German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24989-24990.
Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.
Compared to 2013, the Defense budget for 2021 has been
increased around 9 billion euros to almost 47 billion euros. The Grand
Coalition’s defense politicians will here praise themselves for that. Yet how
does the Bundeswehr stand after seven years of the Grand Coalition, and who
bears responsibility for today’s condition of the troops?
The Bundeswehr through the years, under the euphemism of a “peace
dividend”, has frankly been economized into ruin [kaputtgespart]. It will take decades to rescind this development
and modernize the Bundeswehr so that it can again perform its constitutional
duty, the defense of Germany.
The Bundeswehr’s 2018 capability profile sought to take this
diagnosis into account and to draw up a recovery plan for the armed forces.
Allow me to continue with this medical metaphor. A decade and a half of being
doctored-around – rather in this case, Merkeled-around – requires at least a
decade and a half of healing. It is thus also not difficult to predict that it
is not possible that the body of empty structures becomes what is desired. What
is today put off, remains and will thus more heavily burden future budgets.
Yet that no recovery of Patient Bundeswehr is within sight
may also therein lie that the doctors who
dispense the medicine are the same who have made him sick. Since it is so – you
cannot shirk this responsibility – : CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and Greens have to
answer for the years of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness.
The fact is: The Bundeswehr, in this state, is not in
condition to defend our country. The troops, with your run-down material, are
not at all in condition to smoothly organize crisis missions at the same time
as basic operations here at home, despite the model and engaged commitment of
our soldiers and civilian co-workers, whom and for which we expressly thank. Presently,
basic operations moreover are not to be thought of. The troops at this time perform
their mission against Covid-19 splendidly; but they have become a stop-gap
which must jump in where other state authorities have been overwhelmed or
simply refuse.
Symbolic of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness are the
problems occurring on all sides in regards the large procurement projects. For this
review, let them appear in five categories. They are, on one side, the dead –
failed projects like Pegasus – , then those in a trance, thus those past due
like the tactical air defense system, TLVS.
Not to be forgotten is the third category: The non-sellers, as for example, the
A400M – actually a very capable military transport aircraft which unfortunately
is not for sale on the world market. The number of projects not brought to
maturity is also large, as for example, the Puma armored personnel carrier,
also happily named “banana projects”, since they ripen just in time for sale.
And the best for last: European prestige projects like the FCAS [Future Combat
Air System] and MGCS [Main Ground Combat System] – both predominantly
German-financed for predominantly French interests, political purpose thereby
surmounting financial, economic and military use.
Ladies and gentlemen, as before, a powerful investments
backlog prevails in the Bundeswehr, whether it now be in housing, be it the
munitions and spare parts supply, be it the preparations of personnel, be it
the re-attainment of lost capabilities or the research of future technologies.
All of them yield no accounting in the 2021 budget. With regard to the rapidly
increasing state debt, the question moreover arises how much of the future
budget increases, if they then will be made, are to be available for investment
expenditures.
The result of previous armaments projects can thus be
overlooked. Parallel to that, for years one reform of the procurement system
follows the next. Yet where remain the efficiency increases in the procurement
system? The system is imprisoned in formalism, stuck between an inhibiting
over-regulation, time-consuming bureaucracy and a chronic lack of workforce.
Yet one impression continues to apply: Either the system cannot reform itself,
or it does not want to.
The central question is however: The armed forces are actually
for what purpose? The answer to this question separates the souls. The central
distinction between us, the AfD delegation, and you, the here already long
dealing delegations, is very distinct: The AfD thereby pursues a realistic policy
course.
Tobias Pflügler (Linke): That was good!
I can only say to the colleagues: The trip to Moscow was
concerned with Realpolitik. For the
Bundeswehr, that means: The core duty is the defense of the country and the
defense of the alliance. To make this credible, a will and a capability are
required, ultimately to employ lethal military force. A strong Bundeswehr
serves at the same time the defense of Germany as it does that of our allies.
It makes clear Germany’s credibility as an alliance partner and underpins the
foreign policy capability of our country.
Foreign missions in our view are however only justified if a
UN mandate is issued and a national interest has been presented. That is the
leitmotiv of every reasonable nation on this planet; only in Germany, emphasis
of a national interest up to now is disreputable and politically most highly
suspect.
You know all that, yet out of fear of the left-green publicized
opinion, you shrink away from clear words and base the existence of the armed
forces on meaningless phrases and empty cant like “Germany’s international responsibility”,
“crisis management” and “humanitarian aid” or – especially beloved – a “networked
approach” [„vernetzter Ansatz“]. The
terms however have nothing to do with the core duty of the armed forces and of
a defense alliance. This might be comprehensible in regards the
self-renunciation of the pacifist portion of the population in our country; in
terms of state policy, it is in no way responsible.
According to Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian army
reformer, a state needs two things to be able to deal as an individual state
with foreign countries: A government of assured management and a – I cite – “spirit
of the people which gives life and strength of nerve to this whole” [„Geist des Volkes, welcher diesem Ganzen
Leben und Nervenkraft gibt“]. As what concerns the Federal government,
there is in this regard nothing to expect and as concerns its mental and moral
capability, I see black. The one is the material and financial equipment of the
armed forces, the other however is the will to fight [Wehrwille] which even to that whole gives life and strength of
nerve, as Clausewitz expressed it.
I thank you for your attention. We reject Section 14.
[trans: tem]
