On 20 July, the anniversary of a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, new German recruits were sworn in at the Bendlerblock, which housed army headquarters during the Nazi period and was simultaneously the centre of a resistance group led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, whose members were executed at the site after their failed coup.

In recent years, during speeches at the ceremonies for new recruits, top German government officials have praised democracy and emphasised the importance of the rule of law for world peace and freedom. Yet praising the rule of law and taking it seriously are not the same thing.

This year, recruits heard from German intellectual Navid Kermani, one of the few public figures permitted to appeal to the conscience of the country’s political elite at public events.

Far from taking a radical position, he said: “None other than the German chancellor has made a habit of downplaying international law and glossing over violations of it whenever it seems politically expedient… But the threat to wipe out an entire civilisation, or the declared attack on a country’s civilian infrastructure, are such blatant injustices that one need not be a lawyer or consult one’s own conscience to recognise them.”

That is undoubtedly true: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz does not appear to care one bit about international law, which the country has committed to upholding as a lesson learned from its Nazi past.

Kermani also hinted at the nexus of external and internal developments with regard to the Iran war: “When, of all people, a German chancellor - the only western leader to do so - defends the American president’s threat to wipe out an entire civilisation, it is devastating not only for our reputation… The trivialisation of international law from the highest levels also sends a disastrous signal for our democracy.