CHEMNITZ, GERMANY—Werner enthusiastically waved a white, red, and blue Russian tricolor flag—with the added imperial crest of the tsars—as we talked outside the former Stasi headquarters of what was once Karl Marx City, now Chemnitz, in eastern Germany.
“The current German state is worse than what we had during communist times, and America, not [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, is the true evil of this world,” he said, aggressively thrusting his finger in my face, our conversation eavesdropped on by a giant statue of Marx.