The following press release was issued on June 5 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute.
Viewed from a deeper historical perspective, Germany’s failure to win a rotating seat on the UN Security Council offers an urgently needed opportunity to reorient German policy. This author has long argued that, in light of the entrenched geopolitical confrontation between NATO, on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, the Global South needs to make its voice heard more loudly and forcefully in the international debate—and that is precisely what these states have done by rejecting Germany’s candidacy. German institutions should use the result to conduct an honest analysis of a foreign policy, that has clearly been a complete failure, and to redefine one corresponding to Germany’s true interest.
The initial reaction from Foreign Minister Wadephul and in most media commentaries, however, follows the same long-standing pattern of self-deception: Russia was to blame, they claimed, then the bureaucracy, the application process started too late, etc., etc. Others, such as the FAZ, commented that the UN isn’t that important anyway, and the Hessian Minister for European and International Affairs, Manfred Pentz of the CDU, even called for Germany to cut its financial contributions to the UN as a result.
The only thing that will really help Germany is take a hard look at the causes of the “bitter disappointment,” which could only have come as a surprise to those who have been sitting on their Eurocentric high horse.
The shift in international perception of German politics has been in full swing for several years now. The generally positive image of Germany that once prevailed throughout the world—that of the land of Bach and Beethoven, of Goethe, Schiller, and the Humboldts, of a nation of engineering and inventors—has been lost for quite some time.
The de facto unconditional support for Israel’s actions in Gaza—for which the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—has damaged Germany’s reputation, and this damage will continue to grow as long as the governments in Berlin maintain their position. For, while the crimes of the Nazis only became fully known and understood by the general public after the end of World War II, Israel’s crimes in Gaza—and increasingly also in the West Bank and Lebanon—are in the spotlight of the global public. The fact that Germany did not approve the extension of the mandate for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in December 2025 under pressure from Israel, and has cracked down brutally on pro-Palestinian protests domestically, has further tarnished Germany’s image.
People everywhere are talking about the double standard that prevails in this country. Berlin constantly claims it is the champion of international law, but Chancellor Merz finds the kidnapping of an elected head of state in Venezuela too “complex” to take a position on, and needs “time” to assess it. That was five months ago, and he has still not reached a conclusion.
During the first unprovoked war of aggression by Israel and the United States against Iran in June 2025, Merz uttered the unspeakable words that “Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us”; during the second such attack by the U.S. and Israel, the consequences of which threaten to plunge the global economy into the abyss, he has remained reserved, merely stating that it is not our war.
Virtually no one in the countries of the Global South agrees with the endlessly repeated mantra that Russia attacked Ukraine in an unprovoked war. These countries recognized all too clearly in NATO’s actions the parallels to their own oppression by the colonial powers, and they also remember very vividly who came to their aid during their struggle for independence at the time, namely, the Soviet Union and China.
But what is manifestly lacking in Berlin, is a feel for the tectonic epochal shift now taking place worldwide. At the time of German reunification and the end of the Cold War, Germany undoubtedly enjoyed the sympathy of the so-called developing countries. But it was lost, step by step, to the extent that Germany and the countries of the collective West attempted to impose a unipolar world order through methods such as color revolutions, regime change, unilateral sanctions, and wars of intervention.
The combination of all aspects of this imperial and neocolonialist policy has produced a massive boomerang effect, in the course of which these countries have increasingly sought to distance themselves from the influence of the collective West. China’s economic rise—unprecedented in history—and its policy of win-win cooperation offer the nations of the Global South the chance to finally overcome the 500-year period of colonialism.
The defeat in the UN vote is the long-overdue wake-up call for Germany to finally free itself from its lamentable status as a colony of the Anglosphere (the whole world ridicules our lack of reaction to Biden’s announced sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines), and to stand on the right side of history. This can only mean cooperation with the countries of the Global Majority, that is, with 85% of humanity, on equal footing as equal partners. Instead of spreading racist chimeras, such as Josep Borrell’s fiction of a European garden surrounded by a jungle, we should help Africa, Asia, and Latin America build beautiful gardens of their own. Additionally, we could also ensure that our own bridges are repaired in a timely manner, that our industry recovers, and that our students once again learn something.
In that way, even if unintentionally, Annalena Baerbock will have contributed something positive to German politics through her fraudulently obtained presidency of the UN General Assembly, from which position she had to announce Germany’s defeat in the vote.
