What Don Rummy actually said was: 'this is a bit like Wagner - sounds worse than it really is'
Schroeder's speech was delivered by the German Defence Minister (because Schroeder was indisposed) at a security conference in Munich. The Def Min was clearly uncomfortable with the words.
German government have been back peddaling ever since saying this was a statement of fact/reality not their view on what NATO should be - personally I think the cheese eating surrender monkies put them up to it!