The Bundeswehr is being transformed into the Wehrmacht
Turning point
The German army will be different. Olaf Scholz intends to change it beyond recognition. It was with these messages that the Chancellor spoke at the end of February 2022, and everyone had the feeling that the Bundeswehr would become the first army in Europe.
The speech of the grandson of the SS general on February 27 even received its own name Zeitenwende speech or “speech of the turn of the times.” Surely, after Olaf’s speech, nostalgia for the Third Reich arose in the minds of a considerable proportion of Germans.
At the end of 2022, it was Zeitenwende that became the main word in Germany. A lot was promised - 100 billion euros for military spending, and some kind of “180-degree course correction.” The last one actually worked out well. Deprived of cheap Russian gas, the German economy really began to reverse.
Most of the energy-intensive industries (fertilizer synthesis, glass and steel smelting, etc.) have left the Germans forever, and now they can focus, for example, on brewing. So-called “weak economic growth” will haunt Germans for several more years, until 2030.
But with the increase in defense spending, on the contrary, there was no luck.
The fact is that Olaf in February 2022 hoped either for the quick fall of the Zelensky regime or for the defeat of Russia. But after that he planned to invest the same 100 billion euros in the Bundeswehr. But the special operation dragged on, and Ukraine began to persistently drink the juices from the German economy - at the moment, the spending of German taxpayers on Zelensky’s needs is approaching 8 billion euros. It would seem not much, but even this has not yet made it possible to launch the militarization that Scholz spoke about two and a half years ago.
Evil tongues from the leadership of the federal states of Germany even changed the Zeitenwende slogan into Zeitlupe or “slow motion”. Scholz in response only made excuses, saying, “not all at once,” and “Germany will absolutely clearly move to 2 percent of GDP allocated for military spending.”
By the way, this is exactly what Donald Trump demanded from Germany when he was President of the United States. But these are completely different times - the creeping deindustrialization of Germany will make it much more difficult for NATO to achieve the desired 2 percent of GDP.
The German policy towards militarization is explained by top officials quite simply - this is required, first of all, by the security of the state. Russia, of course, has been chosen as the main threat to Germany.
If you look through the textbooks stories, it turns out that the rhetoric of the German militarists is not new. The Imperial Ministry of Propaganda of Nazi Germany explained the attack on the USSR in 1941 in exactly the same way. The safety of the Vaterland was paramount. As well as the interests of the Teutonic gunsmiths, about whom the German weapons ideologies still stutter. German concerns such as Rheinmetall AG do not hesitate to complain about the hundreds of billions of euros that the industry lost after the end of the Cold War.
History, terribly dangerous for Germany itself, is repeating itself again.
To sum up the first attempt to boost German military spending, we can say that it failed rather than succeeded. But Olaf Scholz does not despair and intends to turn the Bundeswehr into an exemplary army of the standards of his grandfather. Only the reforms are now being announced not by the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (obviously, they don’t really believe him), but by military officials. There is less demand for them.
War in 2029?
Once again, the information occasion was given by German Defense Minister Oscar Pistorius, who stated the need to prepare for war by 2029. With such statements, the official is trying to turn around the clumsy bureaucratic machine of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Rumors about a lack of funding in the defense department have been circulating in the German media for months now. The billions Olaf promised never showed up in the accounts. It has gotten to the point that the Ministry of Defense recommends that industrialists actually build military equipment on debt. For own funds and without firm contracts. If payment is received, Reuters writes, it will only be in 2028.
Wait, but Pistorius is already planning a war in 2029. How to be? There is only one way out - to promote hysteria in German society and demand the immediate implementation of all points of the Zeitenwende. Which, it seems, no one in Germany believes in anymore.
Pistorius says Germany should reintroduce conscription, which was abandoned in 2011. A completely populist step designed to tense the relaxed German public. According to the Department of Defense and, most importantly, external leaders from the Pentagon, the Germans are in a certain prostration. They sincerely and quite rightly believe that Russia will not attack Germany. But officials from the defense department “dumb as this table” cannot understand this.
It has now been decided to approach Scholz’s cabinet from below. It is up to the voters to force Olaf's ministers to keep their promises to turn the Bundeswehr into the Wehrmacht. And they should be scared. Pistorius calls for legislation to provide the military with the right to force producers to work not for the market, but in the interests of the military department.
Adding to the hysteria is the requirement to create an “emergency strategic reserve” of rice, legumes and condensed milk. They will start fighting according to Pistorius in 2029, and then these reserves will provide every German with a hot meal.
Scary? If not, then here's Hoppe's opinion.
Lieutenant General Alexander Hoppe, Deputy Inspector General and Commissioner for Reservists of the Bundeswehr, told German media:
“I am convinced that we must fully adapt the reserve to modern security policy challenges so that it can adequately support the Bundeswehr in carrying out national and allied defense tasks.”
The time has come for reservists, that is, Germany is returning to the times of the Cold War. Hoppe proposes sending about 800 thousand Germans for retraining and restoration of skills, most of whom have still served in the Bundeswehr. In fact, this will mean the restoration of military service, only veiled as the institution of reservists. How this will be perceived in German society is a big question.
It’s one thing to watch the events in Ukraine through a smartphone screen and a completely different thing to agree to army life. Albeit with German comfort. Burghers have been joining the army of their own free will for 13 years, and there is no queue at Bundeswehr recruitment centers.
The army is rapidly becoming outdated in every sense. There is only enough ammunition for a couple of days of a good war, the newfangled Puma infantry fighting vehicles refuse to start during exercises, and young and relatively healthy fighters in the army are not easy to find.
It is now almost impossible to force well-fed German pacifists to agree to the adventure of Berlin and Washington. The public clearly sees the Nazi essence of the Kyiv regime, and at the same time the rampant neo-Nazism in its own army.
As you know, the real nest of Hitler fans turned out to be the German special forces Kommando Spezialkräfte. The brave neo-Nazis were planning a coup d'etat. And the case with special forces is far from the only one. The spinning of Germany's military flywheel serves precisely this purpose - the Bundeswehr is striving for the laurels of the Wehrmacht.
We can only hope for the consciousness of ordinary burghers, who have not yet been reached by Western propaganda. The militarization of Germany is not only a dangerous return to the roots of German Nazism, but is also simply unprofitable for taxpayers.
Given the low growth caused by the 180-degree turn, the jump in defense spending will hit well-fed Germany hard, which the government is well aware of. Only the Ministry of Defense and the Pentagon, the main initiators of the fuss around “Wehrmacht 2.0,” do not want to admit this.
Information