What's the Relationship Status of Germany and Russia? It's Complicated | Opinion

What is the relationship status of Germany and Russia? It's complicated, and that is an understatement.

The two nations famously fought each other to the death before partnering up and seeking friendly relations, only to turn on each other again. Over the past 100 years, there have been several such cycles, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. While I was growing up in Berlin during the final years of the Cold War, Germany and Russia were at the beginning of a decades-long warming of relations.

Few outside these two countries have fully appreciated the breadth and depth of the historical and cultural connective tissue formed between Germany and Russia over the past 40 years. None of us knew then the impact this would have on world events in 2022.

Contrary to the widely reported narrative, I am actually not referring to oil, gas, and energy policy or the countries' vast business relationships. I am talking about the deeply personal and cultural ties between these two nations that significantly impacted then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's reaction to Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014; and, the actions taken, and not taken, by the German government, now led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Did you know that for a significant percentage of Germans, it is Russian (not English, French, Spanish or Italian) that is the only foreign language they ever learned in school? This includes former Chancellor Merkel, who is near-native-level fluent in Russian. And, interestingly, President Vladimir Putin speaks fluent German, owing this to his years serving as a KGB officer in East Germany.

Most Americans are not aware that there are also more than 3 million Russians living in Germany today, making up the third largest group of immigrants to the country. The majority of these Russians who arrived in Germany in the last 40 years are highly educated and have integrated well into German society. They play major roles in Germany's many cultural institutions and universities. I remember my parents meeting and becoming close with several Russian scientists and artists while I was growing up in Berlin.

Earlier this year, it was reported in the German media that one of President Putin's daughters, Katerina Tikhonova, has visited Germany at least 20 times since 2015, to visit a Russian boyfriend who led the Bavarian State Ballet until this past April. Although she was accompanied by armed bodyguards from the Russian Presidential Regiment, German authorities allegedly were not aware of these trips.

It is also widely known that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder considers himself a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has served on the boards of directors of several large Russian corporations, and became the head of Nord Stream AG, the company that built the controversial Russian-German gas pipeline, soon after leaving his post in the chancellery.

However, what is less known is that former Chancellor Schröder, now 78, adopted a girl and a boy from Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg while in his 60s. Imagine a former president of the United States adopting two children from a foreign country with which we used to be at war—the ties that bind.

While current Chancellor Scholz has gone out of his way to distance himself from Schröder of late, they still both are members of the same political party, have known each other well for decades, and are the only two members of their party to have gone on to occupy the German chancellery in the past 40 years—again, ties that bind.

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the following weeks there were widespread media reports about the German government reversing course on its Russia policy (the "Zeitenwende") and promising to send significant military aid to Ukraine. Over the past seven months, however, very little of the promised weapons and equipment have actually arrived.

As a German American, I have been embarrassed by the almost farcical excuses the German government has used to explain delay after delay in sending heavy military equipment to Ukraine. They got off on the wrong foot when they offered to send 5,000 helmets in January, ahead of Russia's invasion in February, a move that was widely ridiculed. Later, the German government rolled out a convoluted scheme that would have allied neighboring countries sending old German-made battle tanks to Ukraine, with the equipment then backfilled by German manufacturers. Some of these agreements would take months to negotiate, some are yet to be finalized.

At this point, seven months after the invasion started, 30 German anti-aircraft tanks have made it to Ukraine alongside three multiple rocket launchers, 2,000 howitzers (a type of long-range artillery) and a variety of lighter weapons. When putting its military aid in context to its large economic output, this makes Germany number 18 in the world in terms of its military support for Ukraine.

To be sure, Germany's military has been chronically underfunded, and its military stockpiles have been depleted for a long time, but the extremely sluggish pace of Germany making good on its commitment to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine has become hard to explain.

That is, unless it is put in the context of Germany also attempting to preserve its longstanding ties to Russia.

I join President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people in the fervent hope that the German government will quickly find the courage to live up to its public commitments and begin to genuinely and forcefully stand up for what is right and just—a free and democratic Ukraine.

Come what may. It's really not that complicated.

Michael Marquardt, who was born and raised in Berlin, Germany, is a global advisor to corporations around the world. He emigrated to the United States in 1991, a year and a half after witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.