The German armed forces have been left under-funded and under-equipped in both personnel and ammunition stocks and would last a matter of two days in the event of a war, MP Dr Johann Wadephul has warned. Arms that would have gone to resupply the Bundeswehr are instead going to Ukraine, he lamented.
Wadephul called for ramping up the speed at which Germany’s armed forces are re-equipped, noting the “difficult shortage” they are facing, Zeit reported, citing the politician’s interview with German press Agency DPA on Sunday.
“Crucial troop units can only last a maximum of two days in a battle. And that is a catastrophic finding, overall,” Wadephul said, adding that anyone who expects the army to be able to defend itself in war “should have ensured” that it did not find itself in such a situation. “Unfortunately the opposite is the case,” he said.
Wadephul’s comments come as Berlin’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock promised earlier this month to not only continue sending military aid to Kiev, but to expand and increase it.
Germany is Ukraine’s second biggest war sponsor, after the US, having pledged more than €17 billion ($18.6 billion) in military aid. The aid has included Leopard tanks, Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems, artillery and almost 22,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition, among other supplies.
Speaking of industry efforts to replenish the Bundeswehr’s own stocks, Wadephul said that, while there are resupply orders, almost nothing is reaching the German army, and “even when purchasing replacements, the Bundeswehr effectively makes a loss,” with much of the arms being sent on to Ukraine instead.
The Bundestag member fears that the military’s progress as a war-capable defense force has stalled, which he pins partly as the “responsibility of [German Defense Minister] Boris Pistorius.” Wadephul feels Germany’s military forces have remained unchanged for the past two decades, specializing in operations far from home, as opposed to defending their own country.
The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borell, speaking to the press earlier this month, admitted the initial stocks of ammunition, “what the armies already had in their stockpiles – is already finished,” with more than 300,000 shells already provided to Ukraine. “Now, from the stockpiles of the armies, it is difficult to get more.”
Brussels has already backtracked on its previous pledge to send one million artillery rounds to Kiev by next March, with German Defense Minister Pistorius saying this month that this goal “won’t be achieved.”
Russia has repeatedly warned that Western arms supplies sent to Kiev will barely impact the situation on the front lines, with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu saying this month that “despite the supply of new kinds of NATO weapons, the Kiev regime is losing.”