The Lower Saxony SPD is firmly on the side of Ukraine these days.

"The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has changed a lot," says state chairman and prime minister Stephan Weil, and promises to help the refugees: "We will make every effort to ensure that they feel well received." He calls Putin's attack "imperialism in its most disgusting form".

Justus Bender

Editor in the politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Reinhard Bingener

Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.

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The war of aggression not only changed the security order in Europe, but also Weil's own national association.

In the SPD in Hanover in particular, the Russian threat has been downplayed for years.

Today, Putin is condemned as if nothing ever happened.

But anyone who remembers knows that there was a lot.

In 2013, Schröder-Köpf came to the state parliament

The year 2013 is the best way to start this memory.

At that time, the Lower Saxony SPD, after many years in the opposition, succeeded in ousting the CDU from the state chancellery.

Hanover's Lord Mayor Stephan Weil became Prime Minister.

Doris Schröder-Köpf, the wife of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the time, was also a newcomer to the state parliament.

Previously, she had taken over the constituency in Hanover from a veteran social democrat.

2013 was also the year in which Schröder-Köpf donated a remarkably large sum of money to the SPD: 32,725 euros and 26 cents, of which 25,000 euros alone were a single donation to the SPD city association in Hanover, 4,600 euros were elected officials' taxes, and around 3,000 euros were small donations.

In the entire SPD in Germany, there was only one person in 2013 who donated more than Schröder-Köpf.

She also came from Hanover: It was a manager of the SPD district of Hanover.

She donated 83,000 euros.

The case was covered in the nationwide press because such a large private donation was so unusual.

In 2014, according to her lawyer, Schröder-Köpf transferred another total of 27,000 euros to the SPD.

This also put the member of parliament in the top group nationwide.

After the change of government in 2013, a Russian folklore flourished in Lower Saxony that combined several elements: sympathy for the Russian soul, understanding for Kremlin boss Putin and a romanticized memory of Willy Brandt's détente policy.

The result was feel-good events such as the presentation of the Lower Saxony State Prize by the Prime Minister in February 2015. The Hanoverian rock band Scorpions received the award at the time.

Gerhard Schröder held the laudatory speech in the baroque gallery in Herrenhausen in front of the leaders of the city society.

The gas lobbyist used the opportunity to promote "East-West understanding" despite the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

He recalled an event with Vladimir Putin in Russia, where the Scorpions moved the guests to tears with their song "Wind of Change" and Russian soldiers whistled along.

"You wish for something like that more often, especially these days."

Again the Social Democrats resorted to their Moscow connection

In autumn 2017, the SPD in Lower Saxony faced important elections again: the federal election in September and the state election in October.

And again the Social Democrats resorted to their Moscow connection.

During the election campaign, the Hanoverian SPD politician and current DGB President Yasmin Fahimi presented former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, with whom she discussed the world situation in the state capital's town hall.

He claimed that isolating Russia served only America, which was waging an “economic war” against Germany.

Schröder also sharply opposed the CDU's plans to spend two percent of gross domestic product on the Bundeswehr.

Domestic social spending should not fall victim to a "new spiral of arms buildup," Schröder warned, and asked who seriously believed that "someone in the East" was pursuing an aggressive foreign policy?

"I hope the SPD is brave enough to say: Who are we actually threatening?" Fahimi agreed with Schröder and called the two percent target "total madness".