Last month, Horst Köhler resigned as German president following a public outcry over comments he made in an interview that were widely understood as justifying war for economic reasons. Although it is clear that for someone in Köhler’s position to make the remarks he made is politically unsavvy, the disproportionate public anger his statement provoked demonstrates once again the dangerous course public opinion in Germany, and in Europe in general, has taken in recent decades – and its willful ignorance of the realities of foreign affairs.
This article was originally published by The Guardian.