Dr. Philipp Ackermann on World War I to current geopolitical scenarios | The Ranveer Show 289

yeah but you must know the the the the the the film is based on a book a novel called um invest in its noise when it was published in the 20s or something it was very controversial really yeah very controversial the guy had a tough time Mark is somebody who never believed in war he saw the horrors of War he saw the most terrible um you know the world war one was for the soldiers the worst you know with gas and you know you have seen them what was he a soldier as well he was the soldier and then

I went to Afghanistan I lived here I lived for a year in the most remote area of Afghanistan not even in Kabul but in the most remote area forget that question what do you talk about yeah so I lived I lived in kundus which is in Northern Afghanistan it's a city which is one of the centers in Northern Afghanistan this is the second in our geopolitics special of the renway show but this podcast isn't just about politics it's about the history of the world the world was Adolf Hitler the history of

Germany Europe in the modern day and possibly one of the most interesting human stories that I have come across in recent times the goal of the renway show is to extract the best human stories out there from within India from outside of India and the German Diplomat that we had on the show today Dr Philip Ackerman has led one of the most interesting lives amongst the podcast guests that I've hosted in recent times so whether you're an Indian listener or whether you're sitting outside of my count

ry I promise you there's a lot to learn from this particular podcast whether you enjoy history whether you enjoy geopolitics or whether you enjoy incredible human stories please keep your mind open and gain from this particular episode for more episodes just like this make sure you follow us on Spotify the runway shows a Spotify exclusive every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world my own meditation app level is now live on the App Store on the

Play Store so if you want to begin your meditation or your yoga Journey or whether you want to further your meditation Journey or your yoga journey level is the app that you need to download and without further Ado now this is Dr Philip Ackerman teaching us about his own life learnings on the runway show foreign [Music] you usually get interviewed by news journalists and often I've seen with diplomats either journalists attack you or it's a very serious conversation and today we'll only attack y

ou sir shoot I'm happy no no no no not at all uh I that's not what we do on podcasts this is like we're meeting at a party I'm getting to learn some geopolitics some history and some perspective let's begin with a simple how are you sir I'm very well you know I just came from Delhi to Mumbai it's always a pleasure to be in Mumbai it's a great place and this is my first appointment sitting with you which is a great moment I've never done a postcards before so this is a premiere for me and um and

I'm looking forward to it so all is well to begin with I must ask you have you met Dr jayashankar yes yes yes I have okay many occasions yeah many occasions so you have a fair understanding of who he is and how he is as a person the Indian internet especially the audiences that consume geopolitical content are huge Fanboys and fan girls I would count myself in this fan group why do you say that because he's a very smart man very smart you know you see he's a diplomat a very seasoned Diplomat he

has been uh in in many many uh diplomatic postings and I myself and I served in Washington DC I met him there as the Indian ambassador to Washington and but now he has a politician a political side to it so he has both the Diplomatic experience and the skills and he's also a politician and that's a very good combination for foreign policy and let me tell you I think the way he words and expresses Indian foreign policy is masterful masterful because he is a very good communicator as many Indians

are and um he is very funny and witty he can be very sort of eloquent and extremely um you know he plays with words and at the same time he's Sharp As a Razor I mean he's really really good um it's a pleasure to converse with him a pleasure to converse I think India can be proud of this foreign yeah um you said that he's got both Diplomat skills as well as political skills I'd actually like for you to break that down a little bit because not too many people in India honestly at least in Mumbai w

hich is an extremely capitalistic City not too many people I know have even tried becoming diplomats I won't say the same for say Delhi or Another Part of India but what do Diplomat skills entail versus what are political skills entail so I think what is what uh what's the skills of a diplomat I think the Diplomat should be able to communicate with everybody on the planet basically whether you are in Papua New Guinea or in Alaska or in Sweden or in Malawi you should really be able to find a way

of conversation and then a second thing that a development should know is you know how to defend the interests of your country so that your counterpart or your yeah your counterpart in the country understands what you want um so how to make let's say our requirements our requests our ideas palpable for the other so it's an Intercultural communication skill that the diplomats must have you have to see how others will react how to make your points in a way that the others understand them and take

them up okay sometimes it's very difficult for example let's say we have extremely complicated relations with Russia right now for obvious reasons how do you get through uh to the Russian side which is basically very hostile when it comes to Germany right now for obvious reasons but this is diplomatic skills so how do you maneuver yourself in a communication communication wise to your counterpart and make him understand what you want from him that's that's coming that's diplomatically a politici

an on the other side needs to take decisions yeah decisions take I must be taken he will clearly decide on how foreign policy will be shaped or which priorities in foreign policy are they I mean this is not only the foreign minister it's the prime minister to start with but the foreign minister has a has a big word to to say in this so what Dr Jason I think has is both he knows how to communicate and he knows how to take political decisions and that's why he's I think a very successful friend so

as a diplomat you're constantly getting inputs from your country's government clearly and you have to do certain things when it comes to the diplomats of other nations in terms of if your government wants to talk to their government the work actually happens to the diplomats yeah so the main skill is communication skills exactly and some form of writing I'm assuming yeah and you write back then to Capital now I mean you write you write long reports saying that the Indian size side looks at this

problem in such and such way so so basically you receive and you write back home okay and then you receive from home they say instructions go to the Indians ask them to build up a partnership on green and sustainable development together with us and then you go to that okay so Dr Jay Shankar spent decades as a diplomat and then he switched into becoming a politician because he possibly figures that hmm when I stay abroad this is how people perceive my country uh he learned certain things and no

w he's applying it to help the Modi government with governance especially when it comes to foreign policy exactly all right okay now I'll let you break him down a little bit more have you ever chilled with them I think um chilling in your way I would say no but what we did was you know when you when you said we had a you know by foreign minister came we had a lunch with him and when you sit over lunch then it can become very funny also you know he tells a couple of stores which I'm not um at Lib

erty to share everything but he's he you know he has a huge experience and um and he can then be very very um insightful and funny at the time so it is very entertaining for you or entertaining and enlightening to sit with him at a dinner time so but I think Dr J shark is a very very well respected foreign minister worldwide I think he has a name a household name uh his name comes up in the next PM conversation sometimes you know like he's one of the Dark Horses oh yeah yeah I'd say he's a dark

horse okay I don't know if he himself wants uh to do that well you know let me tell you as a diplomat if you if you want to be um something rather not talk about it the moment you you throw you as we say you throw your hats and say I'm here and the risk is that you become burned or that they kick you out very early so you have to be you have to be very very careful on how to so I haven't heard about that it is for me the first time they're here but um I'm not surprised that he doesn't speak abou

t it there was a movie I saw recently about World War one it's called all quiet oh my God it's quite a movie yeah it's not for everyone it's tough and and basically for people who haven't seen it one I highly recommend it it's a painfully dark movie two it shows the German perspective on World War one but Germany had lost also yeah and uh it still showed kind of the German spirit in the camps before the soldiers actually went out to War and the reason I think everyone should watch this is everyo

ne has only seen the American or the Allied Forces uh perspectives on World War II and World War one and this is one of the rare instances where you get to see the German side yeah but you must know the the the the the film is based on a book a novel called um investment noise it's All Quiet on the Western Front basically or nothing new on the Western Front as you would say and it's written by a very famous German novelist called Irish Maria remark and it was when it was published in the 20s or

something it was a big or 30s 20s I think it was very controversial really yeah very controversial the guy had a tough time because people felt that this perspective of his did not match the perspectives of many at that time what was his perspective because he's basically a pacifist yeah it's I think remark is somebody who never believed in war he saw the horrors of War he saw the most terrible um you know the world war one was for the soldiers the worst you know with gas and you know you have s

een them what was he a soldier as well he was the soldier Okay so basically he wanted to have peace and this book was about you know the horrors of war that should lead to a more peaceful world and therefore in German schools now I have read this book it was basically part of the curriculum everybody yeah yeah we have we we all read these books in school it's very dark book to make children I mean not not at the age of nine let's say but when we were 16 or something I would I would probably argu

e that it's dark even for a 16 year old yeah but that's that's the reality we have to be confronted with you know that was World War One then World War II um um this is a part of our history and we have to understand this history and we have to take out the lessons out of this history you know and that's um that's you know the lessons is uh avoid war as much as you can and and the war is is bringing unhappiness in the broadest form to everybody and what we see in Ukraine right now [Music] um you

know when you see the pictures of this cities that are completely destroyed I mean like Hiroshima you know there is not a single house is there anymore you feel is that really necessary I mean why do hundreds of thousands of people have to die is there a a good reason for that and I would say there is no reason for that okay um I have to talk about the Russia Ukraine situation also but I actually want to talk a little bit about the German situation a little more yeah yeah go ahead yeah and this

is something I've wanted to ask actually I've asked her Joe and friend I have Joe and friends but I'd actually like for you to see it on the podcast um how are Germans taught about the world wars because I'll tell you how Indians are taught about world wars and I'm assuming that this is thanks to the British who ruled over us and then like it's written in our textbooks that way uh we definitely taught about it from a perspective of the Allied Forces were the good people and the heroes and then

the movies we see in Hollywood always portray it like that I I believe war is entirely gray and there is right and wrong on both sides but the side that wins eventually gets the right over history textbooks uh but I'd like to actually know how history is taught in Germany especially when it comes to the world wars so um it is a big chapter in schools both was especially the second world war is a big chapter in the curriculum and we did it when I was a kid we were taught twice about at an early s

tage and then later when I did my you know the the end exam of how early I think we started history at a great seven and it was then in grade eight we talked about it and then again in grade 12 or something gotcha so it's a defining moment for post-war German history and therefore um I think it is it takes a big um part of ours now when you say gray um I think that's difficult an argument for the second world war because the Second World War the responsibility is completely clear it lies exclusi

vely with the Germans you know um the Adolf Hitler was uh ideologically crazy I think that's what you have to say and he in his uh illusion or in his crazy ideas of how Germany should look like he started this war um with everybody I mean it's unbelievable he was involving the whole world and I think the end was to be expected in hindsight um he lost terribly and I say that with a sigh of relief we are very happy about it it cost us heavily so when you go you have been to Germany you have to be

you told me you have to be introduce a lot of it and you see the destruction of German cities it's like scars all over the country but I think the the craziness of this Nazi ideology had to be eliminated and I think one reason why we are so friendly with the United States and and the Brits and the French and so that is that they helped us to overcome that and that means by uh winning over over the channel so I think the second world war there is really no doubt left now the first world war um th

ere is a huge debate on the historians how it came to this war and I would say this is more difficult to say although the Germans have a huge amount of responsibility there again but um there is a one Theory um uh by proposed by Australian um is a historian called Christopher Clark whom I quite like actually and he says you know the rulers of this time mostly non-democratic rulers with the exception maybe of of England and America they decided on a war because they felt at that time that Wars wo

uld be over quickly and rearranged a bit geographically territories because they were experiencing wars in the 19th century that went over quickly with not a lot of victims and so but what they didn't well they weren't no thinking of or weren't considered or they didn't know was that the Weaponry the Armament had much had made such a progress that wars were fought completely differently with tanks with poison gas you know with um um machine guns all of a sudden you know so they were in their thi

nking basically 50 years away from reality and they were themselves shocked to see how violent how gruesome how terrible how horrible this war unfolded so Christopher Clark calls it The Sleepwalkers you know they walked into this war like sleeping a Sleepwalkers I think it's not a theory that is entirely accepted by the historical world but I think there is a lot to say about it um so this the first world war um for example in Germany is um not was not as failed as elsewhere because it never too

k place on German soil it was in Belgium in France it was outside Germany not inside German by the way I have to say that in the first world war we have a huge contingent of Indian soldiers the Indian British Army and there is a very good book which I recommend to read it's called The Book of everlasting things by Angel malutra a very young extremely smart daily writer and she um she describes in this book amongst various is a book about partition actually but there is a big chapter on in an Ind

ian soldier from Lahore who goes to Belgium and fights for the British army you know and it's a very interesting aspect I read that it's great great pleasure because you know European Soldier you would understand with all the problems you know between the countries and but in Indian soldier I mean they came to Europe they've never been in Europe never he he has an Indian mindset he's he has grown up in Lahore he he's a perfumer you know and and all of a sudden he's being sent by the English to f

ight in the trenches of Belgium and you see the the the terrible irony of war is that these completely innocent people who had nothing to do with it ended up in the in the trenches in in build uh and I find this it's a very good um aspect to see that how many Indians were shipped to Europe in order to fight with the British on a good side yes but um basically they had nothing to do with it yeah why why Indians of All Sorts what year was your father born in my father was born in 35 it's today his

88th birthday wow so my father was 10 at the end of the war what what has he said about it yeah we we talked about the war all the time also with my grandparents whom I fortunately met and and my grandmother she lived until she was 103 so she had ample time to share all her experience so my grandfather from My Father's Side died in the war he was shot in 1940 so my grandmother lived alone with four kids she had four kids um and she was you know he was shot in the first year of the war very unus

ual you know the terrible casualties came only later but he was in France he was so basically my family was very at an early stage exposed to what the war meant you know because my my grandmother was a was a widow at the age of not even 30. um and then the family you know took her on and the kids grew up with uncles and aunts and it was but my father when you are 10 in the voice over I think he has a very strong memory as a kid you know 10 years people think and so he can describe um the last ye

ars he experienced the bombs falling and um and he was he was a young boy you know with basically little to eat during that I mean he really suffered they really suffered and they were shipped from place to place because it was not safe anymore and you get an insecurity as a child when you don't know where to belong and where your parents are that will go with you for the rest of your life so I was very happy that my parents were very vocal and talked about the war a lot but um there are very ma

ny people who never mentioned it you know many many Germans were in in Soviet camps after the war for years and years and years and had the most terrible life and never mentioned it and I find that very interesting because when you talk about India with Indians of a certain age who have lived partition there are many families that never mentioned what happened in petitioners yeah it's like a a tombstone you don't open it and I met an old sardarji in in in in Delhi whom I really like and he told

me that he he was from west of the Border somehow in the village of Punjab and they moved to Delhi and he says you know we never talked about it the only thing he knew was the name of the village and then he read this book of Angela malota this young very young she's 33 a very good book remnants of a separation where she takes up oral history you know people making people talk about their petition experience and she says he said when I read it I had the urge to really know about this past for th

e first time I wanted to know it I wanted what happened to my family now he's 70 something so you know everybody's dead by now so he he felt that you know and that's what I'm talking I mean that's what I meant when I said you know history is such an important part of you of yourself even if it is a generation before you you can't just let it rest I think you need to work with it you need to talk about it you need to know where your ancestors came from and what the Destinies was where and where t

hey ended up and there in this case I think partition um and the German post-war situation are a little bit similar because the region where I am from in Germany is a very rural region in in the south doubled in population after 45 because you know the German ethnic Germans from Poland and the czechless then in Czechoslovakia were kicked out you know after the war as a Revenge they wanted to get rid of all the gems they hated them so much and they had to settle somewhere so my the region where I

'm from Dublin population and you can't imagine it's like Delhi you know the city of Delhi half of it goes away half of half of it comes again so um you see these people in the village or in the little town and then when you talk to my uncles and aunts they start saying that we hated them from the get-go you know they were taking our jobs and they were you know living in our houses because there had to be housed somewhere so the government put them somewhere and so we lived next to people whom w

e didn't know and there was a very very poisoned atmosphere in a time where you know everybody suffered a bit there was no food no money no jobs even after the war after the war it was a terrible time I think in 45 to to the early 50s when the wheelchair the numerical of the economy started every everybody had a tough time so they had to share everything and it was only slowly slowly that they integrated these people and now they have been contributing in the last seven decades I would say to a

great wealth no the region where I'm coming is extremely wealthy it's people are very rich and these you know skilled people from from from from in this case Czechoslovakia they made a huge difference here so um but it was a tough time you know it was tough you want to talk a little bit about the economic Miracle yeah well I mean American help and and a very very decided and extremely um you know thoughtful Economic Policy there was a re-industrialization happening um so industries were supporte

d by the government and entrepreneurs came and the world economy then started to grow again and Germany was as if with this in this industrial past of them you know we had skills that was very good so there was so during the war there were companies that came up during the War I think basically what happened in 39 was we changed into a war economy um so basically what happened was that every Steel company every machine company turned into some weapon manufacturer or many of them but that was ove

r and after the war as you know in the first years University Soviet Union took whole factories to Russia because they said you know this is our right we suffered we bring all the Machinery to to Russia and and tried to set up the the machineries there but um in West Germany it has to be said you know Germany was divided in West Germany with a lot of money from the United States and a lot of decisions and then a lot of good Economic Policy policy by the government I think um the the the miracle

started very early so um basically I think you know in 10 years time by the end of the 50s um or beginning of 60s there was the first clear Insight that there was a lack of skill labor in Germany or labor not even skilled labor but labor many of German soldiers were dead or still in Soviet camps so there was no uh you know no people to to to work in the factories I mean the war had caused the population to shrink yeah so there was basically fewer people to do the work exactly and the moment you

you know build up factories the moment you put produce more you start car producing or steel producing or machine reproducing or you name it you need people at least at that time now it's different but in this game you had you know assembly lines and that's where the German government starts to bring Turkish people to them first Greece the Greeks and Italians and and then lots and lots of Turkish people so basically from the 60s onwards I would say um there's a grown Turkish population in German

y and now you know USA population wise Germany is like Tamil Nadu it's about 80 something million 83 million 84 million and out of these 84 million three millions after 3.5 million of Turkish percent and they are they came in Germany it came into Germany in the 60s as Factory workers so my question is how does a country the size of Tamil Nadu become one of the world's biggest economies what to go on right also for Germany and so I I'd say it's very it's not not easy to answer but there is a old

industrial tradition there is Germany was not the first country to be industrialized but maybe in the second wave so there is a clear um sort of um experience and knowledge about you know how to produce things and but then there is one thing which is important that's education yeah you need to train your people in the right way and there's two things in Germany there is academic education like you did you know you were an engineer like and this engineering schools technical schools in Germany ar

e very good world class and but this is not enough you need also to educate the people who are you know on the in the mid-lift people like technicians like uh uh car builders like even plumbers or Bakers and Germany has a very specific way of training them and let me tell you that's I think one of the big photos of my country is that a young guy who's maybe not intellectually so stimulated that he or she wants to go to university so what you can do is you get a training that goes along with a sc

hool public schooling and some apprenticeship in a workshop and after three years after two and a half years you get a diploma on that so basically you are you have a diploma as a baker you are an you are taught how to bake bread and cake and cookies properly you are you get a diploma as a welder and that leads to the fact that these people are very highly regarded in Germany so the little town I was telling you about where I've I'm from these crafts people have an incredibly important role to p

lay and I would say that the baker the local Baker or the local butcher has as much as a recognition as the local doctor so they are very important they are well earning so I have a cousin who is a roofer he um he puts tiles on roofs and you know he has 60 people he's a rich man he's a very very established um Craftsmen and you know they are in the politics they are in the festivities they have functions in honorary functions and and in the association Sports and others and so they are very very

established um uh and and that's one thing that you don't find even in the west you don't find it so strongly because this schooling gives them also a self-confidence and they are very good they are just very good what do you mean in the west you don't find it so I think this system you have the only country that has it with Switzerland also but you know okay in France or in in the UK you don't have uh have this vocational training and therefore the level of craftsmanship is not that developed

okay I'm gonna have a go at something and then please correct me if I'm wrong uh okay so I'm a big football fan yeah and often I've noticed that in sport especially team sports yeah the way a team plays often represents the character of the people of their country for example when you watch Brazil blade you know that Little People a little more fun they like to party because of just how they play football when a football fan watches Germany play football I've been seeing Germany play football si

nce I was a child in from the 2002 World Cup right right and it's always been the same organized way of playing it doesn't matter if the team is completely young or whatever it's a system that they always follow I I think the you have a point I would say I mean you know the latest German performance at the World Cup was really not very convincing whether but it was systematic or not we don't want to talk about it but it's true that you know German Football is not as playful and colorful as Argen

tinian or Brazilian football or even Italian football I would say there is a bit of a structure and a bit of a sort of an organized way of going at it um and you know that means also the the the the aim is winning and you do a lot in order to win it's not if moment is football you know it's a football that is looking towards the end but um sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't you know it's a coaching based system as in the coach has a lot of say and he plans a local choose these players becau

se they'll have to play in my way yeah and I feel this is also coming from a place of having traveled to Germany it's possibly the most organized place I've ever seen on earth like everything is organized everything is on time I'd probably say maybe second to Japan but Japan and Germany these places are hyper organized hyper coach Centric and and that's maybe a reason for this kind of economic success as well yeah I mean I think organization is is certainly an economic success but then I will al

so draw your attention to another point and structure and organization is certainly in our DNA that's true that's true we are very organized maybe too organized sometimes and also too regulated if I may say but there's one thing and I was talking about this refugees coming in these refugees they're brought an enormous will and an enormous um uh you know Readiness to do something with their lives and there was engineering see and creativity coming through these refugees so these were these people

were very healthy for the German economy they brought really the German economy up so you had a um you had these people wanted to do something and in a way it's not to be compared but I wanted to compare that a bit if I'm a historical comparison always a bit a problem but I think um when the Hindus and Sikhs let's say came from from the west of the border to Delhi it was a similar thing they wanted to start a new life they wanted to start a life from scratch basically and they were very very re

ady to invest you know they were very industrious extremely committed and and that's an experience that also brings a lot of creativity and a lot of economic activity and you know we have as you might know we have received over a million Syrian refugees in 2015 and they came because of the Civil War that it left here and these syrians they understand I think that's my experience I mean they understand that the way back home is over they will not go home to Syria they have been in Germany since e

ight years their kids are in German schools they speak German better than Arabic um and they want to do something with their lives in Germany and you see the most remarkable um the most remarkable uh series of these Syrian Syrian refugee so for example in Frankfurt you know you have been there Frankfurt there was a elections for the mayor of Frankfurt and the candidate of a Social Democratic party is Assyrian he's a Syrian I mean he's German Now by now but he's a Syrian citizen a Christian from

Syrian who has fled and who you know lived in Germany for a while and now he's in politics and you see this is there is a force in these Refugee movements that is not under to be underestimated so um for us it's basically I think it will pay after a while these people will be very very good in Germany yeah my reading of this whole answer of yours is that initially the population was small which allowed the government to set a very strong education system on many live levels lots of people came i

n from other countries uh mixed in with that system and now they've built out this Mega economy which is like growing constantly it would have not been possible um without um foreigners in a way it would not have been possible and but you see that you know the German character um changed also over the years I would say that food has become much better you know since the Italians came to Germany food has been so much better the Turkish brought their fresh vegetables yeah the kebabs the donut keba

bs I mean this is something it's a Turkish Berlin invention I think but but you see that there is a lot of um you know Germany comes becomes more and more diverse not like India but we are 20 of Germans now a fifth of Germans have one non-german parent that's quite a lot it's quite a lot so um it is a more International and Global place has become a much more International Global pace and I think this is the only way to survive you know our economy must live on this global scale it can't go back

to a national mini economy with little internal we are playing on a high level and that level can only be sustained if you get this diversity okay and that's good in India you know the Indians are so good at that because look at how many Indians are in the top layer of American firms it's unbelievable there is not one that hasn't got some Indian on the board of directors it's they have this Global Spirit of India is is something which I admire a lot and this will bring the country a lot of uh i

s is getting like country a lot of boosts and yeah okay um I have to bring you back to Diplomat mode and I have to ask you what the what the best and worst thing about being a diplomat is so the best the best thing your life is pretty rich basically yeah um so you experience a lot more than other people do so look I lived in Morocco for three years and then in New York for three years and then I was back in Berlin and then I went to Afghanistan I lived here I lived for a year in the most remote

area of Afghanistan not even in Kabul but in the most remote area forget that question everyone talk about it yeah so I lived I lived in kundus which is in Northern Afghanistan it's a city which is one of the centers in Northern Afghanistan and um I was the head of um what we call the provincial reconstruction team where 550 soldiers and a small group of diplomats tried to you know change a bit the support let's say the government institutions in this area and that was a very tough job 2006 and

2007. this is at the peak of the war on terror it was it was basically when I came when I came in 2006 the mood was perfect everybody was happy we were building schools and streets and it was really and then the Telecom Taliban came back in in early 2007 in April they started really attacking um locally security institutions and then also the German army so why I was unfortunately there when when a big attack happened really you've lived through an adapter yeah I mean I was not directly attacked

but I we lost three soldiers um you mean on the embassy on the on this on this very strange provincial reconstruction team so 550 German soldiers and a handful of diplomats so three of these struggles were killed on the market in that and you know it was very mean and heinous this attack because not only did they killed the soldiers but the bazaaries of course they were so afraid of receiving Germans as clients after that because they said you know we might go we might be short or you know bumm

ed because of that and so there was a the relationship between the local population and the Germans deteriorated after that so basically when I left the situation was much worse than when I came and in hindsight we have to say that you know we failed um we failed in condos we tried our best you say you failed because you said that the main skill for being a diploma at is communication and somehow you weren't able to talk to Afghan Hearts no yeah I think basically I I would say that we talked to

Afghan hearts a lot we said some we we said one thing at the beginning we said you know security and development are interdependent if there is more security there is more development if there's more development there's more security that's wrong it turned out to be wrong because its first security security and then comes development and what happened was that the people of kundus and in the neighboring processes you you cannot imagine which it I was in every village in this area and I think the

re are very few Afghans who have seen so much of Afghanistan in comparison to me but you've seen a lot of interior Afghanistan yeah I've you know I was in every village I mean I was in the in the most remote Villages you know I was in villages where the women could not leave the houses they would not be allowed to lead leave the houses so we offered you know um courses in hygiene and birth control for women and the people who did it they went from house to house because you couldn't even gather

the women in some common place you know even without man but they would not be allowed to I mean you must imagine that the woman once she marries cannot leave their house for the rest of her life I mean that's changed so I've seen a lot of things that are so strange to to our but what I wanted to say is that um we spoke to the hearts of the Afghans as long as they feel secure the moment the Taliban came again yeah they realized that the Germans would not prevent them from bombing because they we

re in the mountains and we were only 550 soldiers and they said okay now what should I do as a family in Afghanistan should I listen to the Taliban or should I listen to the gems or should I do both because you never know what happens you know we have lived 30 years or for 20 years of war and and now all of a sudden there's war again so basically what I felt was at the end that we spoke to the Afghans we interacted with them but they always had this little door open towards the Taliban because t

hey knew that someday they might come back out of fear out of fear and when you ask me why do we where did we fail as diplomats and I will tell you one thing in hindsight um we didn't know enough about Afghanistan we just didn't know enough we didn't culturally we didn't know the DNA we didn't know the problems of Afghanistan um and we didn't we were not well enough prepared basically did you meet any Taliban members yes yes what's it like talking to them they are very courteous and extremely yo

u know formal I would say you can discuss with them but they're very very conservative in a traditional way conservative and they are ideologues you know they are of the opinion that they know what the Real Islam is nobody else does it only them and that makes them so secure they say you know there is no other country in the world Muslim country in the world that would not let women go to university not not a single one or only Afghanistan and they feel that they have found the truth you know it

's like they are not open to discussions because they say this is the true and only Islam and we are following the rules of and that's very difficult to break the Breakthrough to them so it's it's okay to talk to them but you don't get very far actually were there any women on your team we had one woman and you know when I started we had um a great uh interaction with me I will tell you a story which is quite quite interesting you know in Germany the burka you remember this blue thing this is th

e worst everybody thinks that this is the Discrimination of a woman is the burka is um is is the worst of the worst so every when I talked when I came home and I talked about Afghanistan everybody talks about burka burka all the time so I you know this is an obsession in Germany saying that and I I understand that and it's also my obsession because I find it absolutely horrific this podcast but when I talk to the women of kundus and there were some very emancipated women teachers female teachers

also some doctors and they said you know the burka is the least of our problems they said what is our problem our problem is the role in the household that we can't work if we get work I'm happy to wear a Booker it's just you have to have a different role in society the burka is such we can cope with that but not with the fact how we are treating Society so for them the booker was not so important I would say although I think they would have reported not to wear it but it's not that and then th

ey also say you know the moment you wear a Booker people respect you if you don't wear a broker then people get the the women got harassed a bit so um Boca was also a protection shield anyway that's sad enough yeah it's not a good reason to wear a Booker you know but I would say that um our perception and when I say we didn't know enough about Afghanistan was that with our view the Western View on things in Afghanistan we didn't get very far you know our idea is Tainted it's a biased idea of Afg

hanistan we were not aware of the intricacies and um so another example to you are you okay with them right so um you have you have a crazy life story yeah so enough in Afghanistan so there are many ethnicities like in India you have tajiks and you have pashtools and you have Hazara and so this region where I was in the 30s now that's basically 70s years ago was um for a for ethnic reason the central government sent push to settlers are in the South they send Pashto settlers to this region so 70

years ago they fled during the Civil War these Pashto settlers after 50 years living in kundus they fled to Pakistan and then they came back so the population of tajikis of the town projects didn't want them back so they said to me you Germans you have to see to it that these people don't come again and I said come on guys they have been living here for 50 years I mean they had houses they had land and yes but they are strangers they never belong to this texture then I told the story of the sto

ry I told you from the refugees from Czechoslovakia who you know basically contributed to make my hometown and the region a very prosperous one so I you know they wouldn't hear of it and you know this is something where we Germans could we could not do anything this is a such a complicated conflict between the ethnicities in Afghanistan that with our knowledge and with our Manpower we could not rule you know and the government did nothing they felt it is too hot a potato they would not again thi

s is down to a lack of education and I also want to highlight something I actually learned from a trip I had to Israel very long ago when they wanted to teach Hebrew to the whole population after World War II yeah they decided that it should be compulsory for all the girls to learn Hebrew till the age of 18 but it's okay if the guys only learn it to a certain age because women become mothers who then teach their families very smart very smart yeah if you're preventing like girls from education y

ou're actually preventing a population from education as well yeah exactly and that's what we did in Afghanistan Big Time girls schools girls schools girls school everywhere and you know with a lot of money and a lot of um heart and a lot of conviction and I think they're all closed did the Taliban members treat your female team members differently yeah but you know we did not we did not talk to the Taliban in kundus we talked to the Taliban in a later stage I was then basically the deputy speci

al representative for Afghanistan in Berlin and we tried to then initiate a dialogue with the Taliban in order to get them into some government of national unification of a union sort of a national reconciliation government and that also failed so I we talked with Taliban later the sort of the Diplomatic representation of Taliban so I I brought one of these Taliban I brought them talibs I brought them to brought him to Berlin in order to sit down and get as little you know that's what you do as

a diplomat it's a culture far away we don't agree on anything basically with the Taliban or nothing we agree but you have to build up some chemistry so what I did was um I thought but how do you deal with such a person in Berlin you know Berlin Western Capital very uh liberal you know full of crazy people looking into a nightclub yeah like this you know there are lots of gay people and and you know I mean this is the verse for Taliban in a way so I thought what would you do so I brought them I t

hought we we bring them to um to the Islamic collection of the Berlin museums in order to show him that Germany has a huge respect for Islamic Art and civilization into he thought that was quite interesting thing but he said when he get out of this Museum you have not not been to Berlin but you what you see is that in the midst of Berlin the worst fights of the second world war were happening in in early 45 so in the last month of the war you had fears fighting in Berlin and in the middle of the

Berlin the heart where this Museum island is you see these traces of the war everywhere you see holes and in the in the walls you know from bullets you see uh parts of the buildings are still destroyed and in order to remember the horrors of War the government decided to keep this um you know the holes to keep that um um sort of the re the memories of the war basically they're very visible and they're very well preserved like a monument and this was the thing that the Talib was completely flabb

ergasted they said why do why don't you repair that he says you know I said you know we want to keep it to show that on this very In This Very location in 45 nobody went to the museum but they they hid behind the trees or fled because there was fierce fighting and the city was basically a Battlefield and we hate this idea but we should remember it and that was for him was he was thinking time and again about this you know the horrors of War will be preserved to show the people how bad boys that

made an impression of him it was not very useful as you see but at least that was something he reacted to all those girls schools that you guys built and other developmental projects do you know what's happened to them now the Taliban station it's a very good question because I'm I'm wondering very often you know I have been so involved with this you emotionally it's very difficult also to see that this is all gone there is a we built a huge Hospital huge Hospital in Mazar Sharif I think that mi

ght work an airport also roads and I think they this infrastructure is still there but the schools I think they're all closed or closed I don't know what they do with the schools I don't know nobody has been there we don't have an embassy there you know we don't have diplomatic versions and the Taliban at the beginning we thought now okay there will be turned once they take over they might be a little more realistic and the ones with whom we talked I said yeah yeah you'll see we'll allow girls t

o school and go to university and you see what happens nothing nothing have you have you spoken to the PM have you had a conversation with them yeah we had a conversation in the group basically but I I I can't say that I had a bilateral conversation with him but we had a conversation around the table what do you make of his life it's quite impressive don't you think no I mean like his life right now in terms of when you're the PM I don't think you get time for anything other than stuff to do I I

'm guessing but I think you are right I mean he's constantly on and I know from from the from the baboos the civil servants then he is up very early and he's uh you know requiring information and so I think he's very demanding you know in a way and and that's how you you lead such a big country I mean look at India this is not some average country it's 1.4 billion it's uh it's the most populous nation on Earth and um and and and there's a lot to do and I think um you know he's his life is dedica

ted to politics and to Leading this nation a bit of a stupid question but does the chancellor get any free time oh I think they're always similar very similar never a free weekend never a free evening yes it's all I mean I think the chancellor goes for two weeks holidays once a year but that's very private and for the rest of it the Chancellor's wife is she's a minister in a state government so she's also busier the whole time so basically life is once you are committed to um National politics y

our life gets very one-sided I would say there is no much time for for anything trading off a lot of other things for uh that responsibility and you really need to want it I think true um it's a it's a commitment it's almost a religious commitment I would say you know it's something that you give up most of your life when you do that but it's only for a time you should not you know I mean our the former chancellorship was there for 16 years so she is now uh I think uh you know enjoying retiremen

t um and baking and writing and reading and but uh 16 years is is a total you know it takes a heavy tournament before India you were in America right so did you end up meeting Barack Obama yes how was he it was on the day I will tell you it was on the day we had a nice conversation it was on the day in 2014 when um Germany played Brazil in the World Cup you remember seven one yeah seven one and seven Germany so he asked me it was the head of the game and he asked me um I was tonight I mean he ap

parently was following the World Cup quite closely he says you know what do what do you think is going to happen tonight and I said you know I share a secret with you Germany will win I said to him it was quite a guess but I had no idea seven one you know that was like a prophecy very nice extremely nice extremely charismatic chill you know as compared to other world leaders yeah you know I mean every world leader has another um I mean I think the Prime Minister here he's very close to the peopl

e and look at him he's very popular you know people really like him he's reaching out I'm not so sure where the Putin reaches out to people in this way like Prime Minister Modi does you know I think when you talk to the rickshawala you know I'm always talking about Rick Travis because I talk with discussion about us all the time they really like him you're able to speak in Hindi yeah a little Hindi little English sometimes they do both and we will okay so um um and and you feel that there is rea

lly a pop he's popular and um I I'm not sure whether um you know this way of expressing yourself naturally about Putin is possibly in Russia because everybody thinks that you say something on politics you might end up in jail right now you know I mean you've the ones who don't like this war so much okay now now a little raw question for you uh this is gonna be a little journalist mode good good um you know so okay so have you heard of someone called abhiji chavra no no okay so he's an astrophysi

cist who's also a historian by Passion he's been on the show a lot and he's possibly our most popular guest all right yeah he comes here regularly regularly okay and um whenever he comes and does an episode with us world war three and I hate seeing that as a possibility uh becomes a partial conversation do these kind of World War III related conversations happen at your level of work so um uh the the let me say start by saying that the fact that there is a war in Europe was so unthinkable a year

and a half ago so completely Unthinkable that we have this kind of War that I would say I wouldn't exclude anything right now so but what I would say is that diplomats are there in order to avoid this scenario that's our that's our vocational that's what we have to do we have at any Amino coming from Germany I must say world war three would be the biggest catastrophe ever because you know you know what Weaponry we have right now you know what could happen um in in another world war so I think o

ur main tasks is now to try to stop and end this war and you know let me say that I think that there is still um a chance um that this will end at some stage not very soon unfortunately but it will end without getting spread out to the rest of the world and you see I mean I was now that you know India holds the G20 presidency and um we had um a meeting with a foreign ministers last week and I was attending this meeting and you see and you feel that there is a atmosphere in the room also those wh

o have good relations with the with Russia that they are fed up with this war nobody wants this war because it has such a strong impact on the world economy you know when it's is whether it's fertilizer or energy procurement and so um South Africa and you know Brazil and all these countries they you feel there is a fatigue and I felt that the Russian argument was pretty isolated so that doesn't mean that the war will end the war will end quickly I'm afraid that will not be the case but I think t

here is still a big chance to contain it okay do you feel that it's just Putin who wants to keep the war going and maybe not even the Russian diplomats I think in Russia you have this nationalistic mood you have the television and social media there you know really whipping them up and everybody thinks that they are discriminated and unjust treated and fairly but the facts are that this the biggest country on Earth with a very small population no it's not even France and Germany together and inv

ades another country to grab land this can't be acceptable it just can't happen and everybody who thinks properly must see that this is not what we want and therefore you know the safety of borders as a very very important part of the international order must be sustained it is very important that this International order cannot be violated by the strongest and that's why I think um the west and other countries are so United against this war because we feel it is a precedent for many many other

border conflicts border companies in this region for example you cannot have one nation that has more people and more weapons invade a smaller country a weaker country Maybe and change geographical uh this geographical situation for what reasons we it's very difficult to understand why because they change gold posts all the time but um I think the dedication and the commitment from our side is to make this war come to a stop but not in a way that you know Ukraine is the loser of this world I mea

n the one thing I've learned through this podcast Again by talking to a lot of people who are a geopolitical observers is that when you actually study history from a macro view like from a really long term view you see that borders always change that's true and borders haven't changed in a long time no I won't say borders haven't changed in a long time but you know more or less yeah I find it a good argument actually because you say um voters are not something that are you know it's not the Bibl

e or the Mahabharata you know something that can is is a deliberate but you know what we have learned and this is the European experience after World War II um is that borders can be overcome in a completely different way so between the European countries borders are there between Poland and Germany Germany and France Germany and Holland but they are completely permissive you know you can go from one side to the other you don't show your password you just cross them um when you want to have a go

od dinner in a French restaurant you go just across the border or when you feel Dutch cheese is cheaper in Holland you just go there or people go to uh Fill gas in in Poland you know because it's cheaper basically they go and cross the border so the border is there it is it marks the difference between two countries but it is not a wall it's just very porous and deliberately so and this is a border management I think that pleases everyone you know Germany has um lost after the second world war a

third of its territories to Poland and Russia and I think with the new situation with Poland being a member of the European Union a polyn been a friend basically people go and see their parents houses in villages that once was were Germans but were all now polish and that works perfectly well you know nobody puts in question and I think when you work with borders this way you can keep them but also overcome them at the same time as a diplomat and I'm sorry I'm asking you this but as a diplomat

are you given some sort of training for a war like situation if something is breaking out they all have protocols sure I mean There are rules you know International rules what happens when War breaks out and what how how do balloons are treated and dealt with and but I would say we don't have a special training for Wars and let me make that clear here I don't see a third world war coming um right now I say that with all caution because we didn't foresee the Ukrainian War also but I think that's

still another dimension and um nobody including Putin I would say is interested in a third world war now we have seen and I talked about the first World War I think nobody had foreseen by then what a terrible war that would be at the end of the leading to the complete dissolution of the Austrian Hungarian Empire for example but so they always you know random situations that but I think there is a clear commitment and when you hear even the Chinese when they say when they speak you know being the

very close to the Russians they really don't want war in a large scale so I'm pretty confident that the world powers the leaders and Prime Minister Modi being one of them will do their utmost to avoid the third world do you think as a diplomat the world is becoming a better place yes you feel so yeah you think it's the same no I think it's becoming a better place it's a very um unusual remark right now because we have this gloominess you know war and everything but when you look what happens in

the world um with medical progress educational progress economic progress you know the awareness rising of what means what climate change means what um how we change our energy and I think we are in in a very good phase of the of the earth I don't want if you ask me would I like to live in another area no no way no way I think it's the best world ever and the fact that I sit with you here in this podcast shows you know how close the world has grown and that's also a very very good thing I think

50 years ago it wouldn't have been possible in this in this in this way so I think this globalization with all the negative aspects to it I think I I would recognize that um has you know led to a new Consciousness in many ways that is very good okay Dr Ackerman that was it that's the episode for today excellent you're the first Diplomat we've had on the show and I'm very exciting to know about your mind but more importantly what you said about 50 years ago we wouldn't have dreamed of this kind

of a situation for me this was an attempt to get to know your childhood and your perspectives and then how your life is as a diplomat as well so thank you sir learn from you I think it was a great opportunity I liked the conversation I hope I didn't talk too much but I it was a very nice uh Exchange I'm very curious to hear what your your audience is how how they erected how they what they say yeah no thank you for sharing your perspective sir and uh any last message for the Indian audience is w

atching this my last message is saying that um this is a great country which I personally love very much um there's still a lot to do in many ways but I am very confident that India will be one of the great Nations is already but will be even more one of the great nations in the in the years to come so I'm very happy to be in India and not anywhere else actually um and I'm looking forward to a very couple of a couple of very satisfactory years ahead maybe we sit together one day yes yes for sure

thank you Dr Philip Ackerman this is fantastic thank you I wish you all the best uh in life wherever life takes you next very good thank you sir that was the episode for today Dr ackerman's life story Dr ackerman's childhood in Germany and Dr ackerman's European perspectives but what kind of molded My Mind through the course of this episode I constantly wish to talk to expats I wish to talk to people from other countries on the runway show extract the best bits of their life and then bring it f

orward for the audience for the listeners of the ranveer show next week we have our third geopolitics special with one of India's most reputed journalists do look out for that one as well I'll allow you guys to try guessing who it might be tell me in the comment section I want feedback on this episode as well I want feedback on every single episode because this podcast has been built through your feedback so please let me know where I can improve as a podcaster please let me know who else you'd

like to see on the show and definitely follow the renovation on Spotify where Spotify exclusive every episode's available on 45 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world before I let you go I'll remind you that my meditation and yoga app level is now live on the App Store on the Play Store make sure you go download it to begin or possibly further your meditation and your yoga Journey ranveer will be back soon on the runway show thanks for listening in [Music] thank you