There are many good reasons to exercise particular caution when delivering arms to conflict areas. But the opinion, popular across all parties in Germany, that weapons should not be delivered to war zones as a matter of principle, is not an expression of an ethically particularly valuable attitude, but a testament to a morally questionable unwillingness to face reality. In Eastern Europe this reality currently looks like this: Russia has been waging war in eastern Ukraine for eight years and is currently threatening a further military escalation of this conflict; an authoritarian state wants to use force to prevent its smaller neighbors from choosing their own path to democracy.
In such a situation, failure to provide assistance would be to deny Ukraine weapons in its defense. Warnings to the Kremlin that expanding aggression against Ukraine will come at a high price sound hollow if you do not ensure that the price is paid from the very first moment of an attack. It is not just Western economic sanctions that could put Putin into trouble after invading Ukraine. Long and difficult battles are likely to be even more dangerous for his reputation among their own people. That is also included in Putin's calculation. That is why the Ukrainian military must be well equipped.
In Germany one doesn't like to talk about something like that.
This is also because the ducking away from reality begins long before such thoughts.
The SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, for example, speaks in all seriousness of a “spiral of threats and counter-threats” that needs to be broken.
If western politics were actually aligned with such an illusion of this conflict, in which in reality only one side is constantly increasing tensions, then the risk of an attack on Ukraine would be much greater than it is anyhow.