Berlin
Erich Vad was a general and sat in the chancellery. In the Ukraine war he drifted away. Drop Height: Large. The tragedy of self-denial.
The next mark: a million signatures. Then “Manifesto for Peace” would be the one most signed petition. It’s doable, no question. After all, after just over a month, it has already been signed 757,107 times.
The acceptance is also due to a man who is not a pacifist, but a military man and for this very reason warns against the logic of war: Brigadier General a. D Erich Emmerich Hugo Vad, a consultant who was once valued in the highest circles. They called him “Merkel’s General”.
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You have to talk about the man in the past tense now. Because for the general public, Vad is just a soldier on the wrong path. His assessments of the Ukraine war, Russia and Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin turned out to be wrong with disturbing regularity.
Merkel’s General: No more interviews, no appearances with Wagenknecht
The more he fought for his reputation, the more Vad drifted. Until he was last seen on the political fringes: on a stage, literally on January 25th in Berlin, with Sahra Wagenknecht, Oskar Lafontaine and Alice Schwarzer. At the Manifesto for Peace rally.
Vad wants that hatred and malicewhich he subsequently experienced no longer answer. He just categorically announced in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung: “This is my last interview. It’s over.” A measure for self protection.
Although: There may still be an exception for “Emma”, Schwarzer’s legendary women’s magazine. According to his own words, Vad only went into trouble with Wagenknecht because of black people. “I made this for Alice”, he said in what he declared to be his last interview. “Out of gratitude for giving me the opportunity to present my thoughts on the arms shipments in ‘Emma’.”
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Actually, Vad represented one balanced position. He was not fundamentally opposed to arms sales to Ukraine; he probably wanted to connect them with a political plan. With this view, for example, he would have been able to win a majority in the chancellor party SPD for months.
But his credibility has been shaken, his Expertise is questionedbecause Vad, with the steadfastness of a wrong-way driver, was always wrong:
- After the invasion of Ukraine there were only a few days;
- and prophesied the encirclement of Kiev;;
- or saw the supremacy of the air with the Russians;
- and initially considered military aid to be superfluous (“no longer any use”), later heavy weapons for the “path to the Third World War”;
- He saw Russia taking over the Donbas on a broad front shortly before the Russians had to withdraw.
- About Odessa, he believed, “the city will also be taken shortly”.
He made many of these assessments on television. They are well documented in sound and image. The more off he was, the more often he got in Talk-Shows invited; a shrill voice arouses curiosity. But also: rejection, “The accusation that I had no idea hit me hard,” he confessed, probably thinking last but not least of the Bundeswehr.
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Vad behaved like a man who gambled all his money away at the casino. Only in his case the currency was his reputation. The next time he played for even higher stakes to make up for his losses in one fell swoop. Hardly was one misjudgment faded away, he came up trumps with the next. The more, the more in vain he fought against his loss of meaning, the more tragic the process of self-dwarfing became.
Die drop height was too enormous. After all, Vad had not only been a company commander, but at the peak of his prestige he was Chancellor Angela Merkel’s military adviser.
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Vad formulated too carelessly and also the public pressure to conform underestimated. Even a cautious and experienced ex-diplomat like Wolfgang Ischinger felt when he called for peace negotiations to be prepared in an article for the “Tagesspiegel”. He promptly had to make it clear, “Of course, Ukraine shouldn’t be pressured into negotiations.” One must prepare for possible diplomatic options.
Ischinger was misunderstood, but could let criticism roll off him more easily than Vad. Ischinger had not changed from the General as Putin understander embarrassed and, above all, did not make common cause with Wagenknecht and Schwarzer and signed their manifesto.
Are there bans on thinking in the discussion?
There tends to be one in Germany sounding board for the demand for more diplomacy. So it wouldn’t be a surprise if a million people actually signed the Manifesto for Peace in the near future.
Vad has long been contrite. The NZZ told the military that he would no longer appear on stage with Wagenknecht. She is one of the people in Germany who are “Think Bans” benefits that exist in the debate about the war. “We have to be careful there.” The rest is silence.
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