A year ago, chancellor Olaf Scholz took to the floor of the Bundestag to deliver one of the most significant speeches in modern German history — one that tore up his country’s post-cold war dispensation.

Speaking three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Scholz described the war as a “Zeitenwende” — an epochal, tectonic shift — and promised to thoroughly revamp Germany’s foreign and defence policy in response.

Scholz addressed the Bundestag again on Thursday to talk of the strides Germany has made towards redeeming that pledge and to challenge critics at home. Addressing protesters who have demanded peace talks to end the war, Scholz said you “can’t negotiate with a gun to your temple - unless it’s over your own total subjugation”, he told MPs. “ If Ukraine stopped defending itself, it would not be peace, but the end of Ukraine.”