The triumphant leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union lashed out at United States President Donald Trump on February 23, only hours after winning Germany’s federal elections. Specifically, Friedrich Merz accused President Trump of abandoning Europe and aligning U.S. foreign-policy interests with Russia. Yet Merz failed to highlight Germany’s role in empowering Russia’s military juggernaut.

Pro-Russia views are popular in East Germany, and a new investigation by the Trap Aggressor team finds that Kilic Feintechnik GmbH, a sporting goods company that makes rifle scopes in Schwebheim, Bavaria, has sold $800,000 worth of military-grade mak sights to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime during the Russo-Ukrainian War, labeling them as nonmilitary equipment.

Initially, these sights were shipped directly to Russia. After German sanctions made such direct shipments impossible, Kilic Feintechnik GmbH began using a Turkish intermediary to ship the sights to Russia. These German imports were labeled “not for military use,” yet the Kyiv School of Economics has identified mak sights as “critical for the military equipment of the Russian federation.”

In September 2023, Marat Sutaiev, an instructor in military training for the Russian occupying forces, published a review recommending the makpro 5 sight for combat conditions. The Russia-based Center for Electronic Commerce llc purchased these sights through Yagmur Global, a Turkish company that buys them from Kilic Feintechnik GmbH. Trap Aggressor contacted Kilic Feintechnik GmbH for comment but has received no reply thus far.

Further investigations by the Insider and Investigace.cz find that nine European industrial companies from countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland have continued to supply equipment to Russian military clients.

Germany’s largest political party, the Christian Democratic Union, is officially opposed to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; yet its second-largest political party, the Alternative für Deutschland, (AfD) wants Germany to develop a closer relationship with Russia. In particular, the AfD wants to restart the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which along the bottom of the Baltic Sea between Germany and Russia.

During his first term in office, President Trump adamantly opposed the Nord Stream pipeline, saying Germany’s dependence on Russian gas created a condition where “Germany is totally controlled by Russia.” Despite Trump’s repeated warnings, Germany did not stop buying gas from Russia until after Putin invaded Ukraine. So Merz’s criticism of President Trump is somewhat hypocritical. If Germany had listened to Mr. Trump seven years ago, the world likely would not be in a situation where America feels it needs to make strategic compromises with Russia in an attempt to ward off World War iii. Merz is showing more backbone against Putin than his predecessors showed, but many German industrialists still want rapprochement with Russia.

Many in the AfD have even expressed sympathy for the Third Reich. Such comments should be concerning given what Nazi war criminals said about Russia after World War ii. Consider what one neo-Nazi in Madrid wrote in the 1950s (translated and reprinted in Germany Plots With the Kremlin by T.H. Tetens):

We must not forget that Germany has always considered orientation towards the West as a policy of expediency or one to be pursued only under pressure of circumstances. Such was the case in Napoleon’s time, after 1918, and also after 1945. All of our great national leaders have constantly counseled the long-range policy of close cooperation with the East; thus, Frederick the Great, Count von Stain, Bismarck, von Seeckt, Brockdorff-Rentzau, and, in the past 30 years, all our leading geopoliticians. By the end of 1940, Hitler’s policy had run into a blind alley, and the hard decision had to be made to ensure by means of the sword access to the gigantic sources of raw materials in the East, which Russia would have never delivered, and without which we never could expect to force a showdown against the Anglo-American bloc.

In other words: Russia is Germany’s preferred ally and Adolf Hitler only attacked it out of desperation. Many German industrialists and AfD politicians still feel this way. Even Merz is likely being at least a little disingenuous when he attacks President Trump for trying to negotiate with Putin. Merz no doubt wants Germany to be “independent” of the United States, but he likely isn’t committed to a long-term anti-Russia stance.

In the November-December 2008 Trumpet issue, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote: “[D]id you know that Germany and Russia have probably already dealt with their most urgent differences? … I believe that Germany’s leaders may have already agreed to a deal with Russia, a modern Hitler-Stalin pact where Germany and Russia divide countries and assets between themselves. This agreement would allow each to turn its sights on other targets. Any such deal that may have been struck between Germany and Russia is a precursor to war!”

This modern Hitler-Stalin pact was likely made around the time of Putin’s invasion of Georgia. It may have broken down somewhat after Russia invaded Ukraine, but Germany’s leaders haven’t given up on it completely. Many of them are eager for a “showdown against the Anglo-American bloc” and know they need Russian gas for this to happen. They don’t want to “run into a blind alley” as Hitler did, so we can expect a new and revamped Hitler-Stalin pact soon.

History shows that deepening cooperation between Germany and Russia is a harbinger of dark times. The fact that Germany is still selling military equipment to Russia is a bad sign.

To learn about Germany’s love-hate relationship with Russia, please read “The Vicious Cycle: German-Russian Relations.” It summarizes many of the eras of German-Russian cooperation mentioned in Tetens’s classic book Germany Plots With the Kremlin.