All eyes on the former chancellor

If the FAZ-Journalists Reinhard Bingener and Markus Wehner in their book describe Germany’s path towards Russian energy dependence as “the biggest mistake in German foreign policy since the founding of the Federal Republic”, one could counter that it is also a – if not the – acted as a key success factor for the German industrial location; and thus not least a guarantee of prosperity and social balance. For decades, German companies used cheap energy imported from Russia to manufacture all those products that they then exported to the world at hefty profits. Added to this was the fact that Germany had also settled comfortably in the costly area of ​​defense since 1990: protection and security were largely outsourced as the exclusive domain of the USA.