A new report released this week gives a damning assessment of the capabilities of the German army, highlighting its “disastrous” infrastructure, and calling it “premature” for its soldiers to be sent on a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine.
Presenting the report on Tuesday, March 11th, Eva Högl, the Armed Forces Commissioner of the Bundestag, said the Bundeswehr (armed forces) “still has too little of everything” despite a €100-billion special fund, established in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was supposed to improve recruitment, develop infrastructure, and speed up new weapons procurement.
But the results were in many cases “not yet visible, noticeable, or measurable,” while the special fund has largely been used up.
Högl said infrastructure—barracks and other army properties—are “still in a disastrous state,” and the Bundeswehr “is shrinking and getting older.” She stressed that personnel shortages were pushing troops “to breaking point.”
Last year, there were only 181,174 active soldiers, some 340 fewer than in the previous year. The average age of personnel, meanwhile, rose to 34 years in 2024 from 32.4 a year prior to that.
Högl said the Bundeswehr “still needs a lot of money,” and she also urged the government to introduce a new conscription system so that both young men and women could either choose to serve as soldiers for a year, or serve in other ways, such as in the area of disaster relief.
Mandatory military service for men was abolished in 2011.
Eva Högl’s words mimic those of other high-ranking soldiers and military experts in Western Europe who say that their own armies are underequipped and understaffed.
During his previous stint as U.S. President between 2017 and 2021, Donald Trump successfully persuaded his European NATO allies to spend more on their own defence instead of relying on the United States. This has led to a huge increase in the number of NATO members who now reach the target of spending 2% of their GDP on their respective militaries.
However, many European armies are still not ready to deal with a potential military invasion, let alone take part in a foreign mission, such as a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine which many Western European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have been fantasizing about.
Högl said on Tuesday that it was “premature” to talk about sending troops to Ukraine to police a possible future ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow. She emphasized the importance of politicians considering what the Bundeswehr could actually handle and what was “no longer possible.”
Her words of warning come as governments all over Europe consider reintroducing compulsory military service in the face of Russian aggression.
But, according to a recent survey, not many Germans would want to fight to protect their own country: a clear majority of 60% said they are “probably not” or “definitely not” willing to defend Germany in the event of a military invasion.
This makes talk of a potential peacekeeping mission even less realistic.
Nevertheless, Germany’s likely next chancellor and leader of the centre-right CDU party Friedrich Merz wants to push through his plan of raising around €1 trillion in debt to boost spending on the country’s military and infrastructure.
