Dear Reader,
On the hunt for a biography of former chancellor Willy Brandt, I dropped into a small bookshop near my house last week.
When I told the owner what I was after, he launched into an excited eulogy to the former chancellor.
As luck would have it, I had walked into a store owned by Brandt’s number one fan.
He told me that Brandt’s Ostpolitik, his policy of reconciliation with the countries of eastern Europe, was the single greatest act by a German leader in the post-war era.
But then he sighed and added that German attitudes to Russia today show that young people no longer see the need to make sacrifices for their country.
“In Poland, the UK, or America, people would be prepared to defend their country, but this is alien to young Germans,” he said.
It was an interesting observation - and not a totally unfounded one.
Polling released last year found that only five percent of Germans would volunteer to fight in the event of an…
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