German Army Lacks Basic Equipment and Recruits, Official Report Says
“Less than 50 percent of the Bundeswehr’s tanks, ships and aircraft were available at any one time.”
While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has clamored for an EU army, the country’s military continues to deteriorate as a fighting force. The German armed forces, or the Bundeswehr, are underequipped, demoralized and running out of recruits,” an official report reveals.
The military was relying on civilian helicopters for tactical troop transport and the soldiers on the battlefield lacked even the basic equipment such as body armor and overalls, the annual report published by the German parliament’s military commissioner, Hans-Peter Bartels, said. The report found that “often less than 50 percent of the Bundeswehr’s tanks, ships and aircraft were available at any one time, either for training or operational purposes.”
Things look just a grim on the recruitment front. “The government has promised 198,500 active personnel by 2025, up from the current 181,000, but the number of new recruits dropped from 23,000 in 2017 to 20,000 last year,” the report disclosed.
German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported the details of the annual parliamentary inspection:
The biggest problem that Bundeswehr soldiers complained about was the lack of equipment, despite repeated government promises, dating back to a 2014 NATO summit, of a change in direction. That does not count as a surprising development, considering the barrage of poor press the German military has been facing.
Heavy machinery was a particular concern: [Hans-Peter] Bartels found that often less than 50 percent of the Bundeswehr’s tanks, ships and aircraft were available at any one time, either for training or operational purposes.
“Spare parts are still missing; maintenance in industry is dragging; the training programs are suffering,” Social Democrat Bartels said. “An absolute must is the acceleration of procurement.” (…)
Another worry for the Defense Ministry is the stagnation of its post-conscription recruitment drive, which began after Germany scrapped national service in 2011. Though the Bundeswehr is expanding overall (the report found a net gain of 4,000 professional soldiers), most of these were won by extending existing contracts. In other words, the German military is aging.
The government has promised 198,500 active personnel by 2025, up from the current 181,000, but the number of new recruits dropped from 23,000 in 2017 to 20,000 last year.
While the army is in a state of grave disrepair, the country’s first female Defence Minister and Merkel’s confidant, Ursula von der Leyen, is busy promoting diversity and ‘multiculturalism’ in the military.
As German business daily Handelsblatt reported in January 2017: “Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has invited senior officers from Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, to a groundbreaking workshop on sexuality.” The workshops titled “Dealing with sexual identity and orientation in the Bundeswehr” included eminent speakers such as the minister herself and “a sex therapist who supports transsexuals in the army.”
As laudable as these cosmetic efforts may be, they do nothing to enhance the combat readiness or boost troop morale.
Minister von der Leyen’s efforts to “open the army up to minority groups” hasn’t been a great success either. In recent years, the Bundeswehr has caught 24 Islamist infiltrators in its ranks. At least 29 Bundeswehr soldiers have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State.
The findings are a vindication of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly asked Germany and other NATO members to increase their defense spending up to two-percent of their economic output. He tweeted in July 2018: “Germany just started paying Russia, the country they want protection from, Billions of Dollars for their Energy needs coming out of a new pipeline from Russia. Not acceptable! All NATO Nations must meet their 2% commitment, and that must ultimately go to 4%!”
Currently, the United States contributes 4.2 percent of its GDP to NATO, compared to just 1.2 percent chipped in by Germany. In 2017, the U.S. “accounted for 51.1 percent of the allies’ combined GDP and 71.7 percent of combined defense expenditure,” Virginia-based Defense News reported. In addition to that, over 35,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Germany to bolster Europe’s military preparedness.
Under Chancellor Merkel’s watch, however, the Germany army has other pressing issues at hand than border security or defense preparedness. In wake of the 2015 migrant crisis, thousands of German soldiers were whisked off to build migrant shelters, making it the largest domestic deployment of the postwar ear. The county is busy converting army barracks into migrant camps.
The annual defense report glaringly highlights the fatal flaws in Germany’s military armor. Perhaps Chancellor Merkel should take a pause from her saber-rattling about an EU army and invest in the Bundeswehr for change.
Trump slams Germany over defense spending at NATO summit, July 2018:
[Cover image via YouTube]
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Comments
Gonna put me conspiracy cap on.
Its almost as if what we are seeing today (unprepared military, UN global immigration compact, and so on) was all part of a greater globalist plan that Merkal, Barry, Macron, the EU had all signed up to…and then Trump was elected and fucked everything right up for these clowns.
What we are seeing today is a feature of the system liberals had envisioned and had planned on happening once Hillary was in power.
What they had not counted on was Trump getting elected and then forcing NATO allies to stump up for their own defence.
Here’s another data point for your conspiracy thinking. Merkel appointed someone to defense who would not even think about the needs of defense.
It’s as if Merkel intentionally made sure that even if she delivered the money she promised, it would not do what it was supposed to do.
“Conspiracy?” How about: it’s the “Plan.”
It’s kind of like asking if the left’s goal of legalizing infanticide is a ‘conspiracy’ to legalize euthanizing political opponents.
Germany is a parasite upon the United States. Let Germany pay for its own defense, or let the Russian move in. At this point, a Putin-led Germany just might be preferable to the Islamic state Germany is becoming.
“As laudable as these cosmetic efforts may be …”
They’re not. Fiddling while Rome burns is not a sign of being focused on art. It’s a sign of insanity. At best it shows that your priorities are horribly bad.
In both cases (Ancient Rome, modern Germany) the duty to actually defend your people and your civilization has been jettisoned in favor of something that, once the realm falls, will mean less than nothing.
The Germans have fewer than 200 Main battle tanks and 75 operational military jets.
Poland could march across Germany for a change.
It’s much worse than an equipment readiness problem: German soldiers are mere window dressing for the fakery that Germany is pulling upon NATO and the US.
The new-look German army: Fat chainsmokers:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1580804/The-new-look-German-army-Fat-chainsmokers.html
This shows the hollowness of the entire rant to have an EU army.
They all want “the other guy” not just to pay but to bring the army.
Shades of the Weimar Republic! The German government is directly to blame for the lack of equipment and spare parts, while the Defense Minister is to blame for the imposition of her multi-culti BS on the military. As for morale, the blame is probably best laid at the feet of the officer corps. It appears that only a shock treatment will snap the German government out of its trance. Perhaps moving all American military assets out of Germany will force them to pay more attention to the German military.
If the Germans care so little about their own defense, why should we feel any obligation whatever to “defend” them?
Why are we still there, more than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Against whom should Germany defend itself? Helmut Kohl made it clear that the Oder-Neisse line is Germany’s eastern border long ago. They adjusted their border with the Netherlands peaceably back in the 1960’s (it involved a couple of villages, I recall). As for protecting Volksdeutsch outside their territory, one became president of Slovakia a while back.
If they are not spending on their own defense and under paying the portion to NATO why are we in NATO?
I suppose it’s a good thing that Germany has a weak army given their past history!
NATO and the USA is actually there to keep Europe from returning to pre-WWII colonialism. But, we are pulling out and shutting down the Bretton-Woods alliance. You will start seeing border wars and fights for raw materials become a reality again
Beats enabling an Islamic state in the making.
I can certainly understand how it might be in our interest to protect Europe but lets at least have the debate. Especially if they are not pulling their own weight in the deal!
I’m not sure it’s our responsibility to protect countries from themselves!
Hollow militaries are not just confined to Europe.There are staffing, equipoment and training problems in the US military–see the Navy and the recent ship collisions in the Western Pacific. See the lack of training flight hours in the USAF.
See the Zumwalt class destroyers who were built around a main armament system–only to discover that with a dramatic reduction in the number built, the Navy couldn’t afford to pay for ammunition for the guns.
Germany is in a bad way, but I suspect we’re not much better.
After eight years of traitor ‘barack hussein obama’ (or whoever he really is) in the White House, of course the US military is crippled.
Speaking of treason, the sinister Valerie Jarrett just came out in defense of the Jew-hating Congresswoman Illhan Omar.
“We Have Your Back’: Valerie Jarrett Supports Dem Muslim Ilhan Omar in Attack on Jewish Republican Lee Zeldin:”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/we-have-your-back-valerie-jarrett-supports-dem-muslim-ilhan-omar-in-attack-on-jewish-republican-lee-zeldin/
lhan Omar aligning with Valerie Jarrett in explicitly anti-Israel faction of Democrats:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/ilhan_omar_aligning_with_valerie_jarrett_in_explicitly_antiisrael_faction_of_democrats.html
Obama and Jarrett’s treason started way back:
White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S.:
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/us/politics/19muslim.html
I believe it’s time to bring our forces home from Europe. The reason for the staffing is now moot since Germany and other countries deal with our enemies against our wishes such as Russia, China and Iran. I think it won’t be long before the pacifist President in South Korea does the same thing with North Korea. At that point, we should pull our forces out of there too. Having forces in foreign countries help deter aggression. The forces in Japan are there to deter China from hegemony in that region. Japan knows the value of these forces and does its share. One would think of all nations to not trust the Russians it would be Germany! But Merkel seems to have an agenda that includes them.
Perhaps Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and one or more Baltic countries would be happy to host our troops and the economic contribution our stationed troops make to the host country.
in the mid to late 80’s during reforger exercises they had trained personnel issues as well as higher mechanical failure rates.
A national military uses up a significant amount of a country’s tax revenue. Military hardware is expensive. Supporting the necessary personnel is expensive. Training is expensive. And, a military is seldom used for the purpose for which it exists, defense. In today’s social welfare world, most politicians feel that tax revenues can be better spent elsewhere.
Germany does not really need a national military. There are very few enemies in Europe. The US has enough troops stationed in Europe to slow an invasion and serve as a tripwire for US military involvement. Also, Germany, after the disastrous results of WWI and WWII, has decided to dominate Europe politically and economically through the EU. And,, finally, Germany is dominated by globalist elites, who do not want strong national militaries.
The US has enough troops stationed in Europe to slow an invasion and serve as a tripwire for US military involvement.
That sounds like a good reason for a re-deployment out of Germany. Our forces should only be in place defending countries who will aid in their own defense and stand by us in a crisis. Ticking down the list of European countries, we should be defending a lot smaller area.
France and Germany simply want the current elite classes to stay in power until their countries become part of the Ummah. Shortly before that moment, the elites will leave with everything of value they can steal and abandon their people to death and slavery.
They figure it is good to have a plan.
Subotai Bahadur
You have to understand WHY the US stations troops anywhere in the world.
In the first place, the US military is not deployed, in any significant numbers, to participate in active defense. The vast majority of our troops, deployed overseas, are deployed to maintain forward staging areas, near potential trouble spots, and logistical facilities. It has been found that it is much easier to move assets to an established forward position to be deployed from there for engagement, than it is to fight to move men and materiel from the US to establish a forward position during hostilities.
The second reason is that the presences of US troops acts as a trip wire, in the case of aggression. Should US personnel come under attack, direct of indirect, this almost assures a US military response. Otherwise, you have a situation such as that caused by ISIS in Iraq. Because there were no US assets in Iraq, we were reluctant to engage ISIS, militarily, for several years. A power vacuum had been created and we were eventually forced to commit US military assets to the conflict.
So, we could reduce our military footprint in Germany, to some degree. But to remove it entirely would mean abandoning long established US military facilities which allow us to stage troops and materiel in a central European location near our traditional 20th Century antagonist, Russia, as well a providing reduced logistic trains to the Middle East. As a point of fact, the US has been closing smaller installations in Germany and reducing the number of deployed forces there for several years.
While there are plenty of minor military threats existing in the world today, the reality is that it is reasonably quiet, at the moment. The active US military has only 1,300,000 members with ~800,000 in reserve. Almost 1/10 of our active military [~100,000] is deployed in Afghanistan, which is of almost no tactical or strategic importance to us. One of the lessons, which we learned from the WWII and Korean years was that it is better to maintain a military presence outside the continental US than to to have to play catch-up in the case of a sudden military incursion somewhere in the world.
Correction. “In the first place, the US military is not deployed, in any significant numbers, to participate in active defense.”, should read, “In the first place, the US military is not deployed, in any significant numbers, to participate in active defense; except in Afghanistan , which is nothing more than a political boondoggle.”.
Apparently we really did alter the Teutonic gene pool, 1939-1945. All Germany has left are the Joseph Ratzenbergers, who tore off their uniforms, threw down their weapons, and fled into the wood at the sound of approaching American armor.
Russians are doubled over in fear of the proposed EU army or is it laughter.
Don’t let it worry you.
The Germans have immigrated all the foot soldiers they will ever need.
And they will have no qualms doing in ANY Infidel.
That is why they immigrated them.
The Disposable foot-soldiers.