Boris Pistorius sounds the alarm, the Bundeswehr has been doing this for a long time.
Currently, Germany would have little more than a few dozen Leopard 2 tanks to defend itself.
Munich/Berlin – In the middle of the Ukraine war, Germany is reducing its military spending on the Bundeswehr in 2023.
At the same time, the traffic light federal government apparently wants to buy back old Leopard 2 tanks from Switzerland that were manufactured in the Federal Republic in the 1980s.
Bundeswehr Leopard-2: German armed forces are running out of tanks
18 modern "Leos", as the military vehicle is now called after weeks of debate, are currently being delivered to Ukraine to defend against the Russian invasion.
But: What about the existence of the Bundeswehr itself?
Finally, according to dpa,
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius
recently warned at a meeting of the SPD parliamentary group: "We have no armed forces that are capable of being defended, i.e. capable of being defended against an offensive, brutally conducted war of aggression." How did he get that?
A banal calculation shows, for example, that the German army, i.e. the land forces, is currently running out of Leopard 2 tanks.
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At the beginning of February,
ZDF
calculated in an article in the "heute journal" that at that time only 90 of the 290 Leopard 2 tanks in the Bundeswehr were operational.
At that time, eight "Leos" were stationed with the enhanced forward battlegroup Lithuania, i.e. with the multinational combat troop brigade on NATO's eastern flank in Lithuania, which is commanded by the German Bundeswehr.
Bundeswehr Leopard-2: Only a few tanks for the possible defense of Germany
90 (operational) minus 18 (to the Ukraine) minus eight (stationed in Lithuania) makes a total of just 64 of the actual 290 Leopard 2 tanks that Germany (84.1 million inhabitants) would have available for defense in the event of an attack .
In the event of an attack on its own territory, the Federal Republic would be protected by the so-called alliance case under Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
Still, for comparison, Finland, which is much smaller in terms of population (population 5.5 million), says it currently has 200 operational Leopard 2 tanks in its army.
Another comparison: As the Ministry of Defense in Bern announced this Friday (March 3), the Swiss army (8.8 million inhabitants) currently has 134 combat-ready "Leos" in its stocks.
And what happens in Germany in view of this realization?
Apparently little to nothing.
+
Leopard 2 A6 main battle tanks in the Generalfeldmarschall Rommel barracks in Augustdorf near Bielefeld.
© IMAGO/Christoph Hardt
During the “Zeitenwende” debate in the German Bundestag during the week, the CDU criticized the fact that only 600 million euros of the 100 billion euros in “Bundeswehr special assets” had been spent.
Obtaining a replacement for the "Leos" that have been delivered is probably all the more difficult.
"They are now being assembled with ammunition and material packages and, according to reports, will be delivered from the end of March," Göran Swistek from the Berlin Science and Politics Foundation (SWP) told Deutsche Welle (DW) about the Leopard
2
deliveries to Ukraine.
The think tank advises the German traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP.
Tanks, drones, anti-aircraft defenses: weapons for Ukraine
Tanks, drones, anti-aircraft defenses: weapons for Ukraine
Bundeswehr Leopard 2 main battle tank: is the traffic light government missing the order?
"The gap that then arises to fill these stocks is quite a large one, which I believe can last at least a year," explained Swistek, who has the rank of frigate captain in his professional life in the German Navy.
"From a wide variety of areas, including the German armaments industry," he heard, said defense expert Swistek, "that at least so far there have been no purchase inquiries or written applications (
for the Bundeswehr, ed
.)".
The “Leos” are manufactured jointly in Germany by the armaments companies Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall.
(pm)
