It all depends on the “Leo”. The discourses of the past few months have suggested this. Once the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to the Ukraine was released, the tide in the war would have to turn, the calls for the German-made war equipment suggested. Now the way is open for such supplies, and the Ukrainian armed forces will have another valuable means of repelling the colonial onslaught by the Russian government, which wants to annex Ukraine and erase its identity.
What is striking is the symbolic charge that this type of war machine has received. The two heavy signs “Leopard” and “Panzer” have worked on it, and they offer an example of what concepts contain, how they can work. As far as is known, the Leopard 2 is an enormously efficient weapon of war. Anyone who has ever stood next to you, like I did in Kosovo in 1999, is deeply impressed. But its name is at least as efficient.
According to military experts, Ukraine has between 600 and 800 tanks, some of them of Soviet design. Additionally, their army has received more modern tanks since the beginning of the war. But only the Leopard 2 became the ultimate symbol of power. The verbal fusion of predator fur and metal armor electrified the population of the attacked country to the point of a true campaign that also infected foreign countries in solidarity. In Ukraine, a trend emerged in leopard print, on clothes and even as nail polish. Immediately after the delivery release for 14 German Leopard 2 tanks, the head of the Presidential Office in Kyiv posted 14 leopard emojis.
Shells are reminiscent of the protective shells of turtles, knight’s armor, safes. Klaus Theweleit analyzed the “body armor” of soldiers’ self-images in “Men’s Phantasy”. The fur of the leopard, on the other hand, not only signals royal grandeur and grandeur in parts of Africa, it also transports the fantasy of being identified with the power and elegance of the big cat. Seductive associations contribute to the idea of the almost mythical dimension of the Leopard 2. It must not be forgotten that what counts above all is the clear, rational political will to defend democracy.
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Source: Tagesspiegel
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