The sign in the window of the German army\u2019s storefront career center in downtown Berlin suggested it would be open all afternoon for inquiries about joining the armed forces, or\u00a0Bundeswehr. But the doors were locked on a cold November day, with no lights on and no one inside. The same was true the next day when I tried again. \u201cWhat kind of message does that send?\u201d my friend, a former soldier who accompanied me, asked scornfully. \u201cIt\u2019s like so much about the\u00a0Bundeswehr\u00a0these days\u2014underfunded, undermanned, underequipped, and undervalued by the public, which still doesn\u2019t really understand why Germany needs an army.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eighty years after the end of World War II, as Russia\u00a0escalates<\/a>\u00a0attacks against Europe and the U.S.\u00a0threatens<\/a>\u00a0to turn away from the transatlantic alliance, Germany is undergoing a historic shift. In 2022, then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a\u00a0Zeitenwende<\/a>\u2014a \u201cwatershed moment\u201d\u2014and mandated a one-off infusion of \u20ac100 billion in defense spending, nearly doubling Germany\u2019s previous annual allocation. The first thing his successor, Friedrich Merz, did after being elected last year was to\u00a0amend<\/a>\u00a0the constitution\u2019s \u201cbrake\u201d on borrowing to pay for weapons and ammunition. Germany is now on track to spend \u20ac650 billion on the military over the next five years, more than doubling the amount disbursed in the previous five years.<\/p>\n Just days before I visited that closed army career center, Merz\u2019s coalition government\u00a0agreed<\/a>\u00a0to a new conscription law that could double the number of men ready to fight, growing the\u00a0Bundeswehr\u00a0from 180,000 to 260,000 soldiers and building the reserve force to 200,000. (Women aren\u2019t required to comply with the new requirements but may volunteer.)<\/p>\n There is no longer any doubt that Germany is broadly committed to rearmament. A prospect that might once have provoked anxiety in Europe and North America is now broadly welcomed in the West. But that doesn\u2019t make it easy for the German people, shaped by decades of post-World War II pacifism.<\/p>\n