Zeitenwende: the change of an era or turning the historic tide.

It was the word that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz used before the Bundestag (Parliament) on 27 Nov during a speech on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

In less than a half hour, the Bundestag in a rare show of near-unity voted to change three decades of military and foreign policy.  Up until yesterday, Germany had a decades long policy of not arming combatants in war zones; they are arming the Ukrainians.  Scholz called for a 180 degree turn in military and foreign policy and announced the creation a €100 billion fund to modernize its military back to levels not seen since the Cold War, raise military spending to over 2 % of GDP (for the first time since WW II) and to work quickly to wean the country off Russian oil and gas.  He got a standing ovation and a huge crowd (some say almost 100 thousand) gathered in front of parliament not to protest but to support the chancellor, who said that Russia was looking to rebuild an ‘Imperium’ and that Germany would not allow it.

Someone should explain the law of unintended consequences to dear Oligarch-in-Chief Putin.