Poll: Majority of Germans find Schröder's Putin visit 'inappropriate'

A majority of people in Germany disapprove of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder's visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark his birthday earlier this week, according to a recent poll.

In a YouGov survey conducted for dpa, 56% of respondents said it was inappropriate for a former chancellor to accept such an invitation. A quarter considered the visit appropriate, while one-fifth said they did not know or gave no answer.

The representative poll of 1,219 people across Germany was conducted on Friday.

Former Social Democrat leader Schröder celebrated Putin's 74th birthday with him on Wednesday, the Kremlin reported. "The president invited his old friend to his home," it said. 

Photos were also released showing the two smiling and clasping each other's hands firmly.

On Friday, a spokesman for Friedrich Merz said the chancellor was "deeply outraged" that Schröder attended a birthday celebration for the Russian president.

Merz "considers it downright immoral for Mr Schröder to be celebrating with Mr Putin on such a day," the spokesman said.

Schröder served as German chancellor from 1998 to 2005. The 82-year-old has maintained a close friendship with Putin and has faced years of criticism over his ties to the Russian leader and his business involvement with Russian energy companies.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Schröder has met with Putin on several occasions.

Putin has been subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague since 2023 over alleged war crimes.

Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, criticized the meeting in comments published by the Tagesspiegel newspaper on Saturday.

"It is disgusting that a former chancellor embraces the war criminal so warmly," Makeiev said.