Germans are being too fearful in their dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, former president Joachim Gauck has said in remarks published by the RND news agency on Saturday. “Putin knows that many Germans are quicker to feel afraid than for example the Poles or French, and he is exploiting this tendency,” Gauck, who served as president between 2012 and 2017, said. “Fear is an aide to the aggressor.” Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor in communist East Germany who played a key role as a rights activist in the run-up to German reunification in 1990, said fear made people unable to see pos…