Former German Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been the target of nasty attacks recently due to his insistence upon maintaining a civil relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. When he was Chancellor from 1998-2005, Schröder had worked cooperatively with Putin, and later he joined the board of directors for Gazprom, the company operating the joint German-Russian gas pipeline, Nord Stream, where he had already headed the shareholder committee. Now the Russophobe media in Germany have been trying to make an example of him.
One of the latest incidents of such ostracism was Germany’s Bild tabloid, which reported that former Chancellor Schröder, at the Oct. 3rd ceremony marking the 33rd anniversary of German reunification, was snubbed, being seated as far away as possible from the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Then on Oct. 20, Schröder didn’t back down, in his interview with Berliner Zeitung, on the West’s mistaken treatment of Russia.
