Fundamentally it comes down to Germany’s recent history. Aside from the wholly misplace guilt complex with regard to Russia and WWII, Germans are paranoid about seeming to exploit their position as Europe’s most powerful nation. This is what I always say when people try to claim that the EU is Germany’s proxy empire.
Added to which is the fact that Scholz is, as Khandro says, useless :-)
The energy bird has flown and the “fear of escalation” thing is a nonsense the Kremlin tries to exploit at every turn. Hence the bloodcurdling stuff in todays Russian media.
Germany’s new defence minister has just stated that no decision on Leopard tanks had been made but “But he hinted that the decision may be made in the coming days or weeks and Germsn MoD is preparing by starting to inquire into potentially available numbers of tanks in Germany”
I mean, have they lost their inventory?!!