The Future Must Act on the Present

Klaus von Dohnanyi, shortly before his 98th birthday, formulated a sentence in conversation with Gabor Steingart that goes far beyond the SPD: “The repair of the present has no future — the future itself must act on the present. Not the other way around.” This is not only a diagnosis for one party. It is the description of a fundamental disease.

I. The Sentence and Its Reach

Dohnanyi means the SPD. But the sentence reaches further. It hits the CDU, which has settled into stability and repairs stability rather than shaping the future. It hits the FDP, which repairs freedom rather than rethinking what freedom means today. It hits the Greens, who administer ecology rather than designing an ecological future.

It hits German innovation policy, which repairs research structures that arose in the 1970s. It hits defence policy, which repairs budget items rather than designing a European security architecture. It hits energy policy, which repairs dependencies rather than building independence.

Everywhere the same basic movement: one looks at what is broken — and tries to restore it to the state it was once in. That is repair. That is not politics.

II. What Dohnanyi Says About the SPD — and What It Means

Dohnanyi is not an enemy of the party. He is an SPD man through and through — former Federal Education Minister, former First Mayor of Hamburg, connected with the party for decades. What he says is therefore not hostile criticism. It is the diagnosis of a doctor who knows his patient and tells them the truth.

The diagnosis: the SPD did not take a wrong turn. It was left behind. The times have changed — from the age of the justice question to the age of competitiveness. The SPD has not made this shift. It is conducting yesterday's debates in today's world.

Added to this is a second failure that Dohnanyi names: the SPD cut off its own leg of peace policy. Willy Brandt had two legs — social policy and peace policy. Détente was not a concession to Russia but a strategic instrument: the carrot of disarmament and the stick of NATO rearmament. This thinking in two dimensions simultaneously is entirely absent today.

“The SPD always had two legs: social policy and peace policy. Now the party has quite unnecessarily cut off its own leg of peace policy.” — Klaus von Dohnanyi, The Pioneer, March 2026

This is not a judgement. It is a stocktaking. And Dohnanyi draws no final conclusion from it: the SPD can be saved — if someone has the courage for a change of course. He currently sees no one. But he does not rule it out.

III. Repair and Shaping — the Decisive Difference

Repair begins with the past. It asks: what was good? What has broken? How do we restore the earlier state? These questions are not wrong — repair is necessary when something is defective. But repair as the sole response to structural change is insufficient. It reproduces the past in a changed world. It creates nothing new.

Shaping begins with the future. It asks: what should be? What is possible? How do we act from today toward tomorrow? These questions are more uncomfortable — they demand imagination, willingness to take risks, and the ability to work in the unknown. They demand the readiness to endure the unfinished until it takes form.

The difference is not gradual. It is fundamental. A party, a company, an inventor who repairs works with the material of the past. Those who shape work with the material of possibility.

Germany has systematically shifted from shaping to repair over recent decades. The Bundeswehr repairs its equipment level rather than designing a new security architecture. The automotive industry repairs its market share rather than rethinking the mobility system. The parties repair their voter base rather than forging new social alliances.

IV. The Inventor and the Repairers

There is a parallel that is not coincidental. The independent inventor — the one who develops processes that lie outside the known — works fundamentally with the future. He designs something that does not yet exist. He lets possibility act on the present.

The system in which he works repairs. The handbook engineer tests the invention against the state of known technology — he asks whether it can be repaired into the existing. The institution takes what it knows — and leaves the rest with the inventor. Capital finances what is proven — not what is possible.

This is the same basic movement as in the SPD. The same as in defence policy. The same as in energy policy. Repair dominates. Shaping is left to outsiders — and is not supported by the structure.

V. What Shaping Demands

Shaping demands what Dohnanyi calls courage. Not the courage of the reckless — but the courage to name a future that does not yet exist, and to stand for it, even when the risk of failure is real.

Shaping demands the willingness to endure contradiction. Those who repair move in the consensus of the known. Those who shape meet resistance — because the new threatens the interests of the existing.

Shaping demands the long time horizon. Repair is short-term — one sees immediately whether the device runs again. Shaping is long-term — the fruits often ripen only after years or decades. In a democracy with a four-year cycle, this is structurally disadvantaged.

And shaping demands the ability to work in uncertainty. The goal is known, the path is not. The result is open. This requires a tolerance for incompleteness and uncertainty — the ability to endure the unfinished until it takes form. This ability is rare. It is what distinguishes genuine political leadership from administration.

VI. The Open Analysis

This essay is a snapshot — as every analysis is. The Dohnanyi interview is a new aspect that changes the picture. There will be further aspects that change it again.

What remains is the fundamental question: does a society repair — or does it shape? Does it repair its parties, its defence, its innovation structures, its energy supply — or does it design what should be, and let these designs act on the present?

Germany repairs. Europe repairs. Most Western democracies repair. This is not malicious intent. It is the structural logic of systems that reward security and punish risk — that prefer the consensus of the known and treat the unknown as a threat.

Those who want to shape the future must first name what should be. Not what was. Not what needs to be repaired. But what is possible — and then have the courage to stand for it before it is proven. That is the difference between shaping and repair. Between politics and administration. Between invention and craft.

The SPD can be saved. If someone is there who takes Dohnanyi's diagnosis seriously — and has the courage not to repair the past, but to design a future. Dohnanyi currently does not see this person. But he does not rule them out.

That is also the standard for beyond-decay.org. Not commentary on the situation. But design of what could be — and the readiness to stand for it before it is proven.