How much money do universities, colleges and non-university research institutions in Germany collect for arms research from the Ministry of Defense in Berlin? For the current year, the sum is at least in the high tens of millions. This emerges from a response from the Federal Government to a small request from the left. However, the Federal Ministry of Defense does not reveal details.
The overview of such research projects allow "detailed conclusions on existing skill gaps in terms of procedures and equipment of the Bundeswehr," it says in the grounds in the paper, which is the SPIEGEL exclusive.
According to this, universities and colleges in nine federal states receive direct funding from the Ministry of Defense this year. Other universities, but especially non-university research institutions such as institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, also benefit from indirect research contracts, for example through cooperation with the German Armed Forces.
The promotion is explosive because it is disputed for years whether German universities should participate at all in armaments research.
Proponents refer to the freedom of research and argue that the findings often served both military and non-military purposes. Opponents, on the other hand, demand a "peace obligation", to which university institutions in this country would have to confess. Several universities have introduced a civil clause, according to which they reject armaments research.
"Intransparente secrecy"
The fact that the Ministry of Defense does not want to divulge, to which universities it allocates funds and in what amount, causes the left to the following conjecture: "The Federal Government wants to expand their war research at public universities and other research institutions massively and without much publicity," said Nicole Gohlke university and science policy spokeswoman of the Left Bundestag faction, the SPIEGEL. The government operates "non-transparent secrecy" if it keeps the corresponding projects under wraps.
Other ministries of defense are more open to such research. Thus the SPIEGEL had evaluated in June a publicly accessible database of the US government. According to that, since 2008 more than 21 million US dollars have flowed from the Pentagon to German universities and research institutions.
The biggest beneficiary of the millions in the US Department of Defense is therefore the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich at the German universities - both in terms of the number of projects and the amount of funding. It has received a total of nearly $ 3.7 million from the Pentagon since 2008 in 23 individual totals. Even after such projects had asked the left - but received only a "VS - only for official use" stamped list.
Abolished civil clause: "compliant decision"
In her statement, left-wing politician Gohlke also criticizes the decision of the Landtag in North Rhine-Westphalia to abolish the previously applicable civil clause in the Higher Education Act. The new law was passed against massive protests among others by students shortly before the summer break; In future, NRW universities will be able to open up for military research.
This was a "compliant decision" of the NRW state government to the Federal Government, said Gohlke, "because in addition to Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, it is mainly universities in NRW, which conduct research on behalf of the Ministry of Defense".
The North Rhine-Westphalian Science Minister Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen (non-party), however, had argued according to a WDR report, the universities were with the new Higher Education Act "their autonomy and autonomous design options back".
Soldiers contingent on NC subjects
The Federal Government's response to the Small Inquiry reveals yet another, little-known detail of everyday university life: that Bundeswehr soldiers are entitled to certain contingents at study places, even at civil universities. This also applies to admission-restricted subjects that are awarded through Numerus clausus. In the current year, soldiers were allocated 268 medical study places nationwide.
In view of the 2.9 million places in Germany, the current number of 313 places in the Bundeswehr contingent is negligible - perhaps one reason why these data are not subject to secrecy. Also present: 21 budding musicians who will begin their studies at the Robert Schumann University of Applied Sciences in the winter semester.
