This Bundestag session went down in history not only because of the unusual day of the week on which it took place.

In it, Chancellor Scholz announced a change of course in German foreign and security policy that had not occurred since reunification.

In its relationship with Russia, Germany no longer relies solely on the power of morality, understanding and restraint.

From now on, Berlin also wants to speak to Moscow in the language of military strength.

The Russian President does not understand another.

Putin's war destroys the left's house of cards

Putin's imperialist and chauvinist war of aggression in Ukraine has shown the coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP how ineffective the previous strategy - including that of the previous governments - was in the confrontation with an unscrupulous opponent who was determined to do anything.

With the attack on Ukraine, Putin collapsed the house of cards of hopes, illusions and self-deception that the left-wing parties in Germany in particular had been building for decades.

They defended it to the last slogan.

But now even the Left Party has to sheepishly admit that it misjudged Putin.

If it didn't sound cynical, one would almost have to be grateful to the Russian President for bringing German foreign and security policy out of their cloud cuckoo land and down to earth.

The impact is hard.

The SPD has to throw overboard beliefs that it has cherished, nurtured and defended against any criticism for decades.

But even Mützenich's Peace Corps could not withstand the attack by Putin's tank spearheads.

SPD on the retreat: Even Moscow can't keep up

Now the SPD is giving up old positions so quickly that even Moscow is having trouble following.

Hadn't the SPD opposed the two percent target?

Haven't you felt the greatest pain at the thought of continued nuclear sharing?

Not opposed to the procurement of armed drones with tricks that the Kremlin could have devised?

Since Sunday, all of that is a thing of the past.

Even a special fund, twice the size of the defense budget, is to be set up so that the army's tanks can finally drive and the ships of the navy can put to sea, as Scholz said.

It should not be forgotten, especially in this moment of truth, that the miserable state of the German armed forces is due to everyone who, since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, only thought about how many election gifts could be financed with the peace dividend.

The reversal should have happened when Putin conquered Crimea in 2014.

Even then, the SPD was already in government responsibility.

Scholz has been Merkel's vice chancellor and finance minister since 2018.

Tutoring from the allies was needed

But Putin first had to reach out to all of Ukraine for German politicians to really hear the shot.

In order to move from listening incredulously to taking consistent action, Berlin also needed the help of its allies, as the tragedy on the subject of arms deliveries shows.

But even the flimsy excuses as to why Germany could offer nothing but helmets were crushed by Putin's tank tracks.

Increasing pressure from the Allies ensured that Berlin no longer opposed the use of the “nuclear option”: the exclusion of Russian banks from international payment transactions.

Because what Scholz said is true: our alliances are our greatest strength.

Rarely have the EU and NATO been as closed as they are now.

Putin miscalculated.

This unity must be preserved.

But what will happen on the home front?

Scholz will not get as much applause as on Sunday when the concrete implementation of his announcements is on the agenda.

At that time, the SPD left its chancellor off the flag

The SPD will also recover from the Putin shock and remember that it is a peace party after all.

And Putin will not only threaten with his nuclear weapons, but will also make offers that peace activists would find difficult to refuse.

Moscow was already playing its game when it tried to prevent NATO rearmament in the 1980s.

The then Chancellor Schmidt's party went off the flag;

he lost his post as a result.

Since then, the SPD, the Greens, and the entire republic have had forty years to break away from overly naïve ideas about foreign and security policy.

Even the red-green government under Schröder was forced to do so by a war.

However, the current character test is even harder.

Compared to Putin, even Milošević was an orphan.