North German Radio (NDR) reported yesterday that the Hanseatic city of Stralsund is seeking rapprochement with Russia and offering itself as a possible venue for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Last night, Stralsund’s citizens decided, by a large majority, to take the subject up with the Federal government. The parliamentary groups of CDU/FDP, Linke/SPD and the alliance “Citizens for Stralsund,” signed up for the initiative. “There is nothing more important than peace on our Earth,” the Bundestag deputies and Stralsund voters write in their urgent motion. Stralsund wants to help bring the “warring parties to the negotiating table” at last. Stralsund has a “great history of creating peace.” Reference is made to a conflict resolution from 1370, when a war between Denmark and the Hanseatic League ended in what became known as the Stralsund Peace.
More than 650 years later, there is to be a new Stralsund Peace. In their motion, the three parliamentary groups leave open how it is to be achieved, but they leave no doubt about their critical view of the Federal government’s policy. “Due to the policy of the current Federal government, the people in our country are afraid of a Third World War,” the original motion read. But the final wording was slightly defused: “Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the associated measures of the Federal government, the people in our country are afraid of a Third World War,” was the version which, in the end the opposition Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) and even the warhawk Greens agreed to. It is noteworthy that SPD, Greens and FDP are the parties that steer a clear course against Russia in Berlin, and are so far fixated to their position that Russia cannot be an interlocutor for the time being.
The Stralsund city council has charged Mayor Alexander Badrow (CDU) with a motion to write a letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) “that Stralsund City Hall is available for immediate peace talks.”