In his open letter to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, published in the Berliner Zeitung on December 17, 2025, the well-known economist and professor Jeffrey D. Sachs speaks out with a clarity that has become rare in the current European debate. Sachs speaks not as an activist, not as a partisan and not as a commentator from a distance, but as an economist and political advisor who has worked for decades at the central interfaces of international crises, security architectures and economic upheavals. The open letter contains an unusually sharp quote:<\/p>\n
\u201eLearn history, Mr. Chancellor.\u201c<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The letter is less a political intervention of the day and more a document arguing from a historical perspective. In it, Sachs does not call for quick solutions, but for a return to a way of thinking that has long been taken for granted in Europe: security as a reciprocal relationship, diplomacy as an instrument of stabilization and historical honesty as a prerequisite for trust. The fact that he addresses the German Chancellor directly underlines the special role that Germany plays in Europe in his view - not as a military pioneer, but as an organizing, balancing force.<\/p>\n
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