Over the past nine years, the defense ministers have repeatedly put good news about the Bundeswehr in the political showcase: the armed forces meet all NATO requirements.

"We are very clear about our alliance obligations," said Christine Lambrecht of the SPD just a few days ago.

In fact, the Bundeswehr succeeds.

On the other hand, it is only possible by scraping together people and material from every corner and barracks of the country.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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Because behind the shop window the shelves are empty, the staff has been saved.

It's been a week since the Army Inspector, Alfons Mais.

informed the general public that the army was "more or less blank".

The minister immediately responded with the usual phrase: "A clear commitment: Allies can rely on us, we are set up accordingly."

And I can only advise everyone who bears responsibility to use all their strength to meet the challenges.” Mais could be happy to remain in office.

Kramp-Karrenbauer: "Historically failed"

On Monday, Lambrecht then illustrated the Bundeswehr's willingness to perform by sending a company to Slovenia.

Not everyone, including the minister, may be quite clear on how many people a company has: around 100 soldiers.

In the meantime, the American allies were also preparing another reinforcement: another 7,000 men are ready to be sent to Germany.

Overall, the US troops in Europe are currently estimated at 90,000.

Germany, on the other hand, is currently unable to send even one brigade, i.e. around 5,000 soldiers, into action without mass borrowing from other troops.

But not only Lambrecht concealed this truth, but also her predecessors for years.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU), Defense Minister until December, said on the day of the Russian attack: "I'm so angry with us because we've failed historically." Nothing had been prepared that would have really deterred Putin.

Three days later, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) promised the Bundeswehr what it had needed for years to keep its NATO commitments: 100 billion euros immediately and a budget increase of billions more annually.

Suddenly Lambrecht also reported on television that the Bundeswehr had been "bled dry", in other words a kind of dead rabbit that had been hung in the tree.

The Bundeswehr saved for about 25 years.

Thousands of tanks, airplanes and ships were scrapped or sold in the 1990s.

Less than 220 of the approximately 2,100 heavy Leopard tanks remained. Anyone looking for the remains of the anti-aircraft defense and their approximately 450 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks today has to travel to Romania.

The German anti-aircraft defense was dissolved as a branch of troops in 2012, a miserable remainder remained, around 20 small vehicles of the "Ozelot" type.

The naval aviators were also abolished.

They had five squadrons with up to 200 aircraft and helicopters.

Today there are a few reconnaissance planes and a few helicopters with technical problems.

Entire ship classes of the Navy were also dissolved, such as the fast, powerful destroyers.

Today only corvettes and frigates sail in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, conceptually geared to humanitarian missions in distant countries.

The last budget increase has hardly changed anything

Now there should be 100 billion euros more, money that the Bundeswehr can certainly use.

But she must also, and first of all, be empowered to spend it wisely.

Because there is also a huge problem with that.

It's by no means as if the troupe hasn't received more money in recent years.

In fact, it was much more: since 2014, the year of the annexation of Crimea, its budget has increased from around 32 billion euros to 50 billion euros most recently.