Germany decides to leave history in the past and prepare for war

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjyjlkewr2o

by perplexed-redditor

37 comments

  1. It’s may be the first time Poland is going to welcome german tanks when trouble arise in europe…

  2. At the end of WW2, it would perhaps have not been a surprise to anyone that the British press would eventually write about military buildup in Germany again.

    It may, however, have given them pause that the main reaction appears to be to call for *more* of it. History is quite funny like that.

    Still, more seriously, Germany has spent many decades vieweing war as, essentially, a thing of the past, that sometimes popped up half the globe away – a state quite actively supported by certain powers after the cold war. As a result, the re-buildup of the military was always going to be controversial (I myself had been opposed until the russian invasion of Ukraine), and while public support is forming, we should expect a long and rocky road to get there – doubly so if Merz is dumb enough to force Pistorius out of his ministry, or fails to match the socialists urgency in this matter (another ironic point, incidentally).

    At the very least the anchor army concept seems to be going strong.

  3. Thank you Germany 🇩🇪 for being such a team player 🇪🇺, we need all the strength asap!

  4. I don’t really understand the sentiment that Germany will have a military for the first time since WW2. The article makes it seem that after the war we refused to militarize until now. This is just wrong. Germany had a very substantial military force during the cold war, being the first line of defense against the warsaw pact. The demilitarization only came after the fall of the iron curtain.

    And its not that this situation now is any different than the one during the formation of the Bundeswehr. Its basically the same aggressor. Modern day Germany is less reluctant due to the WW2 past, but a cultivated sense of pacifism, the notion that war against a NATO country is just unthinkable and thus military spending is just waste (there were also many reports of mismanagement in the bundeswehr in the past that didn’t really help built confidence in military spending).

    Modern day Germany does not need to look at Wehrmacht pictures when talking about military spending. These military capabilities are not meant for an offensive war. We can be proud to have good relations with all our neigbors. All this underhanded talking about Germanys WW2 past only hinders the cultivation of a positive military culture in the country, where serving to defend is something to be proud of and not one step away from genocidal excursions into poland. Bc we need young germans to be willing to take up arms if necessary.

  5. While the gist of the article rings true, you still get the impression as if Germany’s sorry state of the military hasn’t been a relatively recent phenomenon, as if Germany neglected the military after the atrocities of WW2 and became “pacifist”. But that is far from the truth.

    Throughout the Cold War era, (West) Germany had a very potent military that was the backbone of NATO’s land forces in Europe in particular. When the Berlin Wall collapsed, Germany had thousands of battle tanks and combat aircraft.

    The neglect truly happened AFTER that, the so called “peace dividend”, as Germany was now surrounded by friends and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the main belief was that Russian imperialism had ended with it.

    A very naive and wrong belief as we now know, of course, but THAT is the reason for the terrible neglect of the Bundeswehr over the last 30 years, not “pacifism”. Pacifist ideas may have been popular, but that didn’t stop Germany from stationing thousands of American missiles in the 1980s, for example, against strong opposition by the population.

  6. My gramps probably would have felt conflicted about this, but it’ll be nice to see Germany fight on the right side of history this time.

  7. >The defence chief’s stark assessment of his forces’ current state chimes with a recent report to parliament. The Bundeswehr, it concluded, had “too little of everything”.

    More of everything was needed in 2022. Now filling the gaps of the US is more important: nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, rocket artillery, air defense, satellites, intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance capabilities, logistics and command-and-control networks.

  8. “A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “very” or “quite” dangerous to European peace and security.

    “Now 74% said the same for Trump.

    “The survey followed a speech in Munich in which his Vice President JD Vance laid into Europe and its values.

    ‘”That was a clear signal that something fundamentally has changed in the United States,’ says Markus Ziener.

    “‘We don’t know where the US is heading but we know the belief that we can 100% rely on American protection when it comes to our security – that trust has now gone.'”

  9. Actually, it is precisely because of history that we do

    Russia delenda est

  10. Poor Germany, doomed to fight again. At least this time they have some good allies.

  11. Nobody s preparing for war.We re preparing so we can avoid war.

  12. War with Russia is inevitable. If we don’t prepare now we will regret it .

  13. I remember being a teenager and playing red alert, in which Germany was on the allied side. Given that I was a kid and had no clue about modern politics, I was always wondering why they were portrayed as the good guys.

    I’m 34 now, and while I didn’t wonder this for at least 15 years, recent developments did dig this memory back up.

  14. At last. I won’t say welcome back, but pleased you’ve made it seems fitting 🙂

  16. As a Russia’s neighbour, who suffered from Germans a lot in WW2, I fking support it!!!

  18. It would also be useful for Germany to resume work on nuclear energy.

  20. In this arc of human history, it might be the Germans who save Europe from being ‘conquered’. Learning from past mistakes is important but doing nothing facing current pressures is even worse.

  23. Enough about our horrific past. Let’s talk about our horrific future.

  24. The crazy thing a lot of people still don’t realize is how much Production Capability Germany has. Its not like we’re saying hey would be cool if we can get some new stuff in a few years Germany will probably be one of the biggest weapon Producers in the World. Were already the 4th Biggest exporter of Weapons and realizing that the US won’t be a trustworthy source in the future anymore i wouldn’t be surprised if France and Germany combined would be able to match the output of US.

    We currently have around 1 million people Producing Cars and other parts for these Cars and a lot of them are open for work because the new electric cars just have way less parts. These people are highly trained and should be able to adapt relatively quickly to building Tanks, artillery and other stuff. This combined with the 1 Billion Fund for Infrastructure and military from the new Government Russia would be very stupid to risk a war…

  26. Imagine Germany gears up for war, and the far right party comes to rule

  27. We have little choice. You kinda wrote the playbook on building a good military in no time and with little money.

  28. As a Pole I’d rather have them prepare for war with keeping in mind history.

  29. Can someone explain to me how a hot war between Russia and the EU, or indeed any world superpowers does not end in all out nuclear war?

    Shouldnt we be building up more nuclear deterrence instead?

  30. Germany is not preparing for war in the sense of invading other countries. It‘s preparing to defend itself and Europe from the Putin-Trump axis of evil and other potential adversaries like Orban‘s Hungary.

  31. If there’s one country I’d trust with a strong military, it’s the only country in the world that actually acknowledges it’s past atrocities and has promised to never repeat them.

  34. All good, just make sure that afD wouldn’t be the one to govern

  36. We want the old powerful germany back, without that guy though

    LETS GOO

  37. Hell yeah!

    + They never beat me.
    – Yes they did.
    + They never beat me twice.
    – Yes they did?
    + Well, they never beat me thrice!

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