Germany’s refusal to send weapons to Ukraine has puzzled and angered some allies. But the reasons why Europe’s most powerful country is standing back are historical and complex.
There’s a great grassy plain to the east of Berlin where the soil tells terrible stories.
As farmers plough, their blades disturb human bones, weapons; the fragments of one of the most brutal battles of World War II.
It was spring 1945. Hitler was hiding in a bunker in Berlin, his troops in retreat. Soviet forces advanced from the east across the plain but, above them on a hill called the Seelow Heights, the Nazis had taken up a defensive position.
