Burn after reading

Dear Reader,

Imagine that you bought an expensive house and the company that sold it to you insisted it was the most solid and secure home you could ever live in. Then, a few months later, that very salesperson comes to you and says that you must leave the building as it's unsafe and poorly designed.

You’d probably be more confused than angry. When was the man lying: when you moved in or now? Were you a schmuck to buy the place or would you be a schmuck to move out?

Something along those lines has happened in one of the more unseemly examples of Germany’s Social Democrats being caught with their pants down when Putin invaded Ukraine.

Determined to get the Nord Stream 2 pipelines finished in the face of sanctions threatened by Washington, the Social Democrat-run state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Meck-Pom) set up a “climate foundation” in early 2021.

State leader Manuela Schwesig sold Klimastiftung MV at the time as a project to fund ecological issues. With a starting fund of €20 milli…