Published in German on August 30, 2026, by Walter Grobe. English Translation done by Google, with several corrections by the author
Germany’s decline, globalized finance capitalism, the US-Russia-China rivalry, war, the AfD, etc.
Overview:
- Germany and the 2026 elections
- Political tendencies of finance capitalism
- Germany in the context of its history and current geopolitics – the USA
Three state elections are scheduled in Germany for September 2026. The media and the participating parties are stirring up sentiment, suggesting that the outcome—how strong the AfD becomes, how weak the other parties fare, the composition of state governments, etc.—will be decisive for future developments. Even a publication I generally value, the *Berliner Zeitung*, speaks of „fateful elections.“
Regardless of the election results, I do not expect any positive changes for the time being. Whether or not the AfD secures the position of Minister-President in Saxony-Anhalt will do nothing to alter Germany’s decline; it will, however, lead to even more bickering and division. Even a chancellorship held by the AfD—though that is unlikely to happen—would present the same picture. More on that below.
It appears that significant portions of surveyed voters are currently inclined to vote for the AfD.
In doing so, they are expressing dissatisfaction with the social and economic mess for which the CDU/CSU, SPD, and others are responsible. To put it mildly, the social and democratic aspirations of large segments of the population no longer seem to be in good hands with these parties. Their unwillingness—or perhaps inability—to make corrections drives some fellow citizens to vote for the AfD; yet, I do not see anything resembling a positive platform from that party. The AfD operates primarily by exploiting resentments. Suppose she were to achieve significant cutbacks in migration: would that halt deindustrialization, capitalist precarization, and warmongering?
When voters believe they would fare better with the AfD—or simply want to „teach the other parties a lesson“—they primarily demonstrate their own lack of insight and ideas.
This electoral term will do nothing to slow the accelerating downward spiral of Germany’s woes, regardless of the results announced. It will merely intensify the squabbling over trivialities, the incitement of one segment of the population against another, and the prevailing sense of hopelessness.
Addressing these problems adequately requires new initiatives that go far deeper than the AfD. For the time being, one can only observe a growing detachment from political reality—emanating from the political system as a whole, including the AfD and the media.
There are many reasons for the triviality of the current political horse-trading.
In my view, the most important reason is this: in reality, Germany is increasingly less governed by those who, according to the constitution and elections, bear the responsibility for governing. Over the past few decades, due to relentlessly rising national debt, the country has become increasingly dependent on global financial markets. The state now has to cover more than 50% of its expenditure through borrowing on financial markets. In other words, it is at the mercy of the interests of international finance capital—and specifically the whims and the destructive impulses (now running rampant) of cliques like the US upper class. We are governed by parties that are not even permitted to hint that they know the USA was behind the destruction of Nord Stream 2.
The AfD changes nothing in this regard, even if it occasionally speaks out against a partial phenomenon like the overbearing nature of the EU bureaucracy. The EU leadership itself is merely a component—a rather subordinate element—of the global, all-encompassing, and dominant trends of finance capitalism that drive the erosion of democracy, disempowerment of the ordinary citizen and capitalist enslavement. The AfD fails to direct criticism at the truly powerful. On the contrary: the party’s Maximilian Krah—a figure hardly unknown—went so far as to tout submission to „Trumpism“ as the cure for Germany’s decline in the US newspaper *Asia Times*; fittingly, the AfD is recommended to the German people by the illustrious Elon Musk himself. If one wishes to accelerate that decline, it is a good idea. Perhaps the blowing up of Nord Stream 2 will soon be followed by Musk taking over VW?
Should AfD politicians ever actually assume high-ranking positions of responsibility, they—no less than the CDU, SPD, Die Linke, etc.—will ultimately remain tethered to the drip-feed of international finance.
On political tendencies of globalized finance capitalism
- One cannot understand political developments without considering how the various leaderships of all major countries are doggedly working to bring their populations increasingly under totalitarian capitalist control. Some authors term such systems „digital fascism“—a label that, in my view, is not unjustified. In this regard, governments bear a strong resemblance to one another, whether in the USA, Russia, the EU, China, or Brazil.
- The second key aspect is the rivalry for global supremacy, primarily between the USA and China.
The major wars of recent decades—from the first and second US wars against Iraq (1991, 2003) and the countless acts of violence across Western and Central Asia (instigated chiefly by the USA and Israel, and in part by their Islamist accomplices) to the destruction of Afghanistan and Syria, the mass murder in Gaza, and recent events involving Iran—have essentially been attempts by the USA, alongside cliques such as the governments of Great Britain and France, to regain dominance in these regions. The aim is to curtail the influence of rivals like Russia—and China, lurking in the background—and to secure the region as a permanent base for military deployment. Oil, too, plays a crucial role in „dollar imperialism.“
The Chinese system differs significantly from the Western model in many respects—most notably in that the development of its capitalism has thus far relied on leveraging its own productive resources, exploiting a vast workforce, and marketing goods globally. Linked to this is the international expansion of markets, sources of raw materials, and transport routes.
In contrast, the USA has chosen the path of largely outsourcing goods production—particularly to China—thereby stripping its own population of industrial jobs while keeping global capital trapped within its own financial mechanisms and specializing in cutting-edge digital and military technologies designed to secure global dominance.
The Chinese system rests on a much broader demographic base than that of the USA—its population of 1.4 billion is four times larger and, unlike significant segments of the American public, is not plagued by obesity, Disneyfication, or opioid addiction—and, to date, it appears to enjoy the active support of the vast majority of that population.
The nation is industrious, increasingly mastering complex high-tech challenges such as space exploration and military technology and it is united with its government by the conviction that, after centuries of humiliation at the hands of Western capitalist powers, China has the right to at least catch up and put the USA in its place—or even to revive past glories, when the Chinese Emperor believed he sat at the center of the world, governing not only China but also its more or less barbaric surroundings—in short, the world itself.
Capitalist contradictions—such as rising social inequality and the drive for imperialist expansion—have not yet become as dominant in modern capitalist China (which is built upon a prior socialist structure) as they have in the USA, for example. In my view, however, they will inevitably become more palpable over time. China’s turbo-capitalist system, too, will eventually disappoint growing segments of its population and find itself compelled to defend its foreign investments militarily.
At the same time, the Chinese system is rooted in a millennia-old tradition of centralized bureaucratic control and unquestioning obedience among the masses; consequently, it has apparently been able to impose modern digital-financial systems of control and regimentation—such as the „social credit“ system—upon its population with relatively little resistance so far.
Western digital fascists like Musk, Thiel, Karp (Palantir), along with their current political agents like Trump, face greater difficulties in this regard.
Over the past five centuries, the „West“ has derived its strength primarily—on the surface, at least—from its technological and scientific superiority. Yet there is a deeper reason: the concept of civic freedom and the emergence of a model of the free, self-determined citizen. While it is rightly pointed out that these two factors also formed—and continue to form—the basis of Western colonial and imperialist expansion, that is still only one side of the coin.
The model of the free person—accountable only to her own conscience and, one should add (especially within the German philosophical tradition), feeling a sense of responsibility toward the human community and even the family of humanity—remains a central challenge for those in power today, including the Western champions of total population control. In the coming years and decades, this conflict will gain increasing significance—not only in the West but gradually in China and elsewhere—and will give rise to new developments. Based on this cultural model, which is characteristic of the West, new forms of social organization, coexistence, interconnectedness, and grassroots democracy will inevitably emerge. This cultural ideal remains highly attractive on an international level as well. Added to this will be the extensive experience that many other cultures have gained with a wide variety of forms of collectivism.
Since the future will—in many places—be a matter of simple survival amidst a world of perpetual war and impoverishment, people in Germany, too, will have to devise new ways to uphold freedom and human dignity. This requires shifting away from a focus on individual happiness and personal advancement through constant competition, and moving instead toward a greater sense of community and the development of collective structures to ensure basic subsistence.
To put it plainly—and admittedly in terms that many fellow citizens in Germany would currently find far too drastic—we must discover and build something new, social, and communal. This must happen amidst the coming waves of mass destitution, the collapse of social safety nets, and the wreckages of war—such as we are witnessing now in Ukraine. The era of the old state, old-style capitalism, political cluelessness, and reliance on those „at the top“ is over. However, it will likely take a series of unpleasant developments and catastrophes—scenarios few can or wish to imagine right now—before greater clarity emerges and the first steps toward self-organization are taken.
Germany: Its History and Role in Modern Geopolitics
I would like to add a few paragraphs here regarding Germany’s unique geopolitical and historical position, as well as the problems currently arising from it—problems that are now fundamentally calling into question the country’s very existence as a significant cultural and political entity.
The country occupies a unique geographical location: at the heart of Europe—hitherto the most highly developed continent—and at the crossroads of diverse powers and cultures. Historically and culturally, it has developed a profile distinct from that of its neighbors to the east and west, north and south. At the same time, it maintains intense exchanges with all of them; indeed, its past cultural achievements owe much to these very connections and to its capacity for blending diverse influences.
In the five or more decades preceding the First World War—dating back to the wave of revolutions in 1848–49 and, above all, to Bismarck’s creation of a (crippled) German nation-state in 1871—the country underwent a rapid transformation that elicited astonishment and admiration worldwide. Unlike the development of its rivals, this process relied not (not yet) or only to lower degrees on colonial exploitation; it challenged the international imperialist system dominated by the established colonial powers of Great Britain and France, as well as the rising (neo-)colonial power, the USA.
Building on centuries of prior internal developments in culture and the sciences, Germany experienced a surge in the natural sciences, industrial technology, and economic organization that Great Britain and France could not match. Those nations were more accustomed to extracting vast wealth from their colonies. Even the USA could only partially keep pace.
Alongside the natural sciences, Germany also saw a deepening of social and historical self-understanding—a process of reflection more profound than elsewhere—driven by historical scholarship, the critique of religion, and philosophy.
Well into the twentieth century, groundbreaking scientific discoveries and technical inventions originated primarily in Germany; even under Nazi rule, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered nuclear fission in Berlin, and Konrad Zuse developed the first electronic computer. Furthermore, prior to 1914, Germany’s labor movement was by far the strongest and best-organized in the world, standing on the verge of a peaceful assumption of power—a prospect against which the outbreak of war in 1914 and the betrayal by the SPD leadership apparently had to serve as a last resort. Admittedly, this is only one aspect of the picture; The turn taken by Germany’s capitalist elite toward imperialism and colonialism starting in the late 19th century —and toward a neck-breaking challenge to their imperialist rivals—is also part of the picture, and it led directly to defeat.
With its defeat in 1918, Germany had essentially already lost significant portions of its state sovereignty—primarily to the USA, which gained great influence as a source of capital during the 1920s and as an early backer of Nazism.
Since at least the end of the 19th century, US geopolitics had, however, consistently sought to keep the Eurasian continent divided.
According to American logic, Germany had to be kept in a state of confrontation with Russia. Following the socialist revolution of 1917, Russia had not only remained a major geopolitical rival to the USA but had also emerged as a dangerous challenger to the prevailing system.
Germany had to be kept in confrontation with Russia—and, even more so, with socialism. This confrontation ultimately culminated in the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 1941—an invasion Hitler had desired from the outset and for which he had received substantial support from Western capitalism. The aim of this war was to destroy socialism and colonize the country; Russians were to be enslaved as „Slavic *Untermenschen*“ (subhumans). From the very beginning, Hitler’s core objective was explicitly the „annihilation of Bolshevism“—meaning the destruction of both the socialist Soviet Union and the domestic labor movement. Immediately after seizing power in January 1933, tens of thousands of cadres from the Social Democratic Party, the Communist Party, and from the trade unions were thrown into concentration camps—and many were murdered outright—based on the fabricated propaganda claim that Communists had set fire to the Reichstag. These crimes paved the way for countless others, such as the mass murders in Poland following its Nazi occupation in 1939 and, later, the mass murder of the Jews.
The war of 1941–45 did not, however, destroy the Soviet Union—which, on the contrary, emerged victorious despite suffering horrific losses—but it brought Germany itself to the brink of annihilation, destroying its global standing and its reputation as a cultured nation.
It decisively cemented US hegemony, particularly in Germany and Western Europe.
That Germany took this path was by no means a foregone conclusion; significant forces, including within the German upper class, viewed it as ruinous. A semi-secret alliance between Germany and the socialist Soviet Union had existed since the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922. Although the leaders of German capitalism and the military aristocracy fought the domestic labor movement—even to the point of civil-war-like violence in 1919–20—some of these forces advocated a geopolitical alliance with the Soviet Union and engaged in military and economic cooperation starting in 1922. One of Hitler’s first acts as Chancellor in 1933 was to halt military cooperation with the Soviet Union, though economic ties persisted—and were even reaffirmed by the interim Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939—albeit for less than two years before the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
Nazism and the Question of German Sovereignty
Long before 1933, the Nazis made the alleged restoration of national sovereignty vis-à-vis the so-called victorious powers of 1918—Great Britain and France, the „Versailles“ powers—the central propaganda point of their political platform. This earned them considerable political capital for a time among broad segments of the German population—including those who did not subscribe to the *Führer* cult, racism, the dismantling of democracy, or antisemitism—a trend that continued right up to the annexation of Austria in 1938. Ultimately, however, in 1941 the Nazis took the role of the continental sword of those, in the US and elsewhere in the capitalist world, intent to destroy socialism and marched against the Soviet Union, in a peculiar version of German „sovereignty“. This was the fundamental geopolitical constellation of 1941, even though the USA, Great Britain, and what remained of France soon found themselves compelled to form a—highly tactical—alliance with the Soviet Union; an alliance that disintegrated immediately in 1945, leading to a renewal of the earlier direct confrontation.
The USA—essentially the principal victor of the First World War when compared to the declining old colonial powers of Great Britain and France—had already become the primary arbiter of Germany’s partial or incomplete sovereignty during the 1920s. Without US high finance and its debt policies, Germany could scarcely have recovered from its defeat in 1918.
The USA continued to succeed with its geopolitical agenda after 1945—including the deepening of the division of Eurasia and the re-establishment of a confrontational stance between Germany and Russia—even though one-quarter of Germany had initially fallen within the sphere of influence of its geopolitical rival. While German reunification in 1989 eliminated that division, it cemented Germany’s lack of sovereignty—for instance, through the „Two-Plus-Four“ Treaty. This imposes restrictions on the country—regarding military matters and alliance policy—that no other state claiming sovereignty would accept. At the same time, Germany is forced to serve the USA as a key hub for its global, imperialist, and genocidal military commands—such as Ramstein—thereby reducing itself to the status of an accomplice.
During the era of the two German states—from the end of World War II until 1989—Germany initially retained its geopolitical importance. The situation evolved such that Germany played a pivotal role in the struggle for global hegemony between the two main rivals of the time: the USA and the Soviet Union. The western part, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), was developed into a model capitalist welfare state; situated in the heart of Europe, it was intended to showcase a superior way of life—demonstrating the superiority of capitalism, including in social terms—in contrast to the Soviet sphere of influence, which still laid claim to a socialist identity. A highly advanced industrial base was perfectly suited to this purpose. The eastern part, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), played a similar role for the so-called Eastern Bloc, albeit with less success—primarily because the Soviet Union (largely devastated by the war) and the ravaged territories that would become the GDR could not muster productive forces anywhere near the level of the West.
In both German states, however, traditional German strengths—such as a broad-based education system and exceptional proficiency in the natural sciences and technology—came into play once again, helping to ensure the country’s indispensability to both sides. Germany’s geopolitical significance subsequently grew even further during the era of *détente*, when—starting around 1963—the USA and the Soviet Union sought ways to join forces against China, which they viewed as a disruptive factor.
All that is over now.
Why?
I will attempt to outline the reasons below.
The integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into US geopolitics was always jeopardized by the risk that the country might develop too much independent strength. It possessed the potential to serve as a bridge between East and West, to become a more autonomous—and truly European—central power, and to mitigate or even overcome the division of Eurasia.
As mentioned, this was precisely the scenario the US had always sought to prevent in order to maintain its position as the leading global power.
Interlude: Germany’s failed attempts at emancipation (1989–1991):
With the collapse of the GDR—a process significantly driven by the US itself, which also triggered the rapid disintegration of the entire Soviet system—and the subsequent integration of the GDR into the Federal Republic, that threat to US dominance actually seemed to intensify at first. The German leadership apparently believed it could now assert its own interests more forcefully. It was quickly disabused of this notion.
Early moves toward a more independent great-power policy for Germany—evident during the GDR’s collapse in 1989 under Chancellor Kohl and key advisors like the banker Herrhausen—were rigorously suppressed. The economic potential of the newly incorporated GDR was effectively wrested from their hands. The *Treuhand* agency under Rohwedder, which had sought to leverage this potential, was repurposed into an instrument for the wholesale dismantling of the former GDR; Rohwedder was eliminated, just as Herrhausen had been before him.
Subsequently, the strategy pursued by Kohl and Genscher—to leverage the disintegration of Yugoslavia (which began in 1991) for expansion into the Balkans—foundered amidst the region’s internecine self-destruction (fueled largely by the US) and a US-dictated sham peace: the 1995 Dayton Agreement. That agreement paved the way for massive US military deployments, further Balkan conflicts, and chronic misery across the entire region.
Germany’s elites—whose hopes for a resurgence in political power had been severely curtailed between 1990 and 1992—continued for a time to serve as an indispensable „asset“ for US European and geopolitical strategy precisely because of their awful status; yet Germany’s time was already running out, and the process of internal erosion was well underway.
With significant political and media backing from the US, movements had long been fostered in Germany that portrayed the country’s own deindustrialization as a positive vision for the future. One need only recall the prescriptions for environmental preservation through the renunciation of development and expansion—ideas propagated in documents such as the 1972 report *The Limits to Growth*. That work was published by the Club of Rome—a Western, highly capitalist association, the VW Group—and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a key US think tank. Curiously, it soon became a bible for many in Germany who until then had identified as left-wing; it was followed by another such tract, *Global 2000*, which originated directly from the US presidency. The underlying intent was for US challengers—such as China and other rising Third World nations, as well as Germany—to forgo growth, while the US billionaires and their „world police“ were exempt from such restraint.
The German education system—once the broadest and most effective among comparable nations—has by 2026 become a mere shadow of its former self and a target of international ridicule, a fact highlighted time and again by the latest PISA results. A state that decrees—ostensibly to save money—that primary school classes containing an ever-growing proportion of children requiring special support may number 30 or more pupils is, for that reason alone, destined to drop out of the league of geopolitically significant nations in the medium term. Yet there are other factors at play.
Germany’s opportunities to achieve greater energy independence from the USA (and Russia)—for instance, through nuclear power—and to at least partially escape the US-imposed dictates of oil and the dollar were demonized and blocked. Under the chancellorship of Schröder (SPD) and Foreign Minister Fischer (Greens) starting in 1998, the development of nuclear energy was banned. „Germany Inc.“—referring to the hitherto relative cohesion of German capital and its inaccessibility to Anglo-Saxon capital and its stock-market practices—was thrown open to the latter. The elevation of money to an absolute value, and the permeation of economic and social life—right down to the citizens‘ daily routines—by speculative finance capital, gradually became the overriding imperative. Under Angela Merkel’s chancellorship from 2005 onwards, criticism of these trends was systematically stifled in a maternalistic fashion, leaving her successors to inherit a system that was, in essence, castrated and bankrupt. Figures like Scholz and Merz cannot admit this and continue to drive the country toward ruin.
And now, amidst today’s reckless policies of destruction and war—through which the USA seeks to wear down Russia and deprive China of its most important Eurasian ally—there is no longer any need for a Germany that is inevitably prone to vacillating between competing powers. Its economic strength has—finally—been undermined to such an extent that even major bankruptcies in Germany no longer trigger significant shocks to the balance sheets of BlackRock and other US financial conglomerates. A Germany that might—incorrigibly and covertly—continue to support the USA’s geopolitical rivals (currently the China-Russia bloc) by purchasing Russian raw materials and selling its own technology, is now essentially nothing more than a nuisance. By squandering its remaining potential on the USA through military buildup and war games—which could easily escalate into something very serious—and by continuing to deindustrialize and allow the masses to become impoverished, the country is losing the remnants of its traditional internal strengths and sinking into geopolitical irrelevance. US cliques might even succeed in provoking Russia into using nuclear weapons on German soil—for instance, „because of Ramstein“ and other US bases in the country. That would further fuel the mood of despair in Germany.
One way or another, Germany is being dismantled and is now reaping the fruits of its own internal degeneration—including its citizens‘ loss of political touch with reality. It began with the fundamental structure of the Federal Republic: seemingly well-fed and secure economically, yet politically impotent and dependent on the USA down to the bone. It continued with political and cultural movements that demonized industrialism and scientific inquiry as such (even though, under capitalist conditions, industrialism and science must indeed be treated as double-edged swords), and with the almost total political and mental sedation of the population under Merkel—as if prosperity and security would simply continue, even while their foundations were being deliberately allowed to erode.
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These remarks might initially give the impression that I view the USA as the primary enemy and Russia or China as a more favorable geopolitical alternative.
That is not the case; hence, a few more lines:
I consider the statement occasionally made within the current peace movement—“Russia is not our enemy“—to be incorrect. The ruling elites there, just as in Europe and China, are working—no differently than those in the USA—toward forms of profound control, regimentation, and the disempowerment of the ordinary citizen; toward the total neutralization of the human element itself—measures that, were they to prevail, would make traditional fascism look mild by comparison.
While this ultimately cannot succeed on a global scale and will lead towards forms of the opposite, this enemy is at work not only in the USA but worldwide—including in Russia and China.
It may well be that Russia—despite its brutal actions in Ukraine—is currently less inclined to pursue further military conflicts (unlike Trump and his ilk), and that open warfare does not appear advantageous to China at the moment (though this could change). Yet, the capitalist paths toward dehumanization are, by and large, the same everywhere.
Like other advocates for peace, I hope that negotiations might de-escalate the situations of war; however, unlike those friends, I also recognize that constant military conflict serves as an indispensable instrument for these powers—especially the USA at present—to expand their influence and maintain domestic states of emergency.
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