Germany has been criticized by states of the Global South for its recent policies towards Israel like few others. This represents a significant shift away from Germany’s longstanding reputation as a mediator in the Middle East and other war-torn regions, which it acquired not least because of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s categorical refusal to join the United States’ war on Iraq in 2003. The German government has pointed to this reputation in its repeated campaigns for one of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council and its demand, together with other states, for a permanent seat. However, Germany’s restrictive policies on the global distribution of and patent waivers on vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic and its reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine tarnished this image.

Germany’s intervention against South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, its nearly unconditional support of the Netanyahu government’s actions in the Gaza War, and the censorship of criticisms of Israel within Germany have destroyed whatever was left of it. Only the United States and the United Kingdom are viewed with similar ire. Alongside providing political and legal backing, Germany has delivered weapons and other forms of military aid to Israel. According to a report by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs submitted to the Bundestag on January 9, 2024, the German Federal Government approved 326,505,156 euros worth of military exports to Israel in 2023, a tenfold increase over 2022. The majority of weapons sales—185 out of 218—were approved immediately after October 7. While the number of approvals has tapered off since, Chancellor Olaf Scholz publicly announced a new round of weapons deliveries to Israel in the summer of 2024. The actual contents, terms, and execution of each individual deal are not transparent, which makes it difficult for nonprofits and other civil society organizations to contest them—a problem that plagues all weapons exports and not just those to Israel.¹

The objection might be raised that Germany has for decades done business with Russia, China, and Iran while ignoring human rights violations, often justified under the foreign policy maxim “change through trade.” Thus, one might ask whether the German government is behaving much differently in the current situation than it has in comparable situations involving other states in the past. Has the accusation of double standards really only become applicable in discussions of Israel? Or are weapons exports to Israel during the Gaza War just business as usual dressed up in the rhetoric of German Staatsräson?

Germany’s approach to international law has always been shaped by the same considerations and trade-offs as that of other Western states. If Germany enjoyed a better reputation than some of its NATO partners, this was not necessarily due to its own actions. After losing the First World War, the German Empire had to relinquish its colonies. This had at least one advantage for Germany after its defeat in the Second World War. In contrast to the victors France and the United Kingdom along with other European colonial powers like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal, Germany’s lack of colonies meant that during decolonization, it had no opportunity to break the promises made by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Soon after its ratification in December 1948, European states sought to crush the independence of former colonies by committing horrific war crimes in countries like Indonesia, Kenya, Congo, and Algeria, acts that have left a lasting imprint on the moral conscience of the globalized world.

The two German states did not play a significant military or political role in postwar international affairs, and they did not have a part in the notorious crimes against humanity of the 1960s, including the murder of half a million communists in Indonesia and the horrors of the Vietnam War. But things began to shift in the following decade in Latin America. During the Cold War, violent dictatorships like the Pinochet regime in Chile and the military junta in Argentina were allies of the West. The United States more or less openly backed the dictators through military aid and the CIA. After the workers’ movements in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina were destroyed, West Germany sought to expand its trade relations with these countries. German corporations collaborated with the dictatorships: VW do Brasil helped hand over union organizers to the authorities to be tortured, while Mercedes-Benz managers in Argentina participated in the forced disappearance of union organizers.¹ With the gradual advent of the age of human rights in the 1980s, Western states’ human rights policies served their own political interests, first and foremost the delegitimization of the Soviet Union.