The end of 20 years of deployment in Afghanistan was no reception, no honor, no ceremony worthy of top German politicians.
Now the rethinking follows: Bavaria is even planning its own medal.
Munich / Berlin - It was a silent and apolitical return home: On June 30, three Bundeswehr planes landed near Hanover. 264 soldiers, still with the dust of Afghanistan on their light brown boots, jumped out of the machines. The family and partner were waiting for the last German contingent of the 20-year deployment in the Hindu Kush - but no politicians. Corona, security reasons and the soldiers' desire to get home quickly were given as reasons.
But because a political debate started in Berlin as to whether this silent reception was dignified enough, the plan is now being rescheduled.
A “Great Zapfenstreich” is scheduled for August 31 in Berlin, this is what the highest-ranking military ceremony in the evening by torchlight is called.
It should not run hidden in the inner courtyard of the Ministry of Defense, but on the Republic Square in front of the Reichstag building, with all the heads of the state.
"It then turned out that the Bundeswehr itself, but also from the political arena, had a desire to present this to a wider public," said Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) this week.
Bundeswehr: Withdrawal from Afghanistan - Söder wants to decorate soldiers with a new honor
An extra honor for the soldiers is to be given in Bavaria beforehand on a smaller scale. According to information from
Münchner Merkur
, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) wants to bring
a small group of soldiers from the last Afghanistan contingent to his state chancellery
on Monday
. Representing all contingents of these two decades, many of which came from Bavarian locations, they will for the first time receive the newly created Decoration of Honor of the Prime Minister for services abroad.
He wanted to "set a conscious sign of thanks and appreciation," says Söder. "We pay tribute to our returnees from Afghanistan." Many soldiers have been involved in international missions by the Bundeswehr several times, not only in Afghanistan, also in the Balkans or currently in Mali - where several Bavarian soldiers were recently injured in an attack.
The returnees to Afghanistan have now been selected from all parts of the country. They come from logistics battalion 472 in the Franconian town of Kümmersbruck, from the medical training regiment from the Gäuboden barracks in Feldkirchen / Niederbayern, from Luftwaffe squadron 74 in Neuburg an der Donau and from the Bundeswehr IT school in Pöcking. "Some of them spent a total of more than two years under difficult and dangerous circumstances on foreign assignments," says Söder. "This is an enormous burden for families and deserves special respect." The Free State is proud of its soldiers. (
cd
)
