This week, one of the most aggressive military manoeuvres of the postwar period took place in Berlin. Under the codename\u00a0Bollwerk B\u00e4rlin, the government deployed 250 heavily armed soldiers of the Guard Battalion in underground railway tunnels and on an abandoned industrial site to train for urban warfare and operations against opponents in urban terrain.<\/p>\n
Soldiers of the Guard Battalion during training [Photo by Bundeswehr\/Serkan Heerer]<\/p>\n
Officially, the exercise was intended as \u201cpreparation for a state of defence.\u201d In reality, it marks a qualitative escalation of domestic militarisation. It is part of the systematic preparations by the ruling class for war abroad and repression at home.<\/p>\n
The manoeuvres are part of Germany\u2019s broader militarist offensive. While the government is rearming on a scale not seen since Hitler, the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) already operate on global battlefields: Luftwaffe aircraft now patrol as far away as New Zealand, and with the newly unveiled space security strategy, German military planning extends into outer space. The exercise in Berlin is directly linked to this worldwide escalation of militarism.<\/p>\n
At the same time, developments in Germany cannot be viewed separately from events in the United States. There, the fascist President Donald Trump is attempting to establish an openly dictatorial regime; mobilising military and paramilitary units in city centres to crush the growing opposition to his oligarchic rule. The same logic is unfolding in Europe, especially in Germany.<\/p>\n
The ruling class is preparing for a global war and for violently suppressing the inevitable resistance of the working class. The militarisation of domestic politics is not a side effect but an integral component of the war preparations.<\/p>\n
When the Bundeswehr claims that its menacing show of force in Berlin is preparation for a Russian attack, this is a double lie. First, Germany is not being threatened by Russia; rather, Germany and other imperialist powers provoked Putin\u2019s reactionary invasion of Ukraine through decades of military expansion and the encirclement of Russia. Now they are using the conflict they themselves set into motion to militarise society and lay the groundwork for a direct war against the resource-rich and strategically central nuclear power.<\/p>\n
Second, the exercise is directed against the German population itself. The choice of training locations is revealing: Public spaces and an industrial site are not classic theatres of war but places where workers protest, strike or resist social attacks. The Bundeswehr is training for operations against protests, uprisings and strike movements\u2014that is, against the millions of people who reject war, rearmament and social devastation.<\/p>\n
The army is once again becoming an instrument of domestic repression, which in Germany has a long and bloody tradition. In the Kaiser\u2019s imperial empire, the Weimar Republic and under the Nazis, the German military and paramilitary formations were used to crush social and political protests and revolutionary uprisings of the working class.<\/p>\n
For years, the government has been working to legalise the deployment of the military domestically, something currently prohibited by the constitution. This week, the chairman of the Bundestag (parliamentary) Defence Committee, Marcus F. R\u00f6wekamp, declared on broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that the division between internal and external security was \u201cno longer appropriate.\u201d One must discuss amending the constitution to allow the Bundeswehr to be deployed domestically in \u201cspecial threat situations,\u201d he said. This included simplifying military assistance for the police and using Bundeswehr drones to counter \u201cenemy systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Militarisation is being deliberately normalised. As part of\u00a0Bollwerk B\u00e4rlin, the Bundeswehr distributed flyers to residents, set up a hotline and erected an information booth so that \u201cno one is surprised when masked soldiers get out of their vehicles and enter the underground station,\u201d as a spokesman explained. This is the gradual acclimatisation of the population to soldiers carrying out police tasks in public spaces.<\/p>\n
Berlin is not the only place hosting such \u201cmanoeuvres\u201d: in Bremerhaven, the Bundeswehr practised urban combat in 2024 under the name \u201cFishtown Guard.\u201d In Hamburg, the \u201cRed Storm Bravo<\/a>\u201d exercise took place in September, in which soldiers drilled the redeployment of NATO troops eastwards, the suppression of anti-war demonstrators and defence against drone attacks.<\/p>\n Parallel to the domestic build-up, the government is pushing ahead with external war preparations at enormous speed. After approving \u20ac1 trillion in war credits\u2014supported by all Bundestag parties, including the Left Party and the Greens\u2014Berlin is implementing ever more megalomaniacal rearmament programmes.<\/p>\n On November 19, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (Christian Democrat, CDU) and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democrat, SPD) presented Germany\u2019s first space security strategy. By 2030, \u20ac35 billion is to be invested in new rockets, satellites, telescopes, early-warning systems and ground stations. The strategy represents an openly offensive German claim in space.<\/p>\n Pistorius stated bluntly at the presentation: \u201cWe observe that Russia and China are also preparing to exercise influence over other satellites\u2014those belonging to us or to the Americans. That means outer space is becoming militarised. …<\/p>\n \u201cWe must be in a position to respond offensively, in the sense of a retaliatory strike.\u201d<\/p>\n With this, the government is entering into the violent repartition of outer space, a gigantic escalation that further intensifies great-power tensions.<\/p>\n And the war offensive already extends far beyond Europe on Earth. For the first time in history, the German Luftwaffe is currently conducting exercises in the South Pacific over New Zealand. Squadron Commodore Colonel Markus Knoll explained that the South Pacific was an ideal area for training attacks in complex mountainous and low-altitude scenarios to prepare for future war scenarios against Russia and worldwide.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we manage to project tactical capabilities down here\u2014from our point of view, at the other end of the world\u2014then we can do it anywhere in the world, especially on NATO\u2019s eastern flank,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A commentary by broadcaster ZDF on the manoeuvres captured the imperialist aims of Germany\u2019s military offensive. It is not about defending freedom and democracy but about economic and geostrategic interests, above all, vis-\u00e0-vis Russia and China but increasingly also against the United States. \u201cGermany no longer wants to be a geopolitical freeloader; it is seeking allies in the Indo-Pacific, a region vital for the German economy, where China is becoming increasingly aggressive and the USA is pursuing its own interests.\u201d<\/p>\n