

- “The strangest and most unnatural of these are the leftists,” Eidman says, given that they must know that “in Putin’s Russia rule all that the German leftists are struggling against in Germany and on a bestial scale: social inequality and the violation of labor rights, corruption and arbitrariness of the police, pollution by corporations and the seizure of free urban spaces, racism and homophobia, sexism and clericalism, an imperial foreign policy and militarism.”
- A second category of “’Putin’s helpers’” are pragmatic businessmen, he continues. Their attitudes are not that surprising given that Lenin reminded the world that capitalists will always be ready to sell the rope that will hang them. Now, tragically, some business types are “prepared to sell Putin the rope he hopes to use to hang European democracy.” When they oppose sanctions, these business people think that “they are simply defending the interests of German business. In reality, however, they are helping the Putin regime to stabilize the economic situation and to find the resources for expansionist activities in the international arena, for an ideological and information attack on democracy in Europe.”
- The most active “friends of Putin” in Germany are “those who participate in projects paid for by Moscow” and thus do so for selfish interests. “The Russian authorities are buying up wholesale and retail German politicians, journalists and ‘experts.’ By corrupting the German elite, the Kremlin not only achieves loyalty to its policies but also changes Germany and destroys its democratic and law-based state.”
- But in Germany there are many who support Putin because they share his views, Eidman says. These include in the first instance the far right. They would like their country to become like Russia today, and they often chant that “Merkel should be sent to Siberia, and Putin summoned to Berlin.” They and Moscow have been especially energized by the migrant crisis.
