Germany is one of the liberal societies that can lead the fight in preventing Russian President Vladimir Putin from spreading his "autocratic political system further," US-Polish historian Anne Applebaum said on Sunday.
She was delivering her acceptance speech for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
"If there is even a small chance that military defeat could help end this horrific cult of violence in Russia, just as military defeat once brought an end to the cult of violence in Germany, we should take it," Applebaum said in St Paul's Church.
The impact would be felt around the world, in particular in countries such as Georgia, Moldova and Belarus, she said.
"The challenge is not only military. This is also a battle against hopelessness, against pessimism, and even against the creeping appeal of autocratic rule, which is also sometimes disguised beneath the false language of peace," she said.
The moment was right to say that the lesson of German history was not that Germans should be pacifists, she said.
"On the contrary, we have known for nearly a century that a demand for pacifism in the face of an aggressive, advancing dictatorship can simply represent the appeasement and acceptance of that dictatorship," she said.
The true lesson of German history was not that Germans should never fight, but that Germans had "a special responsibility to stand up and take risks for freedom."
In her laudation, Russian historian and political activist Irina Scherbakowa praised Applebaum's work.
Applebaum's role as an historian and public intellectual lay in ensuring that "the fine line separating truth from lies in the past and present remained firmly in place," Scherbakowa said, making particular reference to Putin in her address.
"Her task is to make sure that this line not be blurred by autocrats and propagandists to the point that we can no longer distinguish the lies from the truth," she said.
Applebaum had looked at the danger of populism undermining the foundations of democracy as well as the way in which populism was attempting to achieve this through a so-called "fight for peace," she said
She had also shed light on the support Putin gave to these forces, "because he knows that this 'fight for peace' is in reality merely a covert form of support for his aggression," Scherbakowa said.
Her work showed an ability to "diagnose and predict the impending disasters in many different instances," Scherbakowa said.
Applebaum had predicted the dangers years in advance, Scherbakowa said. If voices such as hers had been heard in the West, "it would have been possible to stop Putin much earlier – I am certain of that."
Scherbakowa, a Moscow-born Germanist, historian is one of Russia's best-known human rights activists.
Endowed with €25,000 ($27,170), the Peace Prize has been awarded by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association since 1950.
It honours personalities who have contributed to the realization of the idea of peace in literature, science or art.
Applebaum was honoured with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
Applebaum, 60, was born in the United States to Jewish parents. In addition to her US citizenship, she also holds Polish citizenship.
Married to Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, she has authored such works as "Gulag: A History" (2003), "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56" (2012), "Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends" (2021) and "Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World" (2024).
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