Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has had to take a lot.

For eight weeks, the SPD politician has been stumbling from one political minefield to the next.

First it was the 5,000 helmets that made her a joke in front of Ukraine and the western world.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there were no weapons in crisis areas.

Then, when the tide turned, the bumpy delivery of old East German Strela rockets to Kyiv.

Then her quickly refuted statements about alleged arms transports that urgently needed to be kept secret, which could not be substantiated either on the basis of the official delivery lists in the secret protection agency of the Bundestag or in the information provided by the Ukrainian ambassador.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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Eckhart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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There are many reasons for Berlin's reluctance, even awkwardness, in connection with arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The most important is Scholz's maxim not to let Germany and NATO become a party to the war.

Every chancellorship gets its headline at some point.

For Adenauer it was the West, for Brandt Ostpolitik, for Schmidt the fight against terror, for Kohl it was reunification and the deepening of European unity, for Schröder Agenda 2010 and for Merkel the fight to hold Europe together.

Under no circumstances does Scholz want to become the chancellor under whom Germany got into World War III.

The more the pressure grows, the clearer it makes it. In the magazine "Der Spiegel", Scholz warned against this in connection with the debate about the delivery.

Security policy in the fourth league

None of this makes life easier for Christine Lambrecht.

It can safely be assumed that she too does not want the war in Ukraine to be extended into NATO territory, let alone a nuclear war.

However, on behalf of the chancellor's office, she repeatedly had to respond to Ukraine's demands for more and heavier weapons with steps that soon proved to be provocatively insufficient.

In this way, the holder of the authority to command and command ruined her reputation in the Bendler block, but above all with the allies.

While Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is gaining recognition with clear demands for weapons and intensive visit diplomacy, Lambrecht is playing in the fourth league in terms of security policy.

She hardly knows any of her colleagues.

Journeys and meetings are rare and stiff,

That week, Lambrecht had to claim in front of the cameras that there was absolutely nothing left in the Bundeswehr that could be done without.

This mainly referred to the Marder infantry fighting vehicle.

A few hours later, after she last said this on television, it became known that the Bundeswehr can now suddenly hand over around 40 Marders, in a "ring exchange procedure" with Slovenia, which in turn can give tanks of older Soviet designs directly to the Ukraine .

The Ministry of Defense had been promoting this internally for a long time and had already made preparations.

But Scholz said no for a long time.

Only on Tuesday evening did the Chancellor announce that heavy weapons could now be delivered to Ukraine through this procedure.