“Hard but fair” TV column: speed limit against Putin? It’s Plasberg “too banal”

“Have a nice evening,” wishes Frank Plasberg – but no one should really take that seriously in times of war. Of course, “Hart aber fair” concerns, once again, Ukraine. And, as the host puts it, a “hard-to-bear image” that shows Putin with the Easter candle in his hand. “You want to pull a blanket over your head and despair,” he adds. It wouldn’t be very useful for television, of course. Maybe that’s why Frank Plasberg went into utopia. He asked everyone in this ARD Monday discussion how this war might end.

“The war will not end quickly”

Sweet dreams of quick peace destroyed Egon Ramms. The former NATO general is pessimistic: “The war will not end quickly. Marie-Agnès Strack-Zimmermann, Chancellor Scholz’s main critic in the ruling FDP party, said: “There will be only one solution: the military defeat of Putin. is the president of the defense committee, alongside Ukrainian photographer Yevgenia Belorusets: “The aggressor is against any form of peace agreement.

The “Zeit” journalist Michael Thumann is a little more reserved in the turn of the ARD: “This war will end for Putin if he does not move forward. And if he has a result to sell at home.

“My children are watching, all education is in the bucket…”

At best, Jan van Aken finds a language beyond shells and bullets. The man from the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation remembers a simple fact: “Every war ended in negotiations. But he was quickly caught up by the moderator with his request for a speed limit instead of tanks. That is, please, “too banal”.

In general, the former leftist member of the Bundestag is struggling in the group. Strack-Zimmermann kept interrupting her, so often and so stubbornly that Jan van Aken finally called her family: “Mrs. Strack-Zimmermann, my children are watching. For years I raised my kids to let people finish talking, so all the education is in the bucket…”

“Please don’t be naive! »

“I am for diplomacy,” says Strack-Zimmermann. But she adds her qualification in the following sentence: “Putin only understands the plain language of arms. I want this naivety to stop being able to stop a man like Putin with lofty words. Please don’t be naive!”

“Naïve” is the only word that is used often in this ARD discussion. The other is “hypocritical”. Moderator Frank Plasberg came to this verdict rather immoderately. Ex-General Ramms has just announced that the Netherlands wants to deliver heavy howitzers with a range of up to 40 kilometers to Ukraine. The weapons come from German production. Therefore, the federal government must give its consent if the Dutch want to hand over the arms. And with this very special form of ring exchange, Plasberg comes to the conclusion: “That’s hypocritical.”

“We want a win. No peace.”

Pistol fight to the end? Ex-General Ramms probably sees it that way and cites Winston Churchill as a key witness, so to speak, who rejected negotiations with Nazi Germany in 1944: “We want a victory. No peace. From a German point of view, it will be permissible to emphasize one thing: despite all the war crimes that emanated from German soil, despite all the mass murders committed by the Germans, we can be happy and grateful that the world has not changed cemented on the image of opinion of 1945. And that Germany and the Germans were able to reintegrate into the world community after two world wars.