Germany decides to leave history in the past and prepare for war

A rocket launcher sends a cloud of brown dust into the air as it invades a field to the shooting. Moments later comes the counting of the soldier from five to “fire!”, Before the rocket roars in the sky.

The blasts and the boom of such military training are so constant that locals in the nearby small town of Munster are almost not noticed.

But life here is ready to become even stronger.

The German military, Bundeswehr, recently received everything clear about a huge increase in investment after parliament voted to release defense spending from strict debt rules.

The best general in the country told the BBC that the monetary impetus is urgently needed, as it believes that Russian aggression will not stop in Ukraine.

“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do everything we need to deter this,” says Gen. Karsten Breer. He warns that NATO should be supported for a possible attack in just four years.

“It's not about how long I need.” And the earlier we are prepared, the better. “

The full -scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine has changed thinking in Germany deeply.

For decades, people here have been raised in the rejection of military forces who are consciously aware of the last role of Germany as an aggressor in Europe.

“We have started two world wars. Although 80 years have passed since the end of World War II, the idea that the Germans must remain out of the conflict are still many in the DNA of many people,” explains Marcus Ziner of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

Some remain cautious about anything that can be seen as militarism even now, and the armed forces have been chronically insufficiently funded.

“There are voices warning,” Are we really on the right track? Is our perception of the threat right? “

As for Russia, Germany had a specific approach.

While countries like Poland and the Baltic States warned to approach too much to Moscow – and increased their own defense spending – Berlin with former chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany imagined that it supplied democratization through osmosis. But Russia took the money and invaded Ukraine anyway.

Thus, in February 2022, the stunning chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a national spin in the priorities, “Zeitenwende”.

He then made a giant 100 billion euros ($ 108 billion; 83 billion British pounds) to strengthen the country's military and control the “warming up like Putin.” But General Breer says this was not enough.

“We filled a little holes,” he says. “But it's really bad.”

In contrast, it indicates heavy costs in Russia for weapons and equipment, both for shares, as well as on the front line in Ukraine.

He also emphasizes Russia's hybrid war: from cyber attacks to sabotage, as well as unidentified drones over German military sites.

Add to this aggressive rhetoric of Vladimir Putin and General Breer sees a “really dangerous mixture”.

“Unlike the Western world, Russia does not think in the boxes. It's not about peacetime and war, it's a continuum: let's start with a hybrid, then we escalate, and then back. It makes me think we are facing a real threat.”

He claims that Germany should act quickly.

The evaluation of the Chief of Defense of the present State, which is heard in a recent report to parliament. Bundesver, he concluded, there was “too little of everything.”

The author of the report, the armed forces commissioner Eva Hogl, revealed a terrible shortage ranging from ammunition to soldiers, right to destroyed barracks. She estimated the budget for repair work at about 67 billion euros ($ 72 billion; $ 56 billion).

Raising a debt, which will allow the military to borrow – in theory, without restriction – will give it access to a “stable line” of funding to start dealing with it, says General Breer.

The historical move was made by the expected heir of Scholz, Friedrich Merz, in the speed that raised his eyebrows. He presented the proposal in parliament just before he was dissolved after the February election.

The new parliament, with an antimalist on the left and the omitization of Russia on the right to the right, may be less favorably located.

But the turn, which Germany started in 2022, gained a fresh speed this year.

A recent Yougov poll has shown that 79% of the Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “many” or “quite” dangerous to European peace and security.

Now 74% have said the same about Donald Trump.

The study followed a speech in Munich, in which his vice president JD Vance invested in Europe and his values.

“It was a clear signal that something radically changed in the United States,” says Marcus Ziner.

“We do not know where the United States is directed, but we know the belief that we can 100% rely on US defense when it comes to our security – this trust has already gone.”

In Berlin, the traditional caution of the Germans for all the things that the military seems to fade quickly.

Eighteen -year -old Charlotte Creft says her own pacifist views have changed.

“For a very long time, we thought that the only way to compensate for the atrocities we did during World War II was to make sure it had never happened again (…) and decided that we should demilitarize,” Sharlot explains.

“But now we are in a situation where we must fight for our values ​​and democracy and freedom. We have to adapt.”

“There are many Germans who still feel strange about the big investments in our military,” Ludwig Stein agrees. “But I think that given the things that have happened in the last few years, there is no other real option.”

Sophie, a young mom, thinks that investing in defense is already “needed in the world we live in.”

But Germany needs troops as well as tanks, and it is far less avid than its own son, which is included.

Bundeswehr has only one permanent dropping center, a small unit, shot between a pharmacy and a shoe store near the Berlin Station Friedrichstrasse.

With dummies dressed in camouflage in the window and slogans such as “cool and spicy”, it aims to attract men and women to serve, but gets a handful of calls every day.

Germany has already missed an aim to increase its ranks by 20,000 soldiers to 203,000 and to reduce the average age from 34.

But Gen Breer's ambitions are far more bigger.

He told us that Germany needs an additional 100,000 troops to adequately protect NATO's Eastern Flang – a total of 460,000, including reserves. Thus, he insists that returning to military service is “absolutely” necessary.

“You will not receive those 100,000 without one or the other summoning model,” the general said.

“We don't have to determine what model wears them. It is only important for me to put the soldiers.”

This debate has just begun.

General Breer is clearly positioned in the front of the efforts to press “turn” Germany further and faster.

With his easy, engaging way, he likes to visit regional mayoralties and to cause the audience there with the question: “Are you ready for war?”

One day, a woman accused him of scaring her. “I said,” I'm not scaring you, and the other person! “” He remembers his answer.

He refers to Vladimir Putin.

The twin alarm “Awakening-from the threat from Russia and an isolationist, divided the United States, is ringing hard for Germany now, the general claims and cannot be ignored.

“Now it is understandable for each of us that we need to change.”