On the last day before the parliamentary summer recess, the committee of inquiry into the withdrawal of German armed forces from Afghanistan and its consequences began its work.

The members of parliament met on Friday under the chairmanship of SPD politician Ralf Stegner for the constitutive session.

During the night, the Bundestag had decided to set up the committee.

In the coalition agreement, the three traffic light parties had agreed to review the evacuation mission of the Afghanistan mission in a committee of inquiry.

Helen Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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The Bundeswehr left Afghanistan in June 2021 after an almost 20-year deployment.

In doing so, it followed the schedule set by the United States, which surprisingly announced in mid-April the unconditional withdrawal of its troops by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

In August, Germany took part in an international military evacuation operation.

In eleven days, the Bundeswehr flew out around 5,300 people from 45 nations, including around 4,000 Afghans, via an airlift.

But many stayed behind, trapped among Islamist terrorists.

Before that, the Taliban had taken power in Kabul within a very short time, with practically no resistance.

Dramatic scenes then played out at Kabul Airport in the second half of August,

Why were there misjudgments?

The committee is primarily to investigate the circumstances of the evacuation action.

It is also about the authorities' misjudgment of the security situation in Afghanistan and the resilience of the Afghan army.

The question to be clarified is how it came about that numerous local Afghan workers who had worked for the Bundeswehr and other German institutions were left behind.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior, which was led by Horst Seehofer (CSU) at the time, was responsible for the so-called local staff procedure.

Among other things, it is about the question of whether the visa requirement for entry into Germany should have fallen earlier.

On Friday, the Bundestag also set up a commission of inquiry into the Afghanistan mission.

The committee is to examine the deployment of the Bundeswehr with scientific support.

Michael Müller, the chairman of the commission, called for better equipment for soldiers deployed abroad.

He also called for more precise targeting for missions like the one in Afghanistan.

"It has to be realistically formulated what can be achieved," says Müller.

In Afghanistan, the first ten years were about the fight against terror.

For the second ten years there was no clear new order.