By Reinhard Lauterbach, Junge Welt, translated from the German by Helmut-Harry Loewen
There are only warm words at the so-called recovery conference for Ukraine in Berlin. But there are cold interests behind them. US Senator Lindsey Graham has recently repeated an argument that German agitators such as Roderich Kiesewetter [leading Christian Democrat parliamentarian and former Bundeswehr officer] have already put forward. Support for Ukraine is necessary to secure its rich reserves of raw materials for the West. According to Graham, he does not want “Russia to share these resources with China.” Moreover, Western support did not have to be granted as a subsidy; Ukraine could pledge the raw materials in question as collateral for future loans. What would then remain of its ‘independence’ is clear.
The Federal Chancellor formulated it more cautiously, but no less clearly: Ukraine is suitable as a location for “up-and-coming industries,” among which Scholz counted the defence industry and medical technology. In the first area, the tank manufacturer Rheinmetall took the lead and is currently opening a factory in Ukraine to repair German armoured personnel carriers. CEO Armin Papperger makes no secret of the fact that the export of German armaments technology is also planned from this location, unaffected by political and moral reservations. And Scholz's reference to the “medical technology sector of the future” subtly alluded to the fact that, in view of the tens of thousands of war invalids, Ukraine also represents a lucrative field of activity for German prosthesis manufacturers such as Otto Bock, the world market based in Lower Saxony. Incidentally, the company was founded in 1919, when the countless invalids of the First World War already represented an untapped business sector.
Therein lies the strategic relevance of events like the one in Berlin. Germany is the second largest donor state to Ukraine after the USA. Gifts are not given in this sphere. The war must be worth it, at least in the long term. And support today is the ticket to business tomorrow.
Translator's note: The war presents “golden opportunities” for fascists and corporate hyenas. Ukraine is poised to become a leading arms manufacturer through investments by defence companies in the imperial core. Lucrative new markets are also bring carved out in Ukraine for medical technologies, including prosthetics supplied by a German company founded in 1919, when those who were maimed during the First World War represented new business opportunities.
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