The German Lady Might Have Spoken

This is a hypothetical.

I have no idea whether it, or something like it, happened in fact.

But I have a shred of evidence from the news of the day, and some facts from the biography of one of our world’s most effective leaders, both of which cause me to proffer this scenario.

Angela Merkel grew up and was educated and became a participating adult in East Germany.

East Germany was a small vestige of one of three countries that the World had fought and finally subdued in World War Two.

And it was a Communist powerhouse.

It’s people were well educated and it’s athletes were well pumped.

Angela was educated as a scientist.  She learned to speak fluent Russian.  Obviously she spoke German.

So she is well qualified to proffer an opinion on the state of the number of bricks that Putin carries around and whether he might be a brick or two shy of a load.

That is the case because she has had occasion to talk to him since he has invaded Ukraine.

No one, of course, knows specifically what they might have discussed, but Putin has had a lot to say generally since his invasion, so it is probable that he might have said many of the same things to the Chancellor.

Those things have been that anti Semitics and fascists have driven poor President Yanukovich from power and that Russian “citizens” (they have lived for sixty or so years as “citizens of Ukraine”, but who cares about facts?) are under severe threat of attack from - - - something.

Since the interim Prime Minister of Ukraine is a Jew Putin’s anti Semite assertion seems particularly sinister: Jews must be becoming skinheads in the new Ukraine.

However, that is Putin’s story.

So that, I guess, was probably what Putin said to Merkel, in German (Putin speaks fluent German) and Russian (Angela we have already noticed, speaks Russian).

She probably asked him to tell her his tale of woe in both of their mutually fluent languages.

At this point I fade to fantasy.

But it is fantasy based on what the press reported that Ms. Merkel said after her Putin encounter.

In the press accounts she said something about him not seeming to have a firm grip on reality.

In my fantasy I hear her saying – in fluent English – “that man is deranged”.