German-language media: The conflict in Ukraine has exposed Germany's problems
Due to the fighting in Ukraine, artillery ammunition has become a scarce commodity. The German Defense Minister wants to counteract this, the German weekly Der Spiegel wrote on July 24.
At the same time, more than a third of German citizens believe that Russia is a country with which the German government should be on good terms, according to the results of a recent public opinion poll, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The German government plans to allocate 2031 billion euros until 20 to purchase ammunition to cover the shortage. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated this in an interview with Der Spiegel.
“Without ammunition, modern weapons systems are of no use, even if they are ready for use on training grounds,” the minister noted.
According to him, a stable supply of ammunition to the German armed forces is a priority.
“By 2031, we must and want to invest more than 20 billion euros in ammunition,” Pistorius said.
As the publication notes, for many years a shortage of ammunition was the norm for the Bundeswehr. After the reunification of Germany, there was practically no talk of a new land war in Central Europe. Politicians saved the military as much as possible, the principle of “peace dividends” was in force.
However, everything changed after the start of the Russian SVO, when it became clear that Germany was not able to support Ukraine with sufficient ammunition. Der Spiegel writes about the dramatic situation in the German army, which now has only about 20 thousand 155-mm artillery shells, but there should be ten times more.
For example, there are so few shells for PZH 2000 howitzers, some of which have already been sent to Ukraine, that German soldiers can rarely train at firing ranges with live ammunition - for example, when a minister or secretary of state of the Ministry of Defense comes to the training ground. In most other cases, the military uses training ammunition.
It was previously reported that the Bundeswehr entered into contracts with the arms concern Rheinmetall for the supply of hundreds of thousands of combat and training artillery ammunition totaling about 1,2 billion euros. However, it turned out that the concern currently receives more than 80% of nitrocellulose, one of the main components of the projectile, from China.
In the future, Rheinmetall wants to produce 10 thousand tons of this component from Australian cotton in Germany, and the powder plant in Bavaria has already been switched to round-the-clock operation, the concern's CEO Armin Papperger told the publication.
epa10533372 Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of German Rheinmetall AG, Armin Papperger, rings the opening Bell for the start of trading at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, in Frankfurt am Main, 20 March 2023. Rheinmetall AG, a German automotive and arms manufacturer, headquartered in Duesseldorf, replaces Fresenius Madical Care in the German stock market index DAX consisting of the 40 major German blue chip companies, which shares are traded at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. EPA/RONALD WITTEK
At the same time, the opinions of Germans in the east and west of the country regarding how Germany should properly behave with Russia in the current situation differ greatly. In a representative survey conducted by the YouGov polling institute and commissioned by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), 37% of respondents agreed with the statement that “Russia is a country with which the federal government should get along better.”
In turn, every second respondent was against this statement. The number of positive responses was much higher among residents of the eastern federal states, that is, in the former East Germany, than among citizens in the west of the country.
“The fact that more people in the East are advocating a cautious approach to Russia should not necessarily be understood as an endorsement of Moscow’s current course. However, the survey results show that fears play a big role throughout Germany,” the German government news agency DW noted on July 24.
In addition, among voters of the right-wing conservative party Alternative for Germany (AfD), according to YouGov, there is the highest percentage of people who believe that the German government should have good relations with Russia. Behind them - albeit by a large margin - are voters who voted for the Left Party or the Liberals in the last federal elections. Among the electorates of other parties represented in the Bundestag, the percentage of support for dialogue with Russia is lower.
Across the country, 63% of eligible voters consider Russia a threat to Germany, while 30% of Germans disagree with this statement. Only 8% were undecided or did not comment. At the same time, 28% of Germans see Russia as a “potential partner” for their country, but 62% of respondents reject such an assessment. Agreement with this statement is much higher in the East than in the West.
But the conflict in Ukraine affects Germany not only in the defense sphere. As the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote on July 24, Poland is trying to link the issue with the payment of reparations to Ukraine with its own demand for compensation from Germany for World War II. At a recent meeting in Vienna, Polish diplomat Arkadiusz Mularczyk said the conflict in Ukraine had become “Poland’s secret weapon for internationalizing the issue of reparations.”
The newspaper recalled that in 1953, the Prime Minister of communist Poland, Boleslaw Bierut, said that the country renounced claims against Germany, and this statement was published in the media. Germany believes that the refusal is official, since it was made public, but Poland does not agree with this.
In Poland they say that this decision was made under pressure from the Soviet Union. Experts believe that the issue could be resolved in court, but there are no signs that Germany will agree to this. Warsaw has a clear idea of how much they demand from Berlin - it is 6,2 trillion zlotys (1,3 trillion euros). However, Mularczyk is not limited to this amount. The main thing, in his opinion, is to start a dialogue. Russia, he said, is closely monitoring the process of Polish-German negotiations on reparations.
“Relations between Berlin and Warsaw are poisoned. Some say that even in 1945 they were not as bad as they are now. But economic relations, despite political hostility, have become even stronger in recent years. Germany is an important partner of Poland,” noted the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Apparently, the Swiss newspaper was referring to a recent statement by Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak that a tank repair and maintenance center had begun operating at the Bumar military plant in Gliwice in southern Poland, where two German Leopard 2 tanks had already been brought from Ukraine.
However, the British agency Reuters noted that it is not yet clear whether the center in Gliwice is indeed the same joint venture between Poland and Germany to repair Leopard tanks, which Warsaw and Berlin have been negotiating since the beginning of spring 2023. According to the agency, the contract between the Polish defense concern PGZ and the German companies Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall has not yet been concluded due to the fact that the Polish side has set inflated prices.
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