In the struggle for a delivery of battle tanks to the Ukraine, Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt came under criticism with a Nazi comparison. "What's actually going on in this man's head, making such a comparison, the leopard is the V2 syndrome of the Germans," said CDU chairman Friedrich Merz on Saturday at a party event in Villingen-Schwenningen.

Such statements fueled doubts in the world about the clarity and reliability of German politics. Merz called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to make it clear that the federal government was not thinking of passing on such "nonsense".

The FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told the German Press Agency: "I offer Wolfgang Schmidt a collegial introduction to a little weapons knowledge. Then he would quickly realize that not only the comparison with Nazi weapons was completely out of place, but also just plain wrong."

Nazi comparison at discussion event

At a discussion event held in English in Berlin on Thursday, SPD politician Schmidt defended the government's position that Ukraine would not be supplied with battle tanks to defend itself against Russia. Among other things, he compared the calls for the German Leopard-2 with hopes that Nazi Germany placed in the V2 rocket, which propaganda described as a "wonder weapon".

"Sometimes I'm tempted to call it the V2 syndrome of the Germans," said Schmidt - that there is a miracle weapon that, like magic, ensures that things get done. "And now the Leopard 2 (...) is that silver bullet that will end the war. And it won't." According to Nazi terminology, V2 stands for Vergeltungswaffe 2 and was widely used by Nazi Germany against civilian targets.

Video of the discussion event