La nuova macchina da guerra tedesca – Dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, la Germania abbracciò il pacifismo come forma di espiazione. Ora il Paese si sta armando di nuovo
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/german-militarism-european-security/684951/
di goldstarflag
29 commenti
Here we go again!
It’s pay walled.
However, as a German, and a staunch pacifist, even I am slowly waking up to the idea that having an army is necessary in order to be a sovereign country – both towards Russia as well as the US.
*Freuding had once been able to text American defense officials “day and night,” he said, but lately communication with his counterparts in Washington had been “cut off, really cut off.”*
*The German officials I met, a sober group of military planners, spend their days watching Moscow’s troop mobilizations, trying to determine if Vladimir Putin will order an attack on a NATO country and whether the American president would, in such a case, come to Europe’s defense. “You not only have an enemy knocking at the door,” Freuding said, “but you also are in the process of losing a true ally and friend.”*
*A senior German official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told me that Merz, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, is haunted by the question “Will America serve its allies to the dogs?” After the spectacle in the Oval Office, he became convinced of the need to amend Germany’s constitution to authorize unlimited government borrowing for defense. Within a month, the Bundestag approved the reform.*
*Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, couldn’t believe what J. D. Vance was saying. On the main stage of the Munich Security Conference last February, the vice president was attacking America’s NATO partners, comparing European democracies to authoritarian regimes and accusing Europe’s leaders of stifling free speech and suppressing support for far-right parties. The targets of his criticism sat before him: the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council; heads of government from countries including Germany, Sweden, Ireland, and Latvia. A stunned silence fell over the grand hall of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof.*
If you think Trump will declare war on Russia over Estonia and Poland you need to visit a psychiatrist. NATO is dead. And it’s time for a European Army 🇪🇺 🪖
The arrogance of thinking the end of the Cold War was “the end of history” and the complacency of not providing a Marshall-style plan for Eastern Europe in the early 1990s has finally come home to roost.
Just in time for AfD to come to power.
Look at the size of the german army during the cold war.
Rather than real pacifism, the german guideline for defense was always peace through strength, except in the 2000s and 2010s. And it worked great during the cold war.
[Paywall removed](https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/german-militarism-european-security/684951/)
Gut
[removed]
I think the bad thing with German militarism was it’s chauvinism. People mention holocaust, but nazis planned to kill 40+ mil. Slavs and totally Germanise territory from Prague to Moscow. And it wasn’t nazis original idea, it existed before nazis.
This article makes it seem like current state of German military is because of pacifism and demilitarisation after WW2, which isn’t true. Both West and East Germany had strong militaries during the cold war and it was only after that Germany started to reduce the size of its army.
>After World War II…
During the Cold War, pacifist *West* Germany built up a 500,000-strong military with 10 armored divisions that had several thousand tanks and armored vehicles, the largest army in Western Europe. Pacified communist-led East Germany had 6 divisions themselves.
It was post-Cold War when World Peace, or at least Peace in Europe, was supposed to have been achieved forever with the dissolution of the USSR that reunified Germany gutted its armed forces.
Today’s Germany has 180,000 military personnel including 2 armored divisions, with grand ambitions of rearmament to expand to 4 divisions, with 203,000 mil personnel by 2031 and 260,000 by 2035 — unless interrupted or hastened by Russian military adventurism in Europe.
Good. I think the key here is if we have a new axis forming that is aligned. We would need DE, FR, UK and IT to cooperate on pushing EU to a more federalized defense network basically replacing NATO as dependency on US has proven to be too much of an issue. EU needs to be self-sustaining and fully capable to protect itself and project power within the region. We need to be able to control borders and make sure no stupid moves made by aggressive neighbours on land and across our territorial waters as well.
We already were armed. 1990 when the Bundeswehr and the NVA were suddenly both in unified German hands, the German army was insanely armed.
We sold everything off and downsized by over 2/3.
Some say to save money, true, but mostly because the Stauch resistance to German unification by its westeuropean allies.
Wasn’t reducing the size of the German army to 370.000 soldierts part of the 2 plus 4 treaty? During the cold war West Germany alone had the biggest army in western Europe. Is nobody worried anymore about Germany expanding its military? Nobody is insisting on the limitations of the 2 + 4 treaty?
However, the GDR was not a peaceful state.
The 4th Reich has begun.
Hail Deutschland!!
Good. Be the country Russian propaganda says it it is.
This just isn’t true, west Germany had a large and well armed military. Its only after the cold war do we see this stagnation in the armed forces.
Meanwhile the musicians are boycotting Spotify because their CEO has invested into one of these new German arms companies…
Oh boy, not again.
good Germany, now make Europe follow so we dont end up even more spineless and cowardly.
People should understand: arming for self-defence is not the same like arming for capturing and conquering others
The West-German armed forces were pretty strong. Even the Naval Air Wing (Marineflieger) had their own fast jets.
Erm, Cold War was a thing in Germany. We had quite an army until the 90s. It’s not like we stopped having military after WW2 and never returned to having one.
And what could possibly go wrong with that?
Can we stop with “Germany embraced pacifism after WWII”?
It’s complete bullshit, West Germany (which modern Germany is successor of) THE largest land army of all the European countries on the west side of the Berlin Wall.
Germany didn’t “embrace pacifism” they just downsized and underfunded their army in early 2000s for quick financial savings scheme.
This is the way.
It’s no surprise that Germany is the driving force behind the 140b “reparations loan”. They have the war machine and would love to see those billions flow into the german economy.