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The total number of full-time and reservist Bundeswehr German military personnel shrank by roughly 1,500 in 2023, despite efforts to recruit more troops, Germany's Defense Ministry told the dpa news agency on Friday. As of December 31, 2023, the total stood at roughly 181,500 men and women, compared to 183,050 at the end of the previous year. A spokeswoman for the ministry told dpa that the Bundeswehr's goal was still to sustainably increase the size of its ranks. "We need qualified men and women ready for operations, who will stand ready in sufficient numbers for the tasks and missions ahead,"...

Germany is reportedly planning to equip its air force with US-built F-35 stealth military jets. Berlin has previously announced that it will invest more in defense in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Germany has decided in principle to purchase the U.S. fighter jet F-35 built by Lockheed Martin to replace its aging Tornado fleet, according to reports on Monday. The decision, if confirmed, comes after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last month announced a massive boost in defense spending as the Ukraine conflict forces Berlin to reassess its foreign and defense policies. Why does Germany need the planes? Berlin is...

Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover have found that trained sniffer dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 in human samples with a relatively high rate of accuracy, a study published on Thursday revealed. Eight sniffer dogs from the German Bundeswehr were trained for only a weekto distinguish between the mucus and saliva of patients infected with coronavirus and non-infected individuals. The dogs were then presented with positive and negative samples on a random basis by a machine. The animals were able to positively detect SARS-CoV-2 infected secretions with an 83% success rate, and control secretions at a...

Germany has a problem. For years, politicians and security chiefs rejected the notion of any far-right infiltration of the security services, speaking only of “individual cases.” The idea of networks was dismissed. The superiors of those exposed as extremists were protected. Guns and ammunition disappeared from military stockpiles with no real investigation. The government is now waking up. Cases of far-right extremists in the military and the police, some hoarding weapons and explosives, have multiplied alarmingly. The nation’s top intelligence officials and senior military commanders are moving to confront an issue that has become too dangerous to ignore. The problem...

Germany is planning to rehabilitate soldiers who were discriminated against in past years by being rejected for promotion or even fired from the army because of their homosexuality, the Defense Ministry announced. The ministry said it intends to present a draft bill in September to address the injustices done to those soldiers who had been subjected to punitive measures by military disciplinary courts. In some cases, gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender (LGBT+) soldiers have been disadvantaged with respect to their peers by receiving a lower salary or pension because they were refused promotions. A law preventing homosexuals from becoming professional...

SIG Sauer, long the target of disarmament campaigners in Germany, announced Thursday it intended by year’s end to close its factory at Eckernförde near Kiel, capital of Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein. It blamed “locational handicaps” hindering its diverse pistol and sports guns sales, claiming a “few other local producers” were preferred in government purchases for Germany’s police forces and Bundeswehr military. Public broadcaster NDR quoted manager Tim Castagne as saying the workers’ council at the Eckernförde site, established in 1951, had been briefed about some 125 job losses as well plans to fulfil purchase orders. ”Due to its international...

Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble told the Funke media group of regional newspapers on Friday that Germany needed to take more responsibility in military affairs with its allies. “We can’t hide. If Europe is to play a stronger role, then we must play our part,” Schäuble said. “We cannot leave everything to the French and the Americans.” The veteran lawmaker and long-time minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinets said he supported German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s plans to streamline the Bundeswehr and boost defense spending to reach NATO’s target of 2% of GDP. “When France asks us to do more about...

The trial of a suspected spy for Iranian intelligence begins Monday in the western German city of Koblenz. Prosecutors have charged the 51-year-old, known as Abdul S., with one count of treason, in addition to 18 cases of violating official secrets. […] The suspect’s wife will also stand trial, facing charges of aiding and abetting the activities of her husband. The 16 days of trial allocated for her, however, will take place in March. Abdul S. worked for the Bundeswehr in the small town of Daun, in the Eifel region in western Germany, before he was arrested in January 2019....

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called for Germany to cease its practice of training Chinese soldiers. The organization’s arms and human rights expert Mathias John made the plea in a conversation with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, published Sunday. “In light of the human rights situation in China and the general role of the military there, there is no justifiable reason for Germany to help train the Chinese military,” said John. Referring to the current situation in Hong Kong, he added that “the German government should send a clear sign and immediately cease any military cooperation.” […] Bild said...

Germany greatly benefits from the rules-based global order and should do more to secure its success, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in a speech delivered Thursday at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. Kramp-Karrenbauer noted that allies are increasingly asking for Berlin to play a proactive role in global security. “A country of our size, with our economic and technological power, our geostrategic position and global interests, cannot just stand on the sidelines and watch,” she said. “Germany must participate in international debates and drive them forward.” […] In an earlier interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, she urged Berlin to...

Germany’s defence minister has confirmed that “a united EU military is becoming a reality,” after her ally and Chancellor Angela Merkel backed Emmanuel Macron’s call for a “real European army.” “Europe’s army is already taking shape,” Ursula von der Leyen wrote in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt on Thursday. “Germany and France are the driving forces in defense,” Ms von der Leyen boasted, adding that “We’re moving even further ahead with our close partner France” after the two countries agreed to sign a “new Elysèe Treaty” which, amongst other efforts to, in effect, merge aspects of the two countries, includes...

German army plans to recruit foreign mercenaries in bid to plug thousands of vacancies and fulfil its NATO commitment after Trump said he would cut off funding Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans in ministry documents Poles, Italians and Romanians living in Germany will be targeted by recruiters US President Donald Trump has pressured Germany to up its NATO commitment Germany's military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians,...

Struggling to fill its ranks, Germany’s military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians, magazine Der Spiegel said, citing a ministry document. The German military, or Bundeswehr, has stepped up its recruitment efforts as part of a broader reset following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Last year, Germany said it would increase the size of its armed forces to 198,000 active soldiers by 2024 from 179,000. Pressure on Berlin...

Germany’s long-understaffed army has a new plan to boost recruitment: allowing foreigners from other European Union countries to serve in the unified armed forces (Bundeswehr). The defense ministry confirmed on Saturday that it was seriously considering the idea. “The Bundeswehr is growing. For this, we need qualified personnel,” a Defense Ministry spokesman told German news agency DPA. Speaking with local newspaper Augsburger Allegemeine, Social Democrat (SPD) defense expert Karl-Heinz Brunner said that he could imagine EU citizens serving in the Bundeswehr. But he warned that any soldier who fought for Germany must be promised citizenship. “If citizens of other countries...

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has put in a request for an increase to the military budget of €12 billion ($14.6 billion) over the current term of parliament, an amount greatly in excess of present budget plans, a newspaper reported on Sunday. The Bild am Sonntag said Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had so far foreseen an increase in defense spending of just €5.5 billion over the four years to 2021. The Defense Ministry had already criticized Scholz’s plan on Friday as “inadequate in view of the huge accumulated needs and required modernization, particularly in the medium term.” According...

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Berlin may pull its troops from Turkey following a recent deterioration in relations. The chancellor’s latest warning comes after Turkey denied visas to German lawmakers who wanted to visit troops at the Incirlik air base, located near Adana in south Turkey. “We will continue to talk with Turkey, but in parallel we will have to explore other ways of fulfilling our mandate,” Merkel said at a press conference on Monday. “That means looking at alternatives to İncirlik, and one alternative among others is Jordan,” she said. …

Sixty percent of Germans want more video surveillance in public spaces, according to a new YouGov poll published on Sunday. The public call comes in the wake of the Berlin Christmas market attack. Appearing to support government plans to change the law to allow increased video surveillance, 73 percent of Germans polled supported the idea of having larger police forces. The YouGov survey for the German news agency dpa was carried out days after Tunisian national Anis Amri plowed a truck into a Christmas market, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 50 others. Amri, who was the prime suspect, was...

Germany is preparing to train troops to be deployed within its borders for the first time since World War II amid fears of terrorist attacks. The country’s armed forces will hold joint drills with police early next year, officials confirmed. […] Plans to involve soldiers in counterterrorism operations — and the suggestion troops could also be used to beef up security in public places — have proved controversial in a country only seven decades removed from totalitarian rule that’s still grappling with guilt from the Nazi era. A 2012 constitutional court ruling paved the way for the deployment of the...

The German army are planning stricter checks of their soldiers as officials fear that jihadists could be using the armed forces as a way to train. The German Cabinet finalized an amendment on Wednesday to military law that will have military intelligence agency MAD soon more thoroughly scrutinize each applicant for connections to jihadist or extremist groups. “There are currently indications that Islamist circles are trying to send so-called ‘short-term soldiers’ into the Bundeswehr so that they can receive such training,” according to the explanation of the amendment, which will come into force on July 1st 2017. […] Since 2007,...

After a string of violent rampages over a period of a week, an argument has broken out in Germany’s coalition government over whether the army (Bundeswehr) should be deployed inside the country. […] The debate has been bubbling away for years, with the German constitution placing very tight controls on when the army can be used domestically. Currently the constitution allows for the military to support emergency services during natural catastrophes. But in a new white paper on defense, published earlier this month, SPD and CDU agreed on a compromise wording which would allow for the army to be deployed...