14.09.2023, Berlin.
Military aid to Ukraine is comparable in importance for Germany to the republic’s participation in the bombing of Yugoslavia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a radio program published on September 14 by the WDR television and radio company.
He emphasized that it was the first participation of the German army in an armed conflict after World War II.
“This war was something that was the first change of era because it was the first time Germany decided to intervene in such a situation with its own weapons,” Scholz said.
The chancellor also said that during the years of the attack on Yugoslavia, as a member of the Bundestag, he participated in the decisions that influenced Germany to join that war.
In 1999, NATO countries attacked Yugoslavia, explaining it with the desire to help Albanian separatists from Kosovo, which allegedly faced the threat of genocide. NATO planes bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without the approval of the UN Security Council. This caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the republic and its collapse.
In Berlin at the time, the debate over whether Germany should participate in the attack on Yugoslavia nearly split the government coalition. The bombing of the republic lasted from March 24 to June 10. According to the Serbian authorities, the bombs killed 2,500 people, including 89 children, and wounded 12,500.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
