German Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (second left) and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier view recruits taking part in the ceremonial pledge, as a central event to mark the 70th anniversary of the Bundeswehr (German army) in front of the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, Germany on Wednesday, November 12, 2025. [AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi]<\/p>\n
The solemn oath-taking ceremony in front of the Reichstag (parliament) and the speeches by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (both Social Democrats, SPD) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) recalled the darkest days of German militarism. They underscored the disastrous traditions and war aims to which German imperialism is once again returning.<\/p>\n
Significantly, on the very same day, the governing parties agreed on a new military service law providing for the compulsory registration of all young men\u2014aimed at drafting the necessary cannon fodder for new imperialist wars.<\/p>\n
Eighty years after the downfall of the Third Reich and the greatest crimes in human history, the military once again dominates the German capital. In a martial display\u2014shielded from the public\u2014280 recruits marched between the Reichstag and the Chancellery and were solemnly sworn in. The spectacle was shown live on state broadcaster ZDF and celebrated in the news programmes, with the obvious goal of spreading the poison of militarism throughout the population. Public oath-taking ceremonies like this have their origins in Prussian militarism, which were expanded under the Kaiser\u2019s Empire and then elevated to a quasi-religious cult under the Nazis.<\/p>\n
In their ceremonial addresses, Pistorius and Steinmeier sought to obscure the historical roots of the Bundeswehr. \u201cFrom the shadows of our history has emerged an army, a special army that is fundamentally different from all its predecessors,\u201d claimed Pistorius, describing the force as \u201cfirmly anchored in democracy, committed to law and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
This portrayal is as false today as it was at the Bundeswehr\u2019s official founding on November 12, 1955\u2014only 10 years after the capitulation of Hitler\u2019s Army, the Wehrmacht, the greatest killing machine in history. Tellingly, at that time the army was still called the \u201cnew Wehrmacht.\u201d It was not until 1956 that it was officially renamed the Bundeswehr\u2014and the name reflected its purpose. Of the 44 generals and admirals appointed by 1957, all came from Hitler\u2019s Wehrmacht, most from the General Staff of the Army. By 1959, of 14,900 career officers, 12,360 were from the Wehrmacht and 300 even from the SS leadership corps.<\/p>\n
Military historian Wolfram Wette wrote in 2011 that this personal continuity had \u201cheavily burdened the internal life of the army\u201d and that \u201cfor a long time there existed not an unbroken, but nevertheless dominant tendency to orient itself toward the traditions before 1945.\u201d<\/p>\n
This development intensified after German reunification 35 years ago. As early as 1991, a general declared: \u201cEverything must be oriented toward the Bundeswehr\u2019s warfighting capability.\u201d What followed were worldwide military interventions\u2014in Kosovo, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa\u2014which, in alliance with the leading NATO powers, reduced entire regions to rubble.<\/p>\n
Today, the orientation to the traditions of the Wehrmacht is no longer a \u201ctendency\u201d but official policy. German imperialism is systematically preparing for a major war against Russia and has launched the largest rearmament programme since Hitler. Pistorius made the direction unmistakably clear during the anniversary ceremony: Germany must now \u201cact decisively and without hesitation,\u201d radically expanding \u201cfinances, equipment, and infrastructure\u201d and aligning the Bundeswehr with \u201cnational and alliance defence\u201d\u2014a euphemism for the creation of an army for total war.<\/p>\n
At the Bundeswehr Conference a week earlier, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democrat, CDU), Pistorius and General Inspector Carsten Breuer, the most senior military brass, left no doubt about their megalomaniacal plans, which workers and youth will be made to pay for\u2014with their social and democratic rights, and ultimately with their lives.<\/p>\n
Merz once again demanded that the Bundeswehr become \u201cthe strongest conventional army in the European Union, as befits a country of our size and responsibility.\u201d Breuer spelled out the dimensions this would entail: \u201c460,000 soldiers\u2014that is the framework we ultimately have to reach.\u201d This would not only make Germany\u2019s army the largest in Europe but would openly break the Two Plus Four Treaty, in which Germany pledged to limit its military to a maximum of 340,000 soldiers and to renounce nuclear weapons\u2014something now openly questioned in government and media circles.<\/p>\n
Breuer made unmistakably clear where this path leads: toward war, destruction and death. It is about soldiers \u201cfighting at the front line. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about. It\u2019s about the sharp end.\u201d At the end of his war speech, he declared: \u201cFor a Bundeswehr that fights successfully \u2026 for Fight Tonight, for 2029 and 2039, for a combat-ready Bundeswehr.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new\/old bogeyman is Russia\u2014the same power against which the German military waged two world wars in the 20th century. Under the Nazis, it carried out a barbaric war of annihilation that killed at least 27 million Soviet citizens and culminated in the Holocaust. It is the declared aim of Breuer and the government to once again be ready by 2029 to wage war against this strategically central, resource-rich nuclear power.<\/p>\n
Pistorius reaffirmed plans to raise the defence budget to \u201caround \u20ac153 billion by 2029.\u201d Added to this are hundreds of billions in war-ready infrastructure from the \u20ac1 trillion in war credits already approved. \u201cInfrastructure is essential for our defence capability,\u201d emphasised the defence minister, calling for \u201creinforced transport routes,\u201d \u201cefficient depots, barracks, training grounds and logistical hubs.\u201d<\/p>\n