Das Land der frommen Wünsche, that’s what Reinhard Veser from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls it. And he means by this the place were what remains of Germany’s Social Democratic Party is now living when it comes to Putin’s Russia.

That the SPD would want to go back to the old days of SPD Ostpolitik (“change through rapprochement”), a time when twice as many voters voted for them as do today, is quite understandable. There is just one slight but fundamental difference here: During that cold war (they called it The Cold War back then), the Soviet Union wanted to keep the status quo and the Federal Republic of Germany’s recognition of East Germany contributed to this, benefiting the West, as well. Putin’s Russia wants territory, however, not the status quo.

By bending over backwards with the most absurd compilation of contortions to “understand” a Russia they clearly do not understand (see Germany’s current SPD foreign minister), the SPD shows us that it already has plans to move from the Land of Wishful Thinking to the Pays of Appeasement. Or is it living there already? How unimaginative political policy can be. And how delusional.

Die sozialdemokratischen Ostpolitiker haben es schon einmal nicht bemerkt, als die Voraussetzungen für ihren Ansatz im Osten Europas weggefallen sind – das war, als Solidarność in den achtziger Jahren die kommunistische Diktatur ins Wanken brachte. Damals hat das nur ihrem Ruf in Ostmitteleuropa geschadet. Wenn ihre alten Illusionen heute wieder in die Russland-Politik einfließen, droht ein weit größerer Schaden.