Germany/Military

Germany/Military link (Armed Forces)
File:Zapfenstreich-fackeltraeger.jpg On December 2, 2021, the Bundeswehr said goodbye to Chancellor Angela Merkel with a torchlit parade.
The military forces of Germany

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 and Covid

File:Carsten Breuer-Rudolf Striedinger.jpg

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.

Civilian authorities where left out of the loop during Covid. In a request, the Paul Ehrlich Institute answered that it "has no information on how many batches have actually been vaccinated in Germany. Statements are possible on the number of batches delivered since the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines has been transferred from the Bundeswehr to the Center for Pandemic Vaccines and Therapeutics (ZEPAI) at the Paul Ehrlich Institute with effect from 01.05.2022. For the period before 01.05.2022, please contact the Bundeswehr."

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 4^th 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.