The most consequential disputes within politics are often those that take place inside political parties, not between them. In Germany, such internal ruptures are very rare. The last big one occurred in 1959, when the SPD broke with Marxism and turned itself into one of Europe's most successful centre-left parties. The SPD could be on the brink of another such shift, but this time the forces of resistance are more formidable. 

A group of eminent German historians, all members of the SPD themselves, have written an open letter to criticise the party's refusal to distance itself from Vladimir Putin and for failing to support Ukraine. The best-known of those historians is Heinrich August Winkler, author of the two-volume history The Long Road West, spanning the period from the French revolution to German unification. The title of the book contrasts with the SPD's own direction of travel since the Bad Godesberg party conference in 1959. Starting with the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt, the SPD has been increasingly looking eastward, by turning itself into the party of the German-Russian relationship. Nobody in the SPD personified that trend more than Gerhard Schröder, chancellor from 1998 until 2005, and a personal friend of Putin. After he left office, Schröder became Putin's main lobbyist in Berlin. He is still roaming the airwaves. Last week he offered himself as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war on the grounds that he had been working successfully with Putin over many years. If there was one unique characteristic that distinguished the SPD from other political parties of the centre, it was the proximity to Russia. 

After Russia's invasion in 2022, some former SPD chiefs changed their position, like Sigmar Gabriel or Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president. One who did not is the party's leader in the Bundestag, Rolf Mützenich. He recently caused an uproar with remarks that he wanted to "freeze" the war in Ukraine, as he put it. Mützenich appears to suggest that the main obstacle to peace in Ukraine is western support for Ukraine. I myself have argued that I struggle to see how Ukraine can liberate all of the occupied territories, given current levels of western support. Even the freezing of the war on the basis of current battle lines would require a step-up of western military support much beyond what Mützenich and other Social Democrats would support. Mützenich's call for freezing the conflict is cynical. He is tapping into a deep German angst about Russia. Polls on German attitudes have been showing a weakening of public support for weapons deliveries to Ukraine, especially long-range missiles. That political constituency is currently served by the far-right AfD and by a new party of the left, founded by Sahra Wagenknecht. Born in East Germany, Wagenknecht was one of the most prominent members of the Left Party before she formally quit the party last year. She is arguably one of the most gifted orators in German politics right now. She draws some of her support from SPD voters. Mützenich and his SPD are trying to regain voters they are losing to the radical parties.

Olaf Scholz himself was never part of the pro-Russia gang inside the SPD. Shortly after Russia's invasion, he held a much-noted speech in which he declared a change of era in German politics. Initially, the SPD followed him cautiously, and is now pulling back. Especially in east Germany, there remains a strong cultural and political proximity to Moscow amongst Social Democrats. East Germany plays a disproportionate role in German politics right now because the only state elections scheduled for this year will be in the three east German states of Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia. Two of the three strongest parties in eastern Germany are the AfD and the Wagenknecht party. The SPD is currently polling at a historically low 6% in Saxony, barely above the legal threshold for representation.

The five historians criticised the position of the party's leadership on three specific issues. The first is prevarication of weapons deliveries for Ukraine, including Scholz' own ambivalent communication and the secrecy with which he takes decisions. 

The second is the SPD's failure to accept responsibility for Germany's failed Russia policies. The way Social Democrats tend to dismiss criticism of their past is by saying that no one could have conceivably foreseen that Putin would act like this. The Putin they knew was always friendly towards them. The absurdity of this claim is hard to beat. They chose not to acknowledge Putin's invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and a long string of political murders, most recently of Alexei Navalny. 

The mindset in the party was well captured by a comment from Jens Plötner, Scholz' foreign policy adviser. He said shortly after the Russian invasion that the really interesting question is how the war would affect Germany's future relationship with Russia. Everything in a modern Social Democrat's head revolves around the Berlin-Moscow axis.

The historians' third point is to some extent even harder-hitting than the first two. They claim that the SPD and Scholz have locked themselves into an intellectual bunker, shunning expert advice, and nurturing a culture of disinformation. An example was Scholz' straw man argument that the delivery of Taurus missiles would require the stationing of German troops in Ukraine. This is factually not true as has been pointed out by security experts.

When parties reinvent themselves, this usually happens through a strong leadership, together with strong grassroots support. When this job falls to a group of historians, it is not hard to see how it fails. The SPD has not got anybody else, young or old, who can lead it out of its deluded nostalgia.