Jürgen Todenhöfer | Outlaw all wars

Here I stand. I can do no other" – with these words, Luther refused to recant his teachings before the Diet of Worms in 1521. "And if no one follows you, go alone" is the title of Jürgen Todenhöfer's new book. He is an independent man who follows his conscience. An adventurer too, someone who can encourage others.

A story of a life: Shortly before his 85th birthday in November of this year, Todenhöfer felt it was time to revisit his experiences. Reflecting on the twists and turns they brought. He reflects on how his younger brother's suicide at 22 shaped him, reflecting on how he could never forget the horrors of the bombing nights during World War II, and how he became a "truth seeker." This has taken him around the world: from the Middle East to Latin America and Asia. He traveled to Cuba, Vietnam, China, and the USA. And again and again, he processes his experiences in stories so gripping that you won't want to put the book down. Not everyone would have boarded a dilapidated steamer like him as a very young man in Marseille to travel to Algiers. The consequences of the French war against the FLN, the Algerian Liberation Front, were a shock to him. From then on, his commitment "against injustice in the world" became the motto of his life.

The author speaks candidly about himself, always touching on very personal matters, such as a skiing accident in St. Moritz and the subsequent call from Helmut Kohl (Todenhöfer was a CDU member of the Bundestag until 1990, resigning at the age of 60). It's easy to imagine that he was a bird of paradise for many journalists. But from the outset, he was clear about his goals: "To outlaw war and every form of racism" and "to help overcome the fatal division of Germany."

The heart of the book is his accounts of his travels to crisis zones. Today's readers may not even be aware of the methods NATO member Portugal used to combat the independence movement in Mozambique. Reading the book, one realizes: Even back then, a war for global order was taking place. Wasn't it problematic to engage in dialogue with the dictator Pinochet? But the author wanted to do something for the release of political prisoners.

He repeatedly had to make difficult decisions and was also criticized. But what wonderful experiences he had! He sat opposite everyone: Indira Gandhi, Ramón Castro, Mikhail Gorbachev. He explored Afghanistan on foot after the Soviet invasion, then met with Marshal Akhromeyev for lunch in Moscow... Jürgen Todenhöfer demonstrates: You can talk to anyone if you're sure of your own convictions but also willing to listen.

After the 9/11 attacks, he wrote a letter to George W. Bush pleading not to wage another war against Afghanistan, and he asked Mullah Omar, the head of state of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, to hand over Osama bin Laden. "Bush was unstoppable." He later realized that the war plans against seven other countries were about "eliminating former client regimes of the Soviet Union," as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had stated long before 9/11.

Western war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, smear campaigns against all things Islamic, the Libyan war, the Syrian tragedy… right up to the long-simmering Gaza conflict, the Houthi rockets fired at Israel, and the Palestinian issue in general – the book contains detailed analyses of all of these. Todenhöfer has been to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Congo. He never fell for the simple good-versus-evil tropes that official German reporting continues to inundate us with regarding the Ukraine conflict.

He conducted research in Kyiv and Moscow, investigating the domestic and foreign interests at stake. He drafted a negotiated solution and advocated a halt to all arms deliveries and sanctions directed against Russia. The strange situation that this war is now becoming too expensive for a US president, while the Europeans want to continue it to the last Ukrainian, even risking a nuclear war with Russia, is not yet covered in the book.

Germany is now supposed to become war-ready through risky loans. Mental mobilization for a situation that, for God's sake, may never occur. Things are getting dicey. Jürgen Todenhöfer's motto takes on a new explosiveness: "Live every day like a whole life!"

Jürgen Todenhöfer: If no one follows you, go alone. The story of a life. Bertelsmann, 460 pp., hardcover, €24.