You can also look at it economically

In the world of investment, there is hardly anyone who is not familiar with the investment company Berkshire Hathaway and its success story. The legendary Charlie Munger (1924 – 2023) was Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and a congenial partner of Warren Buffett.

Charlie Munger once said: “There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in 30 dollar history books”.

Today we would like to recommend a small paperback that can be purchased for 16.00 EUR. It is worth reading and giving as a gift. You will not acquire any new wealth, but you may have a better chance of living in freedom in the future and enjoying your private wealth.

The author Karl Schlögel is a historian of Eastern Europe and will be awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade on October 19, 2025 in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche.

Knowledge instead of media activism

Karl Schlögel, born in 1946, attended the school of a Benedictine monastery in his native Allgäu region as a child. Russian was offered there as a foreign language, as it was in many other schools at the time. His very first school trip took him through the Ukraine to Russia. Like many others, he is thrilled by the warm welcome he receives there, in countries where his grandfather and father fought in the world wars.

Karl Schlögel at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017 © Alamy Stock Photo

He develops into an expert on Eastern Europe and experiences the changes in Russia under Putin. In his book “Decision in Kiev”, he combines profound historical knowledge with his own experiences. His writing style is light and entertaining.

He deals with the question of why the Kremlin’s narrative meets with so much understanding in Germany in particular, fueled by the media activism of left-wing and right-wing parties and fueled for years by Russian propaganda in the social media.

He was promptly accused of engaging in war propaganda with his warnings against Putin and his commitment to Ukraine and of not deserving the Peace Prize.

The overstretched West: Ukraine – terra incognita

A few years ago, it was understandable that the majority knew almost nothing about Ukraine. People in the West were not particularly interested in this country and could do little with the Orange Revolution on Maidan Square.

While other famous places where people demonstrated and died for freedom and democracy (and in the case of Ukraine for Europe) quickly became part of the general memory, most people lacked deeper knowledge about this country, which gained internationally recognized independence in 1991 and as a price for this surrendered the nuclear weapons stationed in Ukraine to Russia.

Ukraine built on the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which the USA and Great Britain guaranteed Ukraine’s independence and existing borders.

Until the start of the attack on Ukraine by Russia, people there spoke Russian and Ukrainian as a matter of course. In TV talk shows, people sometimes switched from one language to the other in the middle of a sentence. Since the Kremlin believes it has to “liberate” the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainians’ sense of national identity have become much more important. Today, poetry readings in Ukrainian are held in bunkers in Kharkiv, which was ravaged by the Russian invader.

Imagine France and Italy making territorial claims to the areas of Switzerland where French and Italian are spoken, or Putin claiming to “liberate” the Russian-speaking population in Vienna or Berlin.

The long lines

Karl Schlögel draws the long historical lines in which Germany was responsible for much suffering in Ukraine and he warns against giving up on Ukraine, which has been heroically trying to defend its country for almost three years now and is paying a high price for it.

He argues that simply following the news and looking at the corresponding images of destroyed buildings is not enough to understand the goals of Putin and his circle of power.

Karl Schlögel quotes from Putin’s speeches to the German Bundestag in 2001 and at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 and makes it clear that a possible end to Ukraine would not be the end of Russia’s attack on the West.

Why is this book important right now

While at a political level in Western Europe, after a long, far too long time, we are seeing an awakening to reality, in many areas we are feeling a certain fatigue.

Other horrifying news supplants the daily victims in Ukraine. The Kremlin is playing for time and is just waiting for more and more people to naively or calculatingly want to accommodate it.

By awarding the Peace Prize to the historian Karl Schlögel, the Board of Trustees of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association is sending out another courageous and important signal following the previous winners Anne Applebaum, Salman Rushdie and Serhij Zhadan.

The award ceremony will be broadcast live from Frankfurt’s Paulskirche on ZDF on October 19, 2025 from 11:00 am.

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Cover picture: Maidan, Kiev © Alamy Stock Photo