Disaster control is a matter for the federal states – but so that they are not overwhelmed in an emergency, the federal government helps with vehicles and special units. Much of it is only available on paper.
The federal government has fewer vehicles and special units available for disaster control than planned.
For example, 1,373 vehicles are currently missing from the supplementary disaster control system, as a response from the Ministry of the Interior available to the German Press Agency to a request from the left in the Bundestag shows. This corresponds to around a quarter of the target value for 5421 vehicles.
Supplementary disaster control is a legally regulated support service provided by the federal government for the federal states, for example in the event of fires or other disasters with high numbers of injuries. In Germany, the federal states are responsible for disaster control in peacetime; the federal government supports this.
The largest gap is in the area of the Medical Task Forces agreed by the federal and state governments in 2007. Here 563 vehicles are missing, 35 percent of the target. Not a single vehicle has been added since 2016. If the rescue service is overloaded, these units should be able to decontaminate injured persons, set up treatment stations and transport patients over a wide area.
For vehicles used to protect against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazards, there is a 29 percent gap, according to the government. There were last 15 new acquisitions in 2017.
The left-wing MP Sabine Zimmermann, who had made the request, recalled the tank farm explosion in Leverkusen and the severe flooding in the Rhineland. Serious disasters could also occur in Germany at any time. “But to protect the population from disasters, the federal and state governments only spend a little more than a thousandth of the amount that Germany invests in the military and armaments,” said Zimmermann. At this rate, it will take decades before the target level is reached.
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