![]() Wissman, author of " Not Quite Ready for Combat: How the German army became a rubbish army," says World War II not only destroyed the German military, but left a residue of shame around its future. And then afterwards, everything was flattened," says military expert Constantin Wissman. "They started the war, and obviously all industry was turned into the army. This German mindset is rooted in a past that's difficult for many citizens to reckon with a time when the country, under Adolf Hitler, built one of the world's largest armies. And the sheer idea that, I don't know, a Russian missile would hit Germany was completely absurd." ![]() "They never saw that their security was actually a fragile thing. "And I think the main reason for it was because German citizens did not feel threatened for a very long time," she says. She says defense spending wasn't even an issue in the country's elections this past autumn. Germany's chancellor pledged to ramp up defense spending after Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine. German Bundeswehr soldiers of the NATO enhanced forward presence battalion wait to greet German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht upon her arrival at Lithuania's Rukla military base on Feb. It was now again witness to what Germans labeled a Zeitenwende: a historic turning point. Germany's parliament erupted into a rare standing ovation, a roar that filled the main chamber of the Reichstag, a building whose destruction and rebirth were at the center of the horrors of the last world war. ![]() ![]() According to data collected by NATO, Germany is expected to have spent 1.53% of GDP on defense last year. Scholz added that, from now on, Germany will invest more than 2% of its gross domestic product on its armed forces. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks as he arrives for a visit of the Joint Operations Command of the German armed forces in Schwielowsee near Berlin, March 4.īERLIN - The announcement came three days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last month, and only few German lawmakers had been briefed on what Chancellor Olaf Scholz was about to say: that Germany would infuse its beleaguered military with 100 billion euros, putting it on pace to be Europe's strongest armed forces. ![]()
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