Warness – influencers of the war tired

“Me, fight for Germany? Never! «-In July 2024, the podcaster and author Ole Nymoen provided great outrage on the part of the readers of the leaf, which was considered to be (left). “Has a Russian offered the pen here?” Asked a letter to the editor; Another: “The text by Ole Nymoen comes like a wok dish consisting of half-cooked obscurities in a furry sauce with anarchic aftertaste!” Also the CDU politician and Colonel a. D. Roderich Kiesewetter was outraged and accused the author “cynicism”. Nymoen, obviously not very intimidated, then in an interview with the “Berliner Zeitung” reminded of Kiesewetter’s proposal to withdraw conscripts to withdraw the citizens’ money so that they return to their homeland to fight. That “such people can accuse him of cynicism,” he “thinks cute”.

According to Nymoen, Rowohlt-Verlag suggested twenty-four hours after the publication of the “Zeit” article to “perform his position more in more detail in a book. Already the announcement of this caused the advocate of the advocates and times of time: the historian and “propaganda proll”, as Kay Sokolowsky described him in “Specific”, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk turned directly to the publisher, “his good name with a careless authors”. Advice of the »5. Moscow’s column «.

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The state wages war

Now – on time for the upcoming chancellery by Friedrich Merz, a new thrust of the militarization of Europe and a flaming debate about military duty – the narrow band “Why I would never fight for my country” with the programmatic subtitle “Against the Warness”. Although Nymoes speaks of his country in the book title, he knows pretty well that he himself does not have “a single square meter” of this country. Therefore, he refers positively to the statement made by Marx and Engels in the “Communist Manifesto”, “the workers have no fatherland”.

The focus of the first chapters is the wars, which are “a realistic threat to Nymoes, in which one state attacks the other to make the country and its people subject”. The war of extermination, in which “the extinguishing of the state power and that of the people in one”, he clings out. However, he devotes himself to the strategy of “identifying military counterparts with National Socialism” in order to “completely discredit the opponent”. The historian and journalist Benoît Bréville had this aspect of use of historical comparisons for political purposes, for example to discredit an appeasement policy and to justify military interventions, in which article “History as a weapon” in the “Le Monde Diplomatique” from May 2024.

The meaning of the war – at least from the perspective of the rulers – is that states can assert and expand the claims for power with its help. The war is senseless from the perspective of the dominated or citizens. They “have nothing of these, on the contrary: they risk their own lives or at least have to accept reductions in the material quality of life”. Their interests are not to be equated with those “of their” states, and the “state is absolutely certain no Benefit to his subjects « – see the discussion about the basic child security or the citizens’ allowance, which is expected to be deliberately deleted in the next government for so -called conscientious refusal.

In the event of war, an instrumental relationship between the state dominates to the citizens who – according to Nymoes – have the right to “use the latter for their own political interests at will”. The state in which a certain particular interest is presented as a general can not be understood as a “useful servant of the people”. At the same time, the image of the state as a “stummer servant of money”, as Nymoes recognizes in Lenin’s work on imperialism, is shortened. Rather, the state must also be considered as an independent player with power and claims for violence.

Alternatives to war?

In the last part, Nymoes works primarily on the “critical” readers who are also visible online. His point of view and considerations, for example, are sophisticated here as a “pseudo-intellectual manure”, another liberal-minded spirit wishes him warehouses for 15 years. Nymoes holds the real social conditions in which “one of each tries to overprint and express” and “and” human we “and” social cooperation “as” probably the strongest driving force “of his public work. Other readers criticized his alleged “lack of democratic awareness” in their letters. Nymoes hold the poor possibilities of democratic participation – especially in the sphere of economy – in the German class society.

In the final chapter, he makes it clear: If necessary, he will escape the “state -prescribed fight”. For the young author, the question of “manifold” is no purely hypothetical – unlike some other representatives of the “Elderly Republic” (Stefan Schulz), which the service on the weapon will no longer expect. Remarkable is a survey of the “time” listed by Nymoes: a narrow majority in Germany support the reintroduction of compulsory military service, but 59 percent of the eighteen to twenty-nine-year-olds speak out against this measure.

How representative this survey may be: The fact that Nymoen jumps to this 59 percent with his pamphlet and his strong plea against the tonsuality is to be welcomed – he certainly does so as a young person, born in 1998, also from a justified self -interest. As a podcaster, he will most likely reach a young audience and provide discussion. It is regrettable that he is not very discussing alternatives beyond mobilization for the war. The concept of social defense discussed in the peace movement and peace research is not mentioned. At least further references would have been desirable here: such as the anthology on “critical peace research”, which was published in 2024 in the Mandelbaum-Verlag, or the magazine “Science and Peace”. Nymoen’s understanding of the state also remains in the abstract, so that an analytically differentiated look at different warlike arguments and warring parties in the pamphlet cannot be achieved – which creates an attack area, as the media appearances of the author of the past few weeks have shown.

Don’t trust the dirty lies

Nymoen’s final plea for a “modern socialism”, with a “sensible (n) social planning”, in which people “stop” identifying themselves with their nationality and their state “is sympathetic, with a view to the current balance of power but also abundant utopens. The strength of the small pamphlet remains the critical intervention in a heated debate and Nymoes presents itself publicly against the “intellectual mobilization of the population” in the sign of the military “time turn”.

If the upcoming government implemented the Boris Pistorius plan announced last year, then women* and men will receive a questionnaire in the future when they reach the “eligible age” to get them to deal with the Bundeswehr and “their tasks to defend Germany”, as the Federal Ministry of Defense says.

I myself still had the dubious pleasure of pattern and was declared unsuitable, so I have to worry less at this point. Before my son has to open the Propaganda Post of the Ministry of War at some point, I will put Ole Nymoen’s book in his hand. As the saying goes in one of Brecht’s “four lullabies for workers’ mothers”: “Sure, you are already planning victories with you. What should I do that you don’t trust your dirty lies. “

Ole Nymoen: Why I would never fight for my country. Against the manifold. Rowohlt 2025, 144 pages, born, 16 €.