A survey (external link) of the Bundeswehr, 58 percent of Germans perceive the tensions between Russia and the West as a threat to their personal security. And almost two thirds of those surveyed in the latest ARD-DeutschlandTrend expressed fear that other countries could attack the EU. There are more and more conflicts around the world and people long for peace – but how realistic is that? And how do people in Bavaria currently feel about the situation?
“You will experience a life without war”
“I’m definitely worried,” says Kaya Sommerfeld from Nuremberg about the current developments, also because she has a small child. Gisela Schönwetter from Landsberg am Lech shares this opinion. She said in a Munich Round survey that she could still remember her parents saying: “You'll have a great time, you'll experience a life without war!” But this hope currently seems to have receded into the distant future. There are currently 59 armed conflicts worldwide, which is the highest number since the end of the Second World War.
Käßmann would like more energy to go into the ceasefire
In view of these developments, the theologian Margot Käßmann regrets that the peace movement, to which she feels she belongs, has fallen into disrepute. People are constantly being pushed to the margins in the direction of the AfD and BSW, she says in the Munich round on BR television. She clearly distances herself from both parties; She hopes for impulses from politics: “I would like to see more energy put into a ceasefire.”
“I hope that the war will be over next year, in Ukraine and Syria,” says Ella Fengel in the Munich Round poll. Gerhard Zagelbaum is certain that there will be a separation between western and eastern Ukraine and wonders whether “this could not have been done at the beginning of the war”. An assessment that he does not share with the peace-loving theologian Käßmann, but she also says with resignation: “Weapons deliveries for almost three years have not made much progress.”
“It was a mistake to say that the Ukraine conflict would be over quickly”
“It was a mistake for many Ukraine supporters to tell the Ukrainians at the beginning of the war that it would be over very quickly,” criticizes security expert Prof. Peter R. Neumann from King's College in London. In his opinion, one should not hope for an early peace solution. The concerns of the Bavarian population are not unjustified either – Neumann says he believes it is leading to a situation in which the conflict is “frozen” – comparable to the situation in North and South Korea. This is not positive, but it is a “real political assessment” and also the wish of the future US President Donald Trump.
Cautious optimism
However, an assessment by the security expert could make the citizens in Bavaria's pedestrian zones at least a little more optimistic: Neumann says he does not believe that a new conflict is imminent in Europe, because the Russian economy needs a breathing space: “I believe that the country quite a groan.”
The expert also sees Assad's fall in Syria as a sign of Putin's weakness. The case is a sign that at some point Russia is not the world power it claims to be and that it is not possible for Russia to fight on three fronts at the same time. Even if this does not immediately mean peace in this crisis-ridden time, it at least offers some hope.
