Vadym Zaidman: it is quite difficult to move German public opinion

Is there a post-Soviet community in Germany and how high is the heat of passion in it? What is happening in German domestic politics - and why are the Germans not ready to perceive the situation in Eastern Europe as a war? Where do the roots of AdH grow from? Is it difficult to publish an emigrant newspaper in Germany?

About this and many other things - in a conversation with a well-known publicist, editor of one of the oldest emigration newspapers - Nuremberg "Rubezh", our compatriot Vadym Zaidman. A short version of this interview was published in Business Capital.

- Vadim, in your opinion, what is happening today in the Olympics of German politics - will there be a transition of power from Angela Merkel to one of her party successors, or is it just a game with expectations, and the chancellor intends to rule the entire cycle allotted by the electoral calendar?

- If nothing extraordinary happens, Merkel will most likely be chancellor until the end of her term in the 21st year. And, in principle, there is no game here: she was not going to leave the galleys ahead of time. On October 29 of last year, after the results of regional elections in two key states of Germany, Bavaria and Hesse, failed for the ruling coalition (CDU and SPD), she clearly stated that she would not run for the CDU leader in December (2018). and in 2021, when her term as chancellor ends, she will not apply for a new term. So for now everything is going according to plan. The CDU party has a new chairman, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (she holds the position of Minister of Defense in the government), Angela Merkel is finalizing her tenure.

 - What, according to your observations, is the "Alternative for Germany"? Can it be called a pro-Russian party, or is it a political product of local production?

- Maxim, why do you oppose one thing to another and put the separating conjunction "or"? As if a locally produced product cannot sympathize with Putin, be pro-Russian?

A little distracted from your question about a specific AdH party. Look around, assess the political landscape: who today sympathizes with Putin! And the left, and the right, and the social democrats! And this applies not only to Germany. Far-right Freedom Party in Austria, French "National Union" of Marine Le Pen. During the last presidential elections in France in 2017, she, like a tame squirrel, fed directly from Putin's hand! However, that is why there is no reason to be dissatisfied now - for some time now, Macron has also become Putin's lobbyist! And the American president is the world's biggest ego supporter! But this does not mean that they are not all local spills (except, apparently, Donald Trump, who won the election with the help of Russia).

Returning to AdH. Their success, entry into the Bundestag (12,6%, third place) according to the results of the 2017 parliamentary elections, they owe, oddly enough, not to Putin, but to Merkel. This was a protest vote against Frau Chancellor, who has been annoying citizens for 12 years already (the same protest vote as this year in Ukraine; Zelensky owes his success primarily to Poroshenko's failed, in the opinion of many, government), against, first of all, her migration policy, because of the increase in crime - and also because of the unspoken taboo on these topics of concern to society during the election campaign.

As for the pro-Russian orientation of AdH, of course, they - the party and Putin - happily found each other. And the point here is not in direct financing, or rather, not only in it. I think that Russia helped this party here in terms of recruiting a layer of Russian-speaking members: after being fed the propaganda from Putin's bombshell, these people saw in AdG a party that is kindred in spirit. Putin's appeal happened in AdH. The party now has both the intra-party association "Germans in AdH" and "Jews in AdH" - this is in a party repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism! As many believe, the association "Jews in AdH" was created for the sole purpose of refuting this opinion.

That's what the party has to do with the Kremlin сказал the well-known German journalist Boris Reitschuster, who worked in Moscow for 20 years as the head of the magazine's office Focus, he speaks Russian perfectly: "This party is very pro-Putin. There are very close ties with the Kremlin, their youth organization cooperates with the youth organization "United Russia", the German party is an ardent supporter of the lifting of sanctions. The most suspicious fact is that they have million budgets, but no one knows where this money comes from. Another fact: their leader Alexander Gaulyand went to Russia at the invitation of the Orthodox oligarch Malofeev and met with Dugin. The person who works with him told me that Gaulyand returned from Moscow as a second person, completely pro-Putin."

In general, in my opinion, Europe and the USA completely underestimate the danger of Putin's propaganda, the saturation of Europe and America with agents of influence. According to today's estimates, there are already more of these agents here than there were under Stalin. But the main danger, in my opinion, is not even in direct spies or agents of influence sent here, but in millions of our former compatriots brainwashed by zombie fighters. Which one way or another slowly but surely influence the local society, poisoning it with their views.

- Are there any significant differences in the conditional "post-Soviet" community of Germany in relation to the Ukrainian issue, the Russian-Ukrainian war, reactions to the Kremlin's propaganda, assessment of the role of Berlin in the events and processes on the eastern edge of Europe? Or does the post-Soviet community not exist as a single whole?

- Of course, there is no post-Soviet community as a whole in Germany. And this is caused by objective circumstances. If we take life in general, without the current political component, then this is explained by the individualistic nature of the capitalist West in contrast to the collectivist "spiritual" socialist society in which we were born and lived most of our lives. Although socialism in Germany - in the sense of social protection of people - is incomparably more than in the USSR, and than in today's Russia or Ukraine. But, in general, everyone is busy with themselves, closed in on themselves, young people are making a career, earning money. The young generation, in general, is more likely to identify itself with the German community, rather than the Russian-speaking community. It's even better if they can speak Russian - almost no one can write or read, and I think this is very bad. This is the omission of parents, which is a crime against their children. I will explain. We spend huge efforts, years, to learn any language: English, French, the same German. And here children lose the free language that they mastered at birth, and it was necessary to make only a small effort to preserve it. Knowing another language is not superfluous at all, every language enriches a person, no matter how banal it sounds.

Of course, there are differences in relation to Russian aggression against Ukraine, they are radically opposite, but the rift is not between immigrants from Ukraine or Russia, as one might think, but within each of these communities. It depends on the education of a person, the ability to think and analyze information, and just basic decency (it would seem so simple: there is an aggressor and there is a victim of aggression, the same decency and conscientiousness are needed to decide whose side to be on). But if we take the average citizen, the majority of whom does not bother himself much with thinking and analysis, and increasingly - according to the Soviet tradition - is used to trusting the printed/television word, then the divide occurs between the topics of who watches Russian television and who does not . Everything is quite simple.

Moreover, according to my subjective estimates, there are even more people from Ukraine, supporters of Putin, than there are supporters of Putin, people from Russia. And more. If in Russia itself over these five years there has been some sobering up, both in relation to Putin as a whole, and - to a lesser extent, apparently - in relation to the assessment of the annexation of Crimea, then here, in Germany, the fate of Putin's supporters in general and in connection with the "return Crimea to its home port" and its aggression against Ukraine almost did not decrease. Although, it would seem, one could expect a decrease in the ego of supporters as the number of crimes committed by them increases. This seemingly paradoxical moment is explained quite simply. Over the past five years, residents of Russia have felt the deterioration of their lives. The local emigration, of course, cannot feel this for itself, it lives quite comfortably in fed-up Germany, and everything about the situation in Russia is judged by the same Russian television, which tells how everything is wonderful in Russia. And Putin's multiple crimes are not articulated by such Russian TV - on the contrary, they are announced as his achievements and victories. It's hard to believe, but here there is a large layer of people - mostly, of course, the elderly - who do not look at anything other than zombies, who have no other source of information. I know such comrades who are still convinced that in Slavyansk in 2014 "Ukrobanderov" crucified a 6-year-old boy.

- Is the activity of the Russian and Ukrainian diplomatic missions in Germany noticeable, and if so, how? Are there any events in Nuremberg?

- Here I can share my personal experience.

In July of last year, I received a call from the Ukrainian consulate in Munich and said that consul Yury Yarmilko would be in Nuremberg on business the next day and would like to meet with me, among other things. The next day we met. It turned out that Yury Anatolyevich regularly reads ours the newspaper - he takes it in one of the Russian shops in Munich, where it is sold. They talked. We even agreed on a column in the newspaper "Ask a question to the consul!". After all, there are many topical consular questions, a great opportunity to ask questions to the consul through the newspaper so that everyone can read the answers. Unfortunately, the readers did not show activity: the case ended with one of my questions - for starters - vopros. And the events - yes, they take place, their plan is always on the website of the consulate.

As for the Russian diplomatic mission, it is a somewhat different story. Two years ago, I received from the Russian Embassy in Berlin an E-mail, in which they asked to send several recent issues of our newspaper for review. I don't know whether they sent such e-mails to all "Russian" publications, or whether they were personally interested in our newspaper. In response, I politely thanked them for their interest in our publication, but explained that I am a citizen of Ukraine, against which Russia is waging war, and therefore I do not consider it possible to communicate and cooperate with them in any form. And if they really want to get to know our newspaper, they can do it by visiting our website. True, then some people told me that they should not have answered at all.

Well, and also, for relief, I can tell such a story. Hochmu

The September 2014 issue of our newspaper came out with a collage: Putin in the form of Hitler with a swastika on his sleeve and a hand raised in a Nazi salute against the background of Ukraine. And it is right on the 1st page, on the top of the newspaper. September 2014, if you remember, this is the most critical time, when "humanitarian" convoys went from Russia to the east of Ukraine one after another, when large forces of the Russian army gathered on the border from the Rostov side and there was a real danger of a full-scale invasion of the Russian Wehrmacht into Ukraine.

The exploding brain of agents of Rossotrudnichestva, edition of the newspaper "Rubezh", 2014

In Nuremberg, our newspaper is free, we deliver it to many "Russian points" - shops, tourist offices, schools, etc. Including one Russian-German cultural center. Which is under the auspices - I don't know, formal or informal - of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. And just when this issue came out, with Putin with a swastika and a Nazi salute, and when these newspapers were lying in stacks in the cultural center on a shelf at the very entrance, some representatives from the Munich consulate went there. And the first thing they saw was Putin with his hand raised in a Nazi salute. What happened next, I leave it to the readers themselves to guess, I will only say that the director of the center very politely asked us not to take the newspaper to their center anymore.

- Is it possible to say that "Russian Germany" lives in its own world (I personally sometimes get such an impression)? Is it difficult to publish an "emigrant newspaper" in Germany?

- I already talked a little about this when answering the question about the "post-Soviet community" as a whole. The young generation is completely adapted to German life and lives in the world in German. And he knows as much about the events of his former family as it is covered by the German mass media. The middle generation is different. Who has mastered the language, who works - he is already more of a "German", and who speaks German no matter what, who is eternal and even a professional social worker - there are also many of them - of course, they live more with nostalgia for the old life, which is in an amazing refraction Their memories suddenly turned out to be so wonderful! - Our Soviet life. Well, the older generation, of course, lives almost entirely - not even in their own world - but in the past.

As for the publication of the newspaper. A painful question for me.

Our newspaper is free (only a small part of its circulation goes to press shops in German cities and to subscribers), lives only on advertising. If we had a "yellow" newspaper or just an advertising leaflet, of which there are dozens in Germany, it would probably be easier to get advertising in it. But it is very difficult to get advertising for such a serious newspaper as ours. In general, it has never been profitable, you are happy when it does not turn out to be a loss. I often have to subsidize it from the income of my travel agency, on which, in fact, I live.

Nevertheless, I am somewhat proud that our newspaper has existed for 15 years (it will be completed in December) without a penny of sponsorship (although, of course, we would not refuse such support). 15 years is quite a long time for an emigrant independent newspaper. It is possible that for a newspaper that has no external sources of funding, this is even a record (it would be necessary to make a request to the Guinness Book of Records). For example, the newspaper "New American", whose editor-in-chief was Sergey Dovlatov, lasted only two years - from 1980 to 1982. And then, when the businessman who financed it, thought about financing it, its employees did not want to work for the idea without receiving a salary , - and the newspaper closed.

And in recent years, with the sharp polarization after the "Crimean" society, the situation has greatly worsened. We have lost some of the advertisers who are dissatisfied with our position, and, what is even worse, even some of the tourists who used to go to the sea with our travel agency, but now, due to the ideological separation, do not go.

- What, in your opinion, is the reason that a noticeable part of the post-Soviet emigration in Europe and the USA in recent years began to adhere to some extreme views?

- You know, there has always been a distinction between, relatively speaking, Putin's fans and those whom he dislikes. Broadly speaking, this is a demarcation between subjects who, having come to the West, are nostalgic for their past life, and subjects who are trying to integrate into the new reality. In general, it’s amazing: a huge layer of people who see with their own eyes the standard of living not even of the rich – but of ordinary workers, their social protection, sees what freedoms there are – and still continue to be nostalgic for the “scoop” and seriously prove that in the Soviet era everything was better. I remind such figures of my favorite episode from the film "Window to Paris", when an emigrant with experience cries to the main character that he, who has already visited all continents, was more spiritual and happier in his native smelly St. Petersburg communal house, and that he is ready for all the benefits that now he has, I will give for her, my dear and smelly... And the main character, without thinking for a long time, blindfolds him and transports him through the window to Peter, straight to the foot of the stone statue with his hand pointing out into the bright distance...

It is natural that all these nostalgic comrades liked Putin from the very beginning, who turned the development of Russia back to the past, dear to their hearts, but with the beginning of Putin's aggression against Ukraine, it is natural that the polarization between Putin's fans and his opponents intensified. I even know one native of Russia who regularly subscribed to our newspaper until 2014 (he lives in Munich), was almost a fan of it, but after Krymnash, disagreeing with us in his assessment of Putin's aggression, he stopped writing it.

- What, in your opinion, should be done - or changed - in Ukraine in order for German public opinion to be somehow more favorable to the Ukrainian cause?

- Well, first of all, Ukraine itself needs to call a spade a spade. Back in Poroshenko's time, I wrote that the West, including Germany, cannot be demanded to hate the aggressor more than the victim of the aggression hates it. That if Ukraine itself does not call the war a war - with all the ensuing consequences for the aggressor - then it is thus playing catch-up with Putin, who claims that there is no war and that this is an internal civil conflict. Well, now, under President Zelensky, this is just some kind of disaster: if the authorities of Ukraine are ready to capitulate to the aggressor, then why should the West extend sanctions against the aggressor and introduce new ones? Of course, against this background, the West, which is also tired of this whole history, will cancel the sanctions and return Russia to international organizations - it has already returned to the PACE.

But, I must say that even if there were no such capitulating tendencies in the politics of the current Ukrainian leadership, it is quite difficult to move German public opinion. This is the established opinion, at best, that both sides are to blame, and both sides should compromise and "stop shooting." Their heads simply cannot accommodate the simple fact that Putin is absolute evil, a bloody monster, that he unleashed this war with his will and unlimited power. This cannot be the case in the 21st century - thinks a German citizen - so that Ukraine is not at all to blame!

It does not fit in the brains of a German burgher that the president of Russia can lie incessantly, that white speaks for black, he does not understand that his television can lie incessantly and consciously. If they say on TV that a junta has come to power in Kyiv, but there are no Russian military in Ukraine, it cannot be that it was a hundred percent lie! The brains of the Western commoner, who was not born and did not live under socialism, are nevertheless arranged in a different way and cannot accommodate all this Kafkaesque world that has become a bygone era. And then there are also the local Russian-speaking people, of whom I said above that there are millions of them, and that they are worse than spies, because they are clients of the zombies, they live all over Germany among the burghers, and when asked their opinion about what is happening, they confirm: yes, it is true , - the junta!

Vadym Zaidman, Boris Reitschuster and Israel Zaidman read the newspaper "Rubezh", Munich, 2007.

Again I will refer to view Boris Reitschuster's opinion, so to speak, from first-hand – German – hands:

"Correspondents in Moscow - they see everything that is happening. I was just talking to my colleagues - they are horrified at what is happening there. And in the editorial offices in Germany, they don’t believe: yes, no, you exaggerate, well, what are you, it can’t be... And often colleagues are not even allowed to use some terms - they don’t want to be told that it’s a war, they don’t want to be told that it’s a war Russian troops, the word "separatists" should be used. And this is not only a crisis in Russia, it is also a crisis in our system. If we had such media in the 60s, the Berlin Wall would go down in history not as the Berlin Wall, but as the Anti-Fascist Shield, as it was called in the GDR.

In Germany, this is such a deep displacement... They live in their dollhouses, they are afraid to call this war a war. What war? - Everything is fine. Well, something happened somewhere... When I tell them that Putin resorts to violence - no... Our main news agency that forms opinion - dpa - they had an article a few days ago. It says that Moscow is outraged by the fact that America and Ukraine are committing an act of violence, they are sending military advisers there, and Moscow insists that everything should be done peacefully. A completely upside down picture. Evil Ukrainians and Americans. Putin attacks a neighbor, and they, unfortunately, resist! It is simply incomprehensible to the mind, sometimes I think - am I dreaming, am I reading this?

I always said: show at least one hour or at least 15 minutes of Russian broadcast with simultaneous translation - you will understand a lot."

Here's another ego article in the same topic, and more article, whose name alone speaks for itself: "19 reasons why Putin is so popular with many Germans".

If this is what the elite, journalists, who should understand and understand the essence of what is happening, and explain the situation to ordinary citizens, then what does it say about the millions of these citizens who make up the public opinion of Germany?

In general, a depressing picture... Even a hopeless one. And if the light at the end of the tunnel is visible, it is only from one specific place, as Igor Guberman said with his characteristic immediacy:

Today sees better or worse

Every observant Emelya.

Clearly visible f**k - Who outside.

А who in the same - light в the end of the tunnel.

talked Maxim Mikhailenko