{"id":177963,"date":"2025-06-12T08:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T08:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/177963\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T08:46:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T08:46:13","slug":"germany-embraces-militarism-for-the-first-time-since-the-second-world-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/177963\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany embraces militarism for the first time since the Second World War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Members of German army Bundeswehr conduct a military exercise during a presentation to Defence Minister Boris Pistorius in 2024. The country is ramping up spending to rebuild its military and be ‘fit for war by 2029.’Thilo Schmuelgen\/Reuters<\/p>\n

A generation ago, the idea of German rearmament was unthinkable, even morally repulsive to most of the country\u2019s citizens and political parties. The wounds of the Second World War were still raw and bleeding. Germany<\/a> would pursue capitalism, not militarism, and its role as an international peacekeeper. <\/p>\n

Today, Germany, Europe\u2019s biggest economy, is embarking on a spending spree that could top \u20ac1-trillion to rebuild its ailing military and improve the country\u2019s infrastructure. The focus will be on tanks, not BMWs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that President Donald Trump<\/a> and the largest land war on the continent since the Second World War, in Ukraine<\/a>, has dragged Germany out of its comfort zone,\u201d said Sudha David-Wilp, vice-president of external relations of the German Marshall Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of Germans say they need a stronger military. I think the signs are loud and clear that, to preserve democracy, Germany needs to spend a lot more.\u201d <\/p>\n

The signs of Germany\u2019s new militarism are everywhere. On the stock market, the German pride and joy is Rheinmetall, the country\u2019s biggest defence company and maker of everything from artillery shells and attack drones to main battle tanks and armoured fighting vehicles. In the past year, its shares have climbed 230 per cent, giving it a market value of \u20ac81-billion \u2013 far more than Volkswagen, the biggest industrial employer. <\/p>\n

NATO to back 5% spending target in June, Secretary-General says<\/a><\/p>\n

At the same time, Germany\u2019s new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has ended the range restrictions on missiles it sends to Ukraine. It is set to receive Germany\u2019s Taurus cruise missiles, which can fly for 500 kilometres, allowing Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia<\/a>. Germany\u2019s civil-protection agency is preparing to rebuild hundreds of Cold War-era underground bunkers and shelters in case Russia attacks. <\/p>\n

From the image-making point of view, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is fond of posing for photos wearing military gear. One showed him aiming a pistol. He has said that Germany\u2019s army must be \u201cfit for war by 2029,\u201d the year that the country\u2019s top generals think Russia would be ready to attack NATO\u2019s<\/a> Baltic countries. <\/p>\n

The same message is being used by NATO to push for massive increases in military spending among member states. The military alliance is proposing outlays equivalent to 5 per cent of GDP, up from the current threshold of 2 per cent.<\/p>\n

Even the Green party, which was founded as an anti-war, anti-nuclear and pro-environment party, has undergone a Jekyll and Hyde change. As late as 1998, its election manifesto called for a \u201cpan-European order of peace and security.\u201d It wanted \u201ccomplete disarmament\u201d to the point that NATO would be dismantled. In the 2021 election, the Greens, which joined the government coalition, were vowing never to deliver weapons to any belligerents in a war, even to allies. <\/p>\n

A year later, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, that position was buried. Since then, the Greens have become advocates of German rearmament, including weapons sales to Ukraine and Israel<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Reguly: Canada vs. Italy: Guess which is better at military procurement?<\/a><\/p>\n

Germans in general are not bitterly divided about the new zeitgeist, even though it could make a mockery of the country\u2019s traditional fiscal rectitude. <\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s constitutional \u201cdebt brake,\u201d which came into effect in 2009, allowed the government to run only the smallest budget deficits at the expense of modernizing the military and the country\u2019s infrastructure. The restriction was scrapped by parliament in March, just before Mr. Merz formed a coalition government and became Chancellor.<\/p>\n

With the debt brake gone, there are essentially no restrictions on military procurement. The fiscal freedom will also allow the government to launch a \u20ac500-billion fund for infrastructure and climate-related investments. <\/p>\n

Various estimates say the spending will push up Germany\u2019s debt-to-GDP ratio to 90 per cent or more from last year\u2019s 62 per cent, which was unusually low by Western standards (in the United States, it\u2019s 124 per cent). <\/p>\n

\u201cThe taboo for spending on the military and infrastructure has been eliminated,\u201d said Ms. David-Wilp. \u201cBut expectations will be high that all this extra spending will kickstart the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prospect of the wave of spending triggering greater economic growth seems to have overcome Germans\u2019 historic aversion to debt. Germany\u2019s GDP contracted slightly in 2023 and 2024 as cheap Russian gas vanished, pushing energy prices up to the point that some factories closed. Growth forecasts for 2025 and 2026 are now being restored. <\/p>\n

Germans seem happy to go on a war footing as long as GDP picks up momentum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Members of German army Bundeswehr conduct a military exercise during a presentation to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[6934,6925,6935,1500,6918,6936,943,6917,6930,6931,6927,6919,6916,1700,2266,728,2000,299,6929,6923,1824,6946,6920,6921,1234,6926,388,3611,6607,603,6941,6942,6944,6939,6943,6937,6940,6922,6932,6933,285,3027,6938,6924,53,183,6928,727,263,6945],"class_list":{"0":"post-177963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-eu","25":"tag-europe","26":"tag-federal-government","27":"tag-foreign-news","28":"tag-germany","29":"tag-globe-and-mail","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","31":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","32":"tag-government","33":"tag-life-news","34":"tag-lifestyle","35":"tag-local-news","36":"tag-manitoba","37":"tag-national-news","38":"tag-new-brunswick","39":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","40":"tag-northwest-territories","41":"tag-nova-scotia","42":"tag-nunavut","43":"tag-ontario","44":"tag-pei","45":"tag-photos","46":"tag-political-news","47":"tag-political-opinion","48":"tag-politics","49":"tag-politics-news","50":"tag-quebec","51":"tag-sports-news","52":"tag-technology","53":"tag-travel","54":"tag-trudeau","55":"tag-us-news","56":"tag-world-news","57":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}