Don’t be fooled: Germany’s U-turn on sending tanks to Ukraine is a reluctant one | Jan-Philipp Hein

The invasion of Ukraine has shaken Germany out of its decades-long commitment to pacifism

If the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, chose to upgrade Germany's military assistance to Ukraine this week, it was only as a result of the extreme amount of pressure that had been building up in recent days.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has thrust upon Germany the necessity of some serious self-analysis. It has shattered many certainties, including even that most iron-clad tenet of postwar German history, which maintained that no conflict could ever be resolved militarily. Germany's famous creed Wandel durch Handel", change through trade, was directly derived from this thinking that had permeated virtually every part of its society.