The “silent greeting” of the last Bundeswehr soldiers returning home from the Hindu Kush sticks to Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) as firmly as Afghan clay.
Now the last commander of the contingent tried himself with the word "security reasons" to wash his minister from the criticism that not a single politician greeted the soldiers at the airfield.
Of course, security at the end of August can hardly be used as an argument for why the Afghanistan mission should be concluded in front of the Bendler block, i.e. between the embassy district and the Landwehr Canal, vulgo at the cat's table in political Berlin.
The Bundeswehr is a parliamentary army.
They were MPs who sent them on the most dangerous mission in post-war history for twenty years.
59 soldiers paid him with their lives.
And it is the great majority of Germans who have authorized the MPs to the mandate.
Demands to pay tribute to the soldiers before the Reichstag are therefore only legitimate.
A big tattoo there would be a signal that politics is not only devoting itself to the important issues of diversity and climate change, but also to the hardships of the soldier's profession: fighting, killing and being killed. These are uncomfortable truths. It is Parliament's duty to give due recognition to the soldiers.