When an incursion of Russian drones forced Warsaw airport to shut down last month, Poland immediately shot them down. When unidentified drones forced Munich airport to suspend operations this month, German authorities provided snacks for stranded passengers, while police helicopters monitored the air space. As strange as it might sound, Germany’s military is not allowed to defend German airspace against anything short of a full-scale invasion. It is just one roadblock of many in the way of making Germany fighting fit.
On paper, Berlin has a free pass to strengthen national defense. With military spending above 1 percent of GDP exempted from borrowing restrictions, there is effectively no limit on funding of the military, known as the Bundeswehr, but as the drone dilemma indicates, Germany faces more daunting obstacles to defending itself as the neighborhood gets increasingly dangerous.
For one, the constitution, written after World War II, strictly limits the military’s role inside the country, even banning it from shooting down flying objects such as drones anywhere in domestic airspace that is not above a military base. This rule was meant to prevent the kind of military overreach seen during authoritarian times, especially under the Nazi regime. Today, these restrictions make it hard to respond to modern threats.
Germany could of course change the legislation, but this is where its deeply fragmented political landscape comes into play. For the first time in post-World War II history, Germany’s moderate parties do not command a two-thirds majority in parliament, which is necessary to change constitutionally enshrined rules like the one in question. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the far-left Die Linke together take up more than one-third of the seats. The ruling conservatives have a party resolution in place not to negotiate with either.
Even if German Chancellor Friedrich Merz talked to all political parties freely to find a two-thirds majority to change the rules, it is unlikely that he would find one. His coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats, have a vocal pacifist wing, and the Green Party has its roots in the peace movements of the 1970s and 1980s. When German Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt suggested finding a way to use the Bundeswehr against drone attacks, representatives of both parties rejected the idea outright.
With the head of the foreign intelligence service, Martin Jaeger, warning this week that “a frosty peace” in Europe “could turn into hot confrontation here and there at any moment,” it seems impossible for Merz to find a political consensus to defend German airspace, but his problems run deeper than that. Many Germans themselves harbor a profound mistrust of state power and public institutions. The Bundeswehr itself has remained popular, with about three-quarters of people saying in polls that they trust it as an institution, but belief in the politicians that would direct its actions has reached a nadir, with one survey suggesting that only 17 percent trust their democratically elected government.
The AfD, now neck-and-neck with the ruling conservatives in the polls, embodies this dilemma. On the one hand, the party program demands more funding for the Bundeswehr and a reintroduction of compulsory military service to “secure Germany’s defense capability.” On the other, many of its politicians, especially in the former East Germany, openly question if a boosted Bundeswehr would be used “in the German interest,” as the AfD leader in the state of Brandenburg, Christoph Berndt, told the media.
Surprisingly for a party that claims to have the national interest at heart, some AfD representatives would not even be willing to fight for their country in case of an outright attack. A young regional lawmaker, Felix Teichner, told a German journalist last year: “One thing is clear: if this country is attacked, no matter by whom, I will grab my children and go as far away as possible.”
He is not alone with this view. A survey found that only 16 percent of Germans would “definitely” defend the country with arms. That is despite more than one-quarter of people saying that they thought it likely that Germany would be attacked militarily within the next five years. It is hardly surprising that the political class cannot find a consensus when society shares their deeply entrenched reluctance to build German defense readiness.
Germany’s grappling with the question of how to defend its airspace from drone incursions is the tip of a giant iceberg of problems when it comes to rearmament and defense readiness. A deeply divided country with increasingly messy politics, it is far from mounting the kind of collective resolve necessary to build an effective military ethos. It is a conundrum that afflicts much of the West to varying degrees, but Germany’s exceptional fiscal power, combined with its particular past and present, creates a unique paradox: Germany is an economic giant that is astonishingly hard to defend.
Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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