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Green Pacifism Goes to War

Germany’s antiwar Greens, now in government, are leading the country into growing resistance against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imperialism. Owing to the party's rapid evolution, the German government is finally sending heavy weapons to Ukraine.

HAMBURG – Germany is emerging from Dreamland, and the Green Party, a most unlikely avatar of realism, is leading the way. Forty years ago, the Greens arose out of nowhere with a hard-core ideology: no American nukes, no nuclear energy, no use of force. Call it “ecopacifism” or “peace über alles.”

Back in the 1980s, they mobilized millions against the deployment of medium-range missiles by the United States and blocked civilian nuclear sites. But where you stand depends on where you sit. Today, the Greens are a pillar of Germany’s three-party coalition government. Their co-leaders, Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, are, respectively, foreign minister and economics minister.

Like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, the Greens once believed in many impossible things before breakfast. So did most Germans. The country would get plentiful cheap gas from Russia, safely switch off its last three nuclear power plants by the end of 2022, and replace oil and coal with sun and wind.

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