A damaged Federal President in Kyiv - time to talk about German errors

He succeeded in this coup. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was criticized this week and last for canceling his trip to Kyiv with reference to the uncertain situation and also for not being in the Paulskirche on Sunday, where the Ukrainian writer Serhij Zhadan presented the Peace Prize of the German book trade, Steinmeier surprisingly went to the Ukraine after all.

The journey is right – just like its timing. At the very moment when the entire country is repeatedly suffering from air raids, sitting in the dark, freezing and there is no telling when and how this war will end, it is appropriate for the German head of state to send a sign of solidarity.

Since Theodor Heuss, the Federal President is said to be, as Heuss himself put it, a "professional, if admittedly unconscious, major purveyor of golden words". He should radiate an informal dignity and - as ex-Federal President Joachim Gauck was able to do - transform ideas into feelings and make his appearances in large and small formats into empathetic audience experiences. All of this is not given to Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

In addition, he stands for a Russia policy that has achieved exactly the opposite of what was desired under false premises and hollow détente policy phrases: the Ostpolitik of the Schröder-Steinmeier-Merkel-Altmaier-Söder era has less security, not more security conducted in Europe. To put it mildly.

In short, a thoroughly imperfect, politically damaged Federal President is coming to Kyiv. But that doesn't have to be harmful. Steinmeier, with whom one always hears more minor than major, could use his visit to clearly identify the mistakes in German Ostpolitik. But not in the usual contrition of German politicians, who like to apologize for past crimes as if they had stepped on a neighbor's foot on the tram.

Steinmeier should talk about the errors in detail and honestly. It would also be good for him, as the highest representative of German politics, if he - perhaps still in Kyiv - convened an international commission of historians to work through the mistakes of the second phase of Ostpolitik from the 1980s until the beginning of the war this year. In addition to a Ukrainian representative, the Brit Timothy Garton Ash should find a place there, as well as the German historians Heinrich August Winkler and Karl Schlögel and the Polish publicist Adam Krzeminiski.

Precisely because the Federal President is also the highest representative of civil society, he has more – and above all different – ​​freedoms than the federal government. In Kyiv, Steinmeier was to fall back on them.