Rarely has an international conference stood in the shadow of an imminent war like the Munich Security Conference.
Russia has mustered everything it needs for an attack that lacks any justification.
Vladimir Putin recently "acted as a historian," said Chancellor Scholz, describing the Kremlin boss's crude justifications for his war preparations.
If you leaf through history books, you will find many reasons for aggression.
But Europe will only remain peaceful if borders are accepted.
According to Scholz, an attack would be a “serious mistake”.
But there remains a chance for negotiations "no matter how small".
Russia didn't seem interested this weekend.
While dozens of heads of state and government and more than fifty foreign ministers traveled to Munich, Moscow demonstratively stayed away from the meeting.
But there was also a streak of light over the city.
Because the West seems more united than it has been for a long time.
Sanctions are ready that would hit Moscow.
How difficult is uncertain.
Anyone who now predicts what will happen has “been infected with a hubris virus or something,” said Scholz.
Doubts were expressed in Munich above all about Germany's attitude.
How will people react there if Putin turns off the heating in German households?
The 5,000 helmets that Germany is donating to Ukraine have become a bitter joke in Munich.
"Is that your contribution to European security?" asked the Ukrainian foreign minister in Munich with a trembling voice.
And further: "It is their conscience that they have to live with".
Scholz and Foreign Minister Baerbock, on the other hand, defended their variant of German checkbook diplomacy.
If that's part of a Western concept, it hasn't been understood in Kyiv until now, nor in many Western capitals.
That should give the government something to think about.