Ms. Esken, you once said that when you were young in the 1970s, the SPD wasn't left enough for you.

How left were you back then?

Justus Bender

Editor in the politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Konrad Schuller

Political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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I grew up in a social democratic home.

That politicized me very early on, demonstrations for peace, against nuclear power and above all the fight against the right-wing, those were my priorities at the time, and that's still important to me today.

Were you also against the retrofitting of NATO, which SPD Chancellor Schmidt was promoting at the time?

Yes.

I took part in the large-scale demonstrations in Bonn's Hofgarten in the early 1980s.

Olaf Scholz was there forty years ago, but we didn't know anything about each other back then.

How difficult is it for a politician who comes from the peace movement to deliver weapons to Ukraine?

For me, demonstrating against the nuclear arms race did not mean abolishing the Bundeswehr or having a pacifist attitude.

In a world in which autocrats and dictators repeatedly threaten peace, the Bundeswehr or NATO are always part of a defensive peace policy for me.

Even those who were and are active in the peace movement today take it for granted that Ukraine must defend itself against the Russian aggressor and that we must not abandon them in the process.

You once described yourself as an anti-fascist.

Is Putin a fascist?

I remember a speech Putin gave in March about internal enemies.

Then he said: The Russian people will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, just to spit them out like a fly that has accidentally flown into their mouth.

Such a "natural and necessary self-purification" of society would strengthen Russia.

What Putin is saying is fascist.

So my answer is yes.

And if we have to recognize that a dictator like Putin and his system are developing in this way, then we also have to recognize that this autocrat is our enemy, with whom change through rapprochement is no longer an option.

Unfortunately, we realized this too late.

Why?

It has to do with experience and with hope.

We have overcome the Cold War through rapprochement and strengthened our Western alliance, made German unity possible and realized that millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe can live in freedom.

We were all convinced that we could do more with change through trade or change through rapprochement than through differentiation.

This does not only apply to the SPD.

The Kohl and Merkel governments did not think and act differently.

Nevertheless: "Change through rapprochement" was a primal social democratic project.

Shouldn't the SPD above all bid farewell to its illusions?

Willy Brandt's policy of rapprochement and diplomacy in small steps was no illusion, but demonstrably very successful.

He didn't receive the Nobel Peace Prize for illusions.

As the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt experienced first-hand Moscow's aggression with the building of the Wall as a visible monument of the Cold War.

Brandt's Ostpolitik was therefore characterized by a clear commitment to Western integration.

This also applies to Helmut Schmidt and the peace policy of the SPD as a whole.

Should the SPD dare more Schmidt today?

The chancellor, who announced a turning point and committed himself to NATO's two percent target, is also from the SPD.