German historian and publicist Gerd Könen, based on the most interesting documentary material, examines the history and evolution of the image of the "East" and Russia in the minds of the Germans in the first half of the 20th century. Polemicizing with historians who believe that Russophobic tendencies since the 19th century. turned this image into a complex "of the Russian (and then red) danger," he argues that it would be more correct to describe this "complex" as "a fluctuation between fear and admiration, phobic protective repulsion and passionate attraction, and counter and often interwoven."