No, it's so unpopular because with the last "great military" we started a war that killed 50 million people, and exterminated 13 million people (civilians) in concentration camps. Definitely nothing to do with welfare.
FWIW, while Germany should be meeting its NATO quota (it isn't), a Germany that is too militarily powerful could be a concern (same goes for Russia). Historically, it has been bad for Europe (and don't give me the "different times" spiel). It's bad enough that Germany is the economic and political hegemon of Europe, engaging in neocolonial activity to its east (territories Piketty calls "foreign-owned countries") and ordering the continent into an ersatz unity i.e. a unity of soft German domination. The Prussian unification of Germany was a mistake, a European unification under German rule is an even worse mistake. It won't happen because the rest of Europe isn't exactly keen on playing the role of de facto vassals.
It's high time that the stragglers finally noticed that while an EU based on free trade and sensible cooperation and discussion is useful, it will never approach anything resembling a federation. It is a silly, unproductive sentiment that is at worst a distraction.
In line with the sibling comment, note that the word "we" is subject to a 70 year scope creep here.
But "we" is first of all the plural of "I", so it means above all "people" and there is no "people continuity", at least not over 70 years.
In a sense he says that I (assuming he is German) started a war which is (AFAIK) not the case.
Assuming you are US-American, I shouldn't say that you invaded Iraq either, should I?
Well, people voting term after term pro-war politicians might allow one to say that too. Either that, or they should admit it's not a democracy, and leaders can do such important BS such as going to war without people consenting.
(Not American though).
No, but "going to war and killing people/invading other countries" should matter more than other parts of their program.
>foreign people somewhere far away
That's the problem right there. So it's not that they can't: it's that they don't care.
I think most Americans are comfortable with the sentence "we invaded Iraq" if that is what you mean. Also "we won our independence from the UK", even if their ancestors were English for generations after that war happened, in the sense that the individual is a member of the group "Americans", and "Americans" is the group that fought the war.
Ah, if only everything else in this world was so simple.