Markus Lanz talks to his guests about arms deliveries to Ukraine, the assassination attempt on Darja Dugina and communication in the Chancellery.
Hamburg – “A film has to start with an earthquake and then slowly increase,” said producer Samuel Goldwyn (August 17, 1879 in Warsaw – January 31, 1974 in Los Angeles), one of the last real Hollywood tycoons, who left the film studios United Artists and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to their glory. This approach, which “Stern” founder Henri Nannen (December 25, 1913 in Emden – October 13, 1996 in Hanover) adopted as a journalistic guiding principle, would also be desirable for a TV talk show. Well, the earthquake didn’t show up on Markus Lanz’s show on ZDF late Tuesday evening (August 23). And this despite the fact that Gregor Peter Schmitz, the new editor-in-chief of Stern, is also involved. Nevertheless, after a tough start, the political chat increases tremendously, especially in the last third.
Four faces that are not well known on TV are guests at Markus Lanz this time: In addition to Gregor Peter Schmitz, the publicist who was still working for the “Augsburger Allgemeine” in the “Editor-in-Chief” category in 2018 and 2019 in the “Journalist of the Year” election or second place and even won in 2020, also Eastern Europe expert Margarete Klein, investigative journalist Mariam Noori and SPD politician Michael Roth. The latter would like to lure Markus Lanz out of the reserve with questions about party member and Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag is known for striking statements. We remember his sentence, “We live in a shitty world”, which was almost astounding in its directness, which he underlined in his “Apologies” on Twitter: “To all parents and grandparents: I regret the choice of words, but it’s still true.”
ZDF Talk Markus Lanz: Corona, Cum-Ex Committee and the war in Ukraine
Michael Roth withstands Markus Lanz’s attacking tactics in an almost Scholzian way: when asked about “not wearing masks” on the government plane to Canada, he answers the question “why is a top politician allowed to do more than everyone else?” Line aircraft”, in addition to which the Chancellor and Co. had previously undergone a negative PCR test, which would reduce the risk of corona infection to a minimum. Even with Scholz’s, to put it mildly, opaque role in Hamburg’s “Cum-Ex” committee (“What memory gaps are you talking about now?”), he keeps himself as covered as he can. This prompted Gregor Peter Schmitz to make the sardonic remark: “That goes well with communication in the Chancellery: something always goes wrong.”
But then Michael Roth switches to the rhetorical offensive when it comes to German arms deliveries to the Ukraine. It is in Germany’s interest that Ukraine wins. This means that they can recapture the Russian-occupied territories. “Only when Putin feels that he cannot win the war” would his government be ready for serious negotiations. The delivery of modern weapons will end the war faster. He says of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “We have to exude self-confidence. He smells our fear. He knows how sensitive democracies are.” We have heard all of this from Markus Lanz countless times before. So nothing new in the west.
The guests at Markus Lanz
| Gregory Peter Schmitz | journalist |
| Eastern Europe expert Margarete Klein | political scientist |
| Journalist Mariam Noori | journalist |
| Michael Roth | Politician |
ZDF Talk Markus Lanz: Political scientist Margarete Klein warns of “hybrid war of disinformation”
Nonetheless, political scientist Margarete Klein agrees: With the limited equipment currently available, Ukraine can wage a battle of attrition against the Russian attackers, but cannot yet launch a successful counteroffensive. The Eastern Europe expert from the “Foundation for Science and Politics”, which is financed primarily from federal funds, emphasizes that it is important to give Ukraine a long-term perspective. She warns of the “second, hybrid war of disinformation” that Russian propaganda has been waging against Western states for a long time and will certainly expand in the future.
Here, too, Michael Roth agrees: “It can be a pretty hot autumn.” Anyway, but it’s about social peace.” Moderator Markus Lanz fears that the “hard-working middle class”, who earn too much to fall under tax relief measures, could now also get into debt. Margarete Klein agrees: Russian propaganda is aimed right at the middle of society. That is why securing social cohesion is the upcoming “mammoth task for politics”.
ZDF Talk Markus Lanz: Who was the assassination attempt on Darja Dugina?
She dares to doubt whether the deadly attack by the Russian warmonger Darja Dugina, daughter of the right-wing extremist Alexander Durgin, was actually aimed at her a few days ago. Even if she herself had called for “murdering and killing”, it is likely that “people” would rather get rid of her father with his “neo-Eurasian fantasies” of a Russian empire that is supposed to reach “from Vladivostok to Portugal”. wanted to. She dares to doubt that Ukrainian agents are behind the crime, like an allegedly suspicious woman who could have left Russia “incredibly” quickly, but whose picture was “photoshopped”. However, one cannot say with 100 percent certainty that the Russian domestic secret service FSB itself would have killed Darya Dugina, who might have become uncomfortable with Vladimir Putin, who was even more moderate towards her: “We simply know far too little about it.”
Markus Lanz: “Can weapons seriously be a good answer to bring peace to a country?”
Mariam Noori sees things differently. The 33-year-old investigative journalist of the NDR format STRG_F, who boarded the plane from Kabul to Kyiv with her parents (the father is Afghan, the mother Ukrainian) in 1995 thanks to the visa she had bought and later grew up in Hamburg, feels a “certain humility before the war”. “Can weapons seriously be a good answer to bring peace to a country?” Markus Lanz wants to know. “Personally, I can’t advocate for more guns, more pressure,” is her reply. She is not a NATO strategist, but knows that the Taliban in her home country of Afghanistan are “a product of the war and American arms deliveries”: “Weapons that were later used against America.” Markus Lanz, the moderator with his own, agrees Opinion, with: “At some point you look down the barrel of the gun that you delivered yesterday.”
“Exactly,” says Mariam Noori. After around 40 years of war, it can now be seen how “the war on terror has not only led to more terror” but even brought a terrorist organization, namely the Taliban, back to power. What she reports from one of the poorest countries in the world makes you think. People would offer their children or their organs for sale on the street. She experienced this herself when a beggar woman offered her her own seven-month-old baby girl for $500. Despite all the contradictions and the curtailment of women’s rights, Mariam Noori advises finding a “constructive level of communication” with the Taliban. If they receive money from the West, they are willing to make concessions. However, it is doubtful whether this is the right solution. “It remains complicated,” agrees Markus Lanz. Or to revisit the drastic quote from Michael Roth, who classifies the Taliban rule, which has women stoned and dogs killed, as a “kleptocratic-corrupt regime”; “We live in a shitty world.” (Marc Hairapetian)
