Pedro Von Eyken for Poder & Dinero and Fingurú
On April 24, an article of mine was published in this medium about the different challenges that the newly formed German Grand Coalition government, led by Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
There I referred to three specific areas: the economy, immigration, and defense. Today I will focus on a specific aspect of the third area, controversial and even taboo, but whose effectiveness is indispensable for defense to function: the attitude and preparation of the individuals in charge of German defense, who are expected to contribute decisively to European defense.
We know a truth that seems obvious: there is no war without weapons. However, there is another that should also be obvious, even though its implementation in Germany is uncomfortable and its discussion has been postponed “for later” since October 1990: weapons on the battlefield do not operate on their own. A guided missile can be fired from a distance, merely by pressing a button or key. However, that missile also requires specific training and a certain attitude, even in a defensive war.
This is, plainly and simply, the warrior attitude, a difficult subject if there ever was one in the country and continent of the two world wars of the 20th century. Until now, those weapons have been handled by others.
We know about the efficiency, high technology, and firepower of the weapons that Germany produces and exports. The armed conflict that has plagued Europe since February 2022 has testified to this. Nonetheless, what concerns us today is that the country that triggered World War II on the old continent, equipped with the most efficient and lethal war machinery ever known, may not today possess the attitude and spirit of the men who fought in the Wehrmacht. Germany was then an aggressor state. What would happen today if those personal conditions had to manifest, even if Germany were the nation being attacked or supported a defense ally with soldiers?
The topic is addressed in smaller, more reserved circles, both within and outside Germany. Military attachés to embassies maintain close ties, in addition to the officers who have taken specialized courses in both capitals, and the same can be said for the academic sphere. When I served at the Argentine embassy in Bonn between 1993 and 1998, I was in charge of international defense and security issues. Since then, I have traveled to Germany for family and friendship ties, although my interest remains after my retirement from the Foreign Service at the end of 2022.
MILITARISM AND PACIFISM
I cannot provide an answer about the possible attitude of German soldiers in the face of a European conflict, among other reasons because it pertains to the future. I can, however, briefly refer to the difference between ancient German militarism and the pacifism observed since 1945. I do so with the respect due to a nation to which I am directly related through my father and my wife, understanding that there is a Germany before and after the genocide and the armed conflict of 1939 to 1945.
There are many references related to the transition from German militarism to pacifism; it would be impossible to summarize the most noteworthy. I will attempt the minimum. The Italian academic Francesco Pistolato, in an article published in the Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Studies in 2016, titled “Germany and the Overcoming of Traumas. From Militarism to Pacifism”, argues that “for two centuries, Germany has cultivated militarism and war. This has led the country first to unification, then to two defeats in the world wars. Even National Socialism could be viewed as a child of a mentality oriented towards the military. All of this fundamentally changes after 1945. Although Germany is part of the NATO alliance and during the Cold War served as a border between the two opposing sides, the prevailing inclination of the people and representatives of culture is no longer in favor of arms. This change is due not only to the re-education decided by the allies and to the saturation after so much suffering but also to the conscious work of researchers for peace.”
This re-education was a constant, uninterrupted effort that has yielded results in the military realm and in the internal security forces.
GERMAN CULTURE
As Pistolato summarizes, for several centuries, militarism was a central element of German culture. The author cites Wolfram Wette, a German historian who has studied this recently, and for whom the military pyramid of the Prussian state consists of “the king as chief, the nobles as officers, and finally the soldiers, peasants in peacetime who work on the lands of the aristocrats. Obedience is brutally imposed from above. It is a very efficient organization that extends its military nature to the civil realm. The spirit of the soldier (Soldatengeist) characterizes the dominant mentality.” Adapted to the circumstances of the time, that spirit prevailed starting in 1933 with Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany and remained for twelve years, with the horrific results we know. After the German defeat and particularly from 1949, with the creation of the Federal Republic (Western), the re-education of the soldier was a constant endeavor, extended to all of society. At the same time, the participation of German armed forces in the UN has grown, of which the country has been a member since 1973. In 2022, it contributed 6.8 billion dollars, making it the second-largest contributor to the UN system. Germany has participated in peace missions, with significant contributions to the budgets of those missions and in those carried out by NATO, the European Union, or the OSCE. However, it has not had to face a binational or regional conflict with its own soldiers.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, Germany sought diplomacy and dialogue, refraining from involving its men and women in personally handling the weapons that the country produces and exports today. In this sense, the return of mandatory military service, resisted by the population and social democracy, could be gradual.
This forced pacifist attitude, demanded from the outside and inside, is closely related to a phenomenon that I never tire of mentioning: the omnipresent “collective guilt”, which is weak on paperwork, often attributed to the entire German people since 1933 for the world war and genocide. This general guilt has not only led to the aforementioned pacifism. In less academic terms, it also explains Germany’s “easy yes” to any decision involving monetary commitments and magnanimous gestures for the crimes perpetrated by Nazism more than 80 years ago. The enormous openness to immigration, reinforced during the peak of the Syrian conflict, is a clear example that today stirs, with notable electoral growth, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). There have already been attacks in public spaces. This would be one of the first things that the new government must seriously limit if it wishes to halt the growth of the AfD.
Pedro Von Eyken holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He is a political scientist and a permanent consultant in the media on topics within his expertise.
As a member of the Argentine Foreign Service, he was an ambassador in Haiti, and, while serving as a commercial attaché in Cuba, he was in charge of the diplomatic representation in that Caribbean country.
Previously, he served as consul in Finland and in Hamburg, Germany, where he worked as a commercial counselor at the Argentine Embassy.
He is the author of two highly relevant books about two countries he knows well: Cuba and Haiti. In the first, “Witness to a Betrayed Revolution”, he exposes the lies of the Castro dictatorship through his experiences while in Cuba.
In “Haiti, Between Silence and Hunger”, he addresses a humanitarian crisis in a seemingly forgotten country, beset by violence. Pedro focused on this topic when few did, and its importance is underscored by a recent resolution from the United States Department of State, declaring the violent gangs operating in Haiti and those who support them by supplying arms as terrorists.
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