Putin's direct and first counterpart, Mr. S. from the U., is of the same "caliber" as the former (... and "his" people are very much in line!): The western populations are not far behind, perhaps with the exception of the majority of US citizens who are disinterested – which is hardly surprising, given that their country will only be affected indirectly, if at all, in the worst case scenario.

What remains to be done? Curl up, hibernate; hope that it won't be *too bad*; freeze, starve, scratch and keep other beauties of the freedom struggle within limits for oneself; be spared from marauding gangs.

Run away? But – where to? The people who escaped from the Nazi-SS Reich at least knew where they could knock on doors with some prospect of success. (Yes, I know that if you weren't prominent *and* also poor, the welcome didn't work out quite right either.) But me – today? Do I want to go to China? India? Mexico? I have really thought about all kinds of things, no kidding!
What is certain is that I want to survive all of this. I want to live, I want to survive. Just like that. The joy of being, the unrelativizable, unassailable joy of being here every day – there is no alternative.
Sincerely

Stephan Kendzia

13th letter

Dear Mr. Riegel, dear NDS team
The proxy war in Ukraine, with the aim of integrating Ukraine and its puppet government into NATO and the EU, weakening and possibly destroying Russia and severing the ties between Europe and Russia, is in danger of escalating into a nuclear war, as you rightly emphasized, at the latest when Russia or the USA threatens to lose this war.

If it becomes apparent that the USA and its vassals are losing this war, they will cross more and more red lines in order to win this war after all, which in turn could drive Russia into a corner, because Russia could apparently be defeated by Ukraine, which has been generously equipped with conventional weapons by the West, to such an extent that it could resort to the atomic bomb.

The fact that the possibility of Ukraine's victory over Russia with conventional weapons is seriously considered possible in the West, as you have also rightly emphasized, makes it clear, in addition to the West's manyfold superiority (economically, militarily, population) over Russia that the talk of Western politicians that Russia would attack NATO after a victory in Ukraine is nothing but evil propaganda that makes it clear that our politicians are lying to us in order to commit us to this war against our real interests. In order to legitimize this war in general, the actual interests are hidden under moral arguments and the actual causes of the war are concealed and denied. The already battered credibility of our politicians and their "quality media" is thus going down the drain.

The fact that these obvious facts and their implications have to be constantly repeated is due to the fact that facts are generally no longer taken seriously, at least if they do not suit one's purposes, and that it is done as if one had to constantly repeat them according to the logic of the daily media in order for them to continue to be effective and not to be forgotten. In fact, they are very rarely explicitly stated in the "quality media" and the immediately necessary implications are not drawn there.
Even if the USA is unlikely to start a total nuclear war by Russia's use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, which would also massively affect them in their own country, this scenario shows that it makes no sense to escalate this war further and further until it comes to that. A ceasefire and a peace treaty must be reached as quickly as possible, based on a sensible compromise that is acceptable to both sides.
I think the perspective you have outlined for Germany is very good:

"However, I would also like to emphasize that I am not advocating either a naive "submission" of Germany to Russia's interests or a hard break with the USA: Germany should and could be a bridge and benefit from it."

Unfortunately, it must be assumed that the real power structures, which are still not very transparent and which justify the German and European dependence on the USA, will not allow such a desirable development.
All the statements made above are not based on my own observations. They are the result of my critical overall view of the media reality as it is essentially conveyed to us in Germany by the "quality media". Eugen Drewermann recently emphasized essential aspects of a critical overview of this media reality in his laudatory speech at the award ceremony for Daniele Ganser, who was awarded the Aachen Prize for Humanity (youtube.com/watch?v=CWG7-we7AkE).

Fritz Gerhard

________________