{"id":22156,"date":"2026-04-26T02:31:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T02:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/22156\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T02:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T02:31:58","slug":"the-german-army-used-to-train-with-broomsticks-now-its-putting-britain-to-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/22156\/","title":{"rendered":"The German army used to train with broomsticks. Now, it\u2019s putting Britain to shame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Strohn says that finding enough volunteers will be the \u201cbiggest problem\u201d, but military <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2025\/11\/02\/germany-wants-to-arm-itself-to-the-teeth-is-the-world-ready\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recruitment is up by 10 per cent since last year,<\/a> and applications have climbed by 20 per cent. If all else fails, Merz has the option of reintroducing conscription, which Germany suspended in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>As for industrial capacity, Germany has Europe\u2019s biggest economy and its largest manufacturing sector. Rheinmetall, a defence giant headquartered in D\u00fcsseldorf, plans to make 1.5 million shells next year, securing its place as Europe\u2019s number one producer of ammunition for tanks and artillery.<\/p>\n<p>If any European country can build the industrial base for rapid military expansion, it is Germany. And Strohn predicts that the requisite political will is likely to endure, reflecting a crucial hardening of public opinion, with a poll last year finding that two-thirds of Germans backed higher defence spending.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGerman society has changed quite a bit,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you had asked me five years ago, I would have said that this isn\u2019t going to last, and that this military strategy document will just disappear somewhere. But something has changed quite drastically in the last five years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Previous governments in Berlin felt that the burden of history must inhibit any assertion of German military leadership. Now, Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, says: \u201cThe signal must be that Germany is leading the way \u2013 as a pacemaker among the European nations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Putin\u2019s aggression is the principal cause of this profound change. Growing doubts about Trump\u2019s commitment to Nato have also helped convince Germany\u2019s government and people that they must play their full part in Europe\u2019s defence, commensurate with their economic weight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strohn says that finding enough volunteers will be the \u201cbiggest problem\u201d, but military recruitment is up by 10&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,3194,10086,10087,361,2101,5426,18,3215,330,1797,333,1625],"class_list":{"0":"post-22156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-daily-features","10":"tag-david-blair","11":"tag-defence-industry","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-nato-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-other-features","17":"tag-standard","18":"tag-top-story","19":"tag-us-content","20":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116468668345623145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}