With the appointment of Lieutenant General Christian Freuding as the new Inspector of the Army, the highest-ranking officer of the military brass, the German government has taken another step in its aggressive rearmament and war preparations.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democratic Party, SPD) praised Freuding as the “general of the new era” and the “head of German Ukraine policy.” Freuding represents a new generation of officers who are not merely ready but eager to wage war. His appointment comes at a time when the German and European bourgeoisie are rapidly preparing for a major conflict—against Russia abroad and against their own population at home.
This development parallels that in the United States. At the end of September, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth assembled hundreds of generals at a military base near Washington D.C. to invoke the so-called “warrior ethos”—an open call to arms against Russia, China and ultimately any domestic opposition. Germany’s ruling class is moving along the same lines.
The German cabinet recently adopted the Military Security Act, granting the army sweeping powers for deployment at home. It authorises not only the use of armed drones but also expands soldiers’ authority to carry out searches, arrests and other measures against civilians. Recent exercises, such as those held in Hamburg, show that the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) are already training for operations inside the country—a development that like the preparations for war against Russia recalls the darkest chapters of German history.
Freuding himself personifies this new, aggressive course. His first order of the day reads like a document from Hitler’s Wehrmacht command before 1939:
Demanding tasks lie ahead of us. We must further improve our operational readiness. We want to finally achieve full materiel equipment. We must also grow in personnel. … We will establish new units and major formations—first and foremost our 45th Armoured Brigade in Lithuania. … We will immediately develop and expand urgently needed capabilities, such as combat with and against drones. … The enemy will not wait for our “ready” report.
He continues, “I want to work for an army that is ready to fight, that prevails, that wins.”
This militaristic language is no accident. It reflects the mentality of an officer corps that openly speaks of an “enemy” and aims to transform the Bundeswehr into a “combat-ready army.” Freuding’s task is the practical implementation of Germany’s war strategy against Russia—including the deployment of an armoured brigade in Lithuania, directly on Russia’s border.
Previously, Freuding headed the Ukraine Situation Centre in the Defence Ministry and is regarded as an architect of Germany’s military support for Kiev. On May 9—Victory Day marking the Red Army’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945—he was photographed shaking hands with Ukrainian neo-Nazi commander Oleg Romanov, who leads the fascist “Paskuda” unit within the Ukrainian armed forces. That Freuding chose this day to associate himself with such forces was a deliberate provocation, symbolising the continuity of German militarism—the ideological and political link to those who fought alongside Hitler’s Wehrmacht against the Soviet Union.
Freuding’s talk of “combat” and “victory” ties directly to the worst traditions of German imperialism. In both world wars, Berlin’s central aims were the domination of Eastern Europe, control over resource-rich Ukraine, and the subjugation of Russia. Today, this same geopolitical madness is being pursued under the slogans of “freedom” and “deterrence.”
The resurgence of German militarism is not accidental but the product of capitalism’s deep crisis. The ruling class is responding to growing great-power conflicts, extreme social inequality and working class resistance by turning to war abroad and repression at home. Driven by these objective forces, it can only move faster down this path.
A commentary published October 7 on the Bundeswehr Association’s website by former Bundestag Armed Forces Commissioner Hans-Peter Bartels (SPD) titled “Operation Eastern Flank 2029–or sooner?” speculates whether Germany might be “seriously challenged” by Russia before 2029. The “time factor,” he argues, was therefore crucial.
Bartels bases his confidence on the “reality of the government’s official financial plan”—that is, the €1 trillion in war credits backed by all parties in the Bundestag (parliament). These will raise the regular defence budget to 3.5 percent of GDP (€153 billion) by 2029 and later to 5 percent (over €220 billion). This constitutes the largest rearmament and war offensive since Hitler.
“Even the mere announcements of orders send a signal to Moscow,” Bartels enthuses, before listing:
1,000 Leopard tanks, 5,000 Boxers, 600 Skyrangers, additional Pumas, wheeled howitzers, loitering munitions, drones, satellites, digital radios and combat-cloud systems, stealth bombers and Eurofighters, 14 new frigates, a doubling of the submarine fleet, a tripling of ground-based air defence, land-and sea-based missile defence, and deep-precision-strike weapons.
“It almost looks,” Bartels concludes, “as if the Bundeswehr is being re-founded these days—stronger, more modern—and it must happen quickly!”
At a Defence Ministry conference on Tuesday, Pistorius announced plans to build new barracks “like on a production line” to accommodate the planned expansion of the army. “For the new military service alone, we will need around 40,000 additional beds for recruits and for soldiers in active units in the coming years,” he declared.
“According to current plans, that initially means around 270 new buildings—and not at some point, but by 2031, within the next five and a half years.”
The militarisation extends beyond Earth into outer space. By 2030, the Defence Ministry intends to establish a €35 billion military space architecture—including satellites, radar systems, ground stations and even a spaceplane.
Such a craft, designed to take off and land from conventional runways, “is no longer science fiction,” Pistorius recently proclaimed. It is to be built not by European partners or US firms but by the German start-up Polaris, which is developing a new propulsion system that could revolutionise space travel. If successful, Germany would join the United States and China as the only nations capable of “high-altitude operations”—flights at between 20 and 180 kilometres.
Major General Michael Traut, head of the Bundeswehr’s Space Command, already sees Germany at the forefront: “Technologically, we don’t have to trail the Americans by 10 years—we’re back on equal footing,” he boasted to finance daily Handelsblatt.
With these new space capabilities, the Bundeswehr could conduct reconnaissance flights at great altitudes unhindered since space officially begins at 101 kilometres. “That means you could fly over Russia at that altitude, and no one would actually be allowed to shoot you down,” Traut said.
Such statements expose all the propaganda about “Russian drones” and alleged “spy flights” as pure war hysteria—created to prepare public opinion for conflict.
Pistorius’s praise that “the next chapters of the Army will bear Freuding’s signature” amounts to an open declaration of war—not only on Russia but also on working people. The massive rearmament, the militarisation of public life, the curtailment of democratic rights, and the preparation for domestic deployment of the Bundeswehr are inseparably linked.
The ruling class’s war offensive is already being met with growing resistance—strikes and mass protests against the genocide in Gaza, against militarisation and war, and against the resulting assault on social and democratic rights spreading throughout Europe. What is required is an independent political orientation and perspective.
The struggle against war demands the conscious political mobilisation of the international working class. It is inseparable from the fight against the capitalist system, which in its crisis is once again resorting to barbaric methods. Only by building a socialist mass movement directed against war and capitalism can a new catastrophe be prevented.
Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter