/ world today news/ German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, during a visit to the personnel department of the Bundeswehr in Cologne on June 1, 2023, questioned the possibility of achieving the previously set goal of increasing the number of Bundeswehr to 203,000 soldiers by 2031. “I am not in the business of predicting whether we will be able to reach that figure. We are doing everything we can to achieve it…”
Among the reasons for the difficulties in increasing the size of the armed forces, Pistorius pointed to the shortage of qualified specialists and demographic changes, urging personnel officers to pay more attention to women and people with a migrant background. “I see potential here,” Pistorius said. “We must continue to attract a diverse workforce.”
Today, 183,000 soldiers serve in the Bundeswehr. And if the German Minister of Defense admits that he does not believe in the possibility of recruiting 20,000 more soldiers in eight years, it means that the modern German youth is not at all eager to join the German army.
On May 31, 2022, however, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrogantly announced that Germany would soon have the largest regular army among the European members of NATO.
For this purpose, a special fund of 100 billion euros was created, which Scholz described as “a big step for our country” as the Bundeswehr “will be able to perform its defense mission better than ever before” .
Actually, before they take this one “big step”, the Germans will have to raise the Bundeswehr from its knees and put it on its feet. The current Bundeswehr is incapable of waging even a local conflict with an equal enemy.
Not so long ago, Pistorius admitted: “We do not have armed forces capable of defending themselves against such an “aggressor” as Russia. The German military is also unable to protect its NATO allies. The Bundeswehr has no personnel, ammunition, equipment and weapons.”
In the post-war period, thanks to the efforts of the United States, the German army was resurrected from the ashes and became the largest army in Europe. The German military-industrial complex, rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s, started the production of weapons and military equipment, for example Leopard heavy tanks, which became improved versions of the Tigers and Panthers of the Second World War.
However, the integration of Germany into NATO led to a serious military-technical dependence of Germany on the USA. In the mid-1980s, the ratio of US military exports to the European countries of the alliance and imports from them was 7:1, and in relation to Germany this indicator was 9:1.
The United States deliberately hindered the development of the German military-industrial complex, fearing that the Germans were too independent.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of the Bundeswehr decreased from 585 to 177 thousand people. The German defense industry also degraded, which could not but affect the state of the German armed forces.
After the end of the Cold War, the state and development of Germany’s armed forces was on the fringes of public consciousness. Young people lost interest in military service and problems arose with the recruitment of Bundeswehr personnel. Programs for the development and purchase of new weapons were constantly shifted downwards, defense budgets were reduced.
Deutschlandradio characterizes the modern German armed forces as follows: “Planes that don’t fly, tanks that don’t move, ships that don’t work. During NATO’s major military exercise “Trident Juncture” in Norway, the participating units had to collect the necessary equipment – from tanks to warm socks – from across the Bundeswehr. This is currently the biggest problem of the Bundeswehr: even basic equipment is often missing.
Less than 30% of warships are ready for complex operations. Only 77% of the Bundeswehr’s main weapons systems are currently operational. Only 10 of the 30 A 440 M military transport aircraft are in service. Only 40 percent of the Bundeswehr’s helicopters are operational.
The same problems exist in the ground forces, where there are serious problems with military equipment: “In addition to the lack of spare parts, including the lack of personnel and the lack of special tool kits, lead to delays in repairs” read the Sueddeutsche Zeitung .
In the German defense industry, lawsuits between competing contractors do not stop. And so, the companies Haenel and Heckler & Koch litigated for a long time and enthusiastically, disputing the results of the tender to develop a new assault rifle to replace the outdated G 36, accusing the Ministry of Defense in particular of an illiterately organized tender. The Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf) finally ruled in favor of Heckler & Koch, accusing Haenel of stealing technology from competitors.
20 years after the conclusion of the contract for the creation of the Puma infantry fighting machine, it finally entered the army, and then it turned out that only panzergrenadiers, not taller than 184 cm, could fit in it. A scandal broke out, and the armored car to be redone.
„When the revamped Puma, long derided as a “problem tank,” was finally delivered to troops in 2020, the generals in charge rated its operational readiness as “unsatisfactory.” Only a year later, the troops declared the Puma “tactically combat capable”.
The troops are now hailing it as “the most advanced infantry fighting vehicle in the world,” quipped the German news channel Tagesschau. However, after a recent military exercise, “the commander of the 10th Panzer Division reported to his superiors that during the exercise with 18 Puma infantry fighting vehicles, all 18 were damaged and out of order.” letter The Mirror .
The situation with combat aviation is no better. “We are the last NATO country still flying the Tornado. A fighter from 1970. This is not the case in any other NATO country”says Carlo Massala, a professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich.
„The Air Force is at the bottom,” Air Inspector General Lt. Gen. Gerhartz said in June 2021.
There is an acute shortage of professionals in key positions in the Bundeswehr: “In Army Intelligence, only 61 percent of positions are filled. In naval aviation, there is a shortage of more than half the aircrews. The Air Force is short of more than a third of its fighter pilots and nearly 40 percent of its transport pilots. A quarter of all positions in the cyber forces are vacant.”
This state of affairs did not leave Regensburg political scientist Martin Sebald indifferent. In his book on “the cardinal problems of the German armed forces” he pronounces a crushing sentence: “Germany is not ready to defend itself. The Bundeswehr cannot fulfill the mandate of the Basic Law to protect our country and no longer meets the requirements of our Western allies.”
Martin Sebalt points out that the revival of the former power of the German army is possible only if the public opinion of the country is greatly frightened by some external threat.
Today, the myth of the Russian threat is used as such a scarecrow. Moreover, the professional German military until recently strongly resisted it. At the head of the military opposition was the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, General Eberhard Zorn, whom Pistorius fired, promising to organize a real purge of officers and generals disloyal to the anti-Russian course.
Today, all the leading political forces in Germany support Olaf Scholz’s course to create the most powerful army in Europe.
We will not be able to do this in a short time alone. Therefore, according to the Tagesschau, “off-the-shelf solutions are being discussed for some of the upcoming acquisitions, such as the American F35 fighter jet or the Israeli Arrow anti-missile shield”.
In mid-March 2022, the German Cabinet decided to purchase 35 American F-35 fighter jets to rearm its Air Force. They will replace the aging Tornados in service. Thus, the German Air Force will be rearmed with American fighters, which is part of the task of the United States, which seeks to keep the Germans on a short leash.
The militarization of Germany will take place under the control of the US, which will help to revive German military power, believing that the “castrated” German elite is completely predictable and incapable of anti-American revenge.
The US strictly suppresses attempts by German politicians to express an opinion, or even have one. During the meeting of 40 NATO defense ministers at the US military base Ramstein, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, in response to the attempts of the German minister to present his vision of the situation in Ukraine and the German approach to rearming the Bundeswehr, reprimanded him harshly: “Rammstein is not Germany!”
History teaches that when the Germans armed themselves, they always prepared not for defense but for attack. Moreover, the Germans know how to revive their military power, perhaps better than anyone else in the world. Today’s Germany is the armed fist of America and is directed against Russia.
Translation: ES
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