Germany/Military

Germany/Military  (Armed Forces)
On December 2, 2021, the Bundeswehr said goodbye to Chancellor Angela Merkel with a torchlit parade.
Start	1955

See also its predecessor, the Wehrmacht (1933-1945)

The Bundeswehr is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Legal basis for use inside Germany

The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Art 87a (4) declares that "In order to avert an imminent danger to the existence or the free democratic basic order of the Federation or a State, the Federal Government may, if the requirements of Article 91 (2) are met and the police forces and the Federal Border Guard are not sufficient, deploy armed forces to support the police and the Federal Border Guard to protect civilian objects and to combat organized and military-armed insurgents. The use of armed forces must be stopped if the Bundestag or the Bundesrat demand it.

Territorial Command

German General Major Carsten Breuer (left) was given the lead to coordinate government efforts against the Corona virus in late 2021. This was un-thinkable in previous times, the army only allowed to step in for civil defense matters under the leadership of civilian institutions. (Pictured right his Austrian counterpart General Major Rudolf Striedinger)

In October 2022, the Ministry of Defense concentrated the leadership of the domestic armed forces in a new Territorial Command. It has the operational command, including the army, air force, navy, medical service and cyber/information space, in security for the Homeland. This also includes administrative and disaster relief, hybrid threat situations, civil-military cooperation and the coordination of the deployment of allied forces in Germany or the transfer via Germany.

The first commander of the new domestic command of the Bundeswehr is General Carsten Breuer, who already headed the Corona crisis team responsible for injecting 64.8 million Germans (77.9 % of the population) with Covid "vaccines", getting the before then "sluggish corona vaccination campaign going".

General Brauer stated "the command's operations center will be in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It evaluates open sources, but also evaluates information classified by the military and brings it all together in a territorial situation picture. The situation picture shows where action needs to be taken and provides the framework for further planning. Just getting old plans out of the drawer and dusting them off would fall far short of the mark, especially against the background of hybrid influence. We have to counter hybrid influence with precisely those means and methods that make a state and a society resilient".

"Hybrid influence" is defined in an on purpose vague way to encompass peacetime "mastery" over the media and social networks: "When opposing powers rely on a combination of classic military operations, economic pressure, hacker attacks on the infrastructure and even propaganda in the media and social networks". General Brauer said "There arises instability that needs to be addressed. To master this, in the entire spectrum, that is the core of this command"

According to General Brauer, the new command should also "provide the shell for a national crisis team".This means the military forces can be put in charge of enforcing any pandemic measures or unrest because of energy blackouts or food shortages.

Swallowing smaller armies

Dutch army

On November 30, 2022, the Bundeswehr and its Dutch counterpart signed a statement in which they proposed the complete merger of the main combat formations of the German and Dutch land forces.

At the meeting of the leaders of both armies, a joint document, the "Army Vision", was signed. Among other things, there will be an approximation of the rules for optimizing the purchase of new weapons systems, close cooperation in anti-aircraft defense, a common orientation of the troop structure, and also an exchange program for officers.

The two armies have been working very closely together for more than ten years. But now 13th Light Brigade of the Dutch army will be integrated into the 10th German Panzer Division. As a result, all the Dutch brigades will soon be part of German divisions, and the Royal Army and the German Army will have united the core of their combat power into a joint force of about 50,000 soldiers.

Czech and Romanian armies

In 2017, it was announced that the Romanian "General Grigore Balan" 81. brigade, which is deployed at the Bistrita garrison, will join the German Army’s Rapid Forces Division. Moreover, the 4th Rapid Deployment Brigade of the Czech Republic, which participated in military operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, will become part of the German 10th Army Division. Neither army will fully merge with the Bundeswehr.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Franziska Brantner	“The EU should now invest boldly in its military capabilities, cyber-defences, energy independence, and economic resilience...The implementation of the resulting measures should be collaborative and should not merely address national capability gaps...European sovereignty requires joint efforts to safeguard access to critical raw materials and global supply chains. ...These investments need to happen quickly. This would also send a signal to rivals such as China that the EU is not only an economic power – it is also a geopolitical actor that knows how to use its strengths to assert its values and interests.”	Franziska Brantner 'Franziska Brantner	March 2022
German Council on Foreign Relations	“DGAP is an insupportable lobbying organization, especially insupportable because we co-finance it as taxpayers. Recently, one of these experts appeared in a television news program again, who are presented in order to (allegedly) disseminate a well-founded opinion. It was about more money for the military, and the quoted expert was Christian Mölling from the German Council on Foreign Relations. This is a lobbying organization that is funded to a considerable extent by us taxpayers and gives the impression that it represents the public interest and thus also the interest of all of us. Mölling is the head of the Center for Security and Defense at the DGAP. Typical for his publications is a DGAP memo with the title: "Defense Budget 2024: The budget is increasing – and not enough yet". The text speaks of a "gaping gap in defense spending". Propaganda for more armaments by publicly paid so-called experts.”	Albrecht Müller	30 November 2023
Wolfgang Ischinger	“"The need for equipment and ammunition for the Bundeswehr and Ukraine is urgent and huge...Therefore, appropriate priorities must be set." Ischinger also sees a political reason to speak of a "war economy": "Apparently too many have not yet understood that we are only at the beginning of a turning point and that there is actually a real war in the middle of Europe, the end of which unfortunately is not foreseeable.”	Wolfgang Ischinger	21 November 2022
Roderich Kiesewetter	“If Europe wants to complete the energy transition, it needs its own lithium deposits. The largest lithium deposits in Europe are located in the Donetsk-Lugansk region. (...) So we also have completely different goals in the background here. And that is why we need a united effort of citizens so that our policy has the backing to do more for Ukraine....In doing so, it (Ukraine) is waging a proxy war.”	Roderich Kiesewetter	December 2023

 

Employees on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End	Description
Gerd Bastian	Soldier	1956	1980
Gerd-Helmut Komossa	Soldier	1956	March 1985
Friedrich Ruge	Inspector of the Navy	June 1956	August 1961	Attended Bilderberg/1961 as outgoing Commander of the West-German Navy.

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