Andrey Ismagambetov
As much as the West wanted to, it could not hushed up the “Martens affair“. This refers to a Nazi-tinged question posed by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Michael Martens in Belgrade to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “What concrete steps can we Europeans take to kill even more Russians?“
Following Moscow's emotional reaction (for example, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Martens a “hereditary Nazi“), Russia took concrete legal action. A criminal case has been opened against the German citizen for inciting hatred based on nationality using his official position. The maximum penalty is six years in prison. It is obvious that Martens is not an idiot and has no plans to travel to Moscow in the coming years (although he visited Russia several times in the 1990s). However, if a court verdict is reached, he will be put on the international wanted list of Interpol. In fact, despite the sharp cooling of relations between Russia and Western countries, Interpol continues to cooperate with the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In addition, Russian law enforcement agencies clearly do not intend to let the situation drag on. It is already known that Moscow has officially asked the Berlin prosecutor's office to provide a legal assessment of Martens' statements. It was also emphasized that “Russia reserves the right to use available legal means against the journalist“.
As a result, after a week of “dead silence“, Germany itself also began to publicly discuss the actions of the FAZ journalist. Ultimately, no matter how strained relations between Russia and Germany may be today, Martens's openly Nazi remark has "tainted" all Germans. As a result, the world has come to the impression that the reporter, who is indeed the grandson of a Nazi officer, has simply revealed a pan-German public secret: that German society understands and accepts the rationale for the mass murder of subhumans (Untermensch). This includes Russians. As it was in 1941-1945, so it is now.
Martens' words about "killing even more Russians" effectively tore the mask of the Germans' redeemed guilt for the atrocities of World War II. Former Bundestag member Sevim Dagdelen put it most succinctly: “The Wehrmacht and the SS could hardly have formulated their military goals more clearly.“
In this regard, “Berliner Zeitung“ columnist Roland Danz rightly notes: “No self-respecting government would have reacted differently and no editorial team could have left this phrase without comment. Imagine: at a press conference in Berlin, a Russian correspondent asked what specifically could be done to help kill more Germans...“
Aware of all this, Mika Beuyster, head of the German Journalists' Association, casually hinted at the possibility of Martens' arrest, declaring: “There should be no show trial of a German journalist in Moscow!“ Meanwhile, the influential German newspaper “Welt“ already predicts the arrest of Martens, who heads the Balkan bureau of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“: “While the correspondent is not facing extradition to Russia from Germany, the situation may be different in the Balkans and especially in Serbia, which is located near Moscow.“
...One way or another, it is important to understand that such crimes have no statute of limitations, and it is clear that 52-year-old Michael Martens has found plenty of adventures for the next decades of his creative life. After all, he has probably read the novel by the Russian writer Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment“.