“Unfortunate aim”: Bavarian Prime Minister Söder criticizes Defense Minister Pistorius’ idea of a war-worthy Bundeswehr.
CSU leader Markus Söder has sharply criticized Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD)’s call for a war-ready Bundeswehr. “We think it’s really good if the Bundeswehr is finally strengthened. But we expressly do not share the federal government’s goal of being war-fighting and ready for war,” said the Bavarian Prime Minister after a meeting of the CSU executive board in Munich.
Germany and the Bundeswehr should be ready to defend themselves, but not ready for war. “We think it’s a really unfortunate metaphor and also an unfortunate aim – Germany doesn’t want to go to war, Germany wants to be able to defend itself and wants to be defensive, but not enthusiastic about war,” emphasized Söder.
“War is ugly”
On Sunday evening, Pistorius showed understanding for criticism of his formulation that the Bundeswehr had to become combat-ready – but at the same time he did not back away from it. “I understand if you don’t like the term. It’s an ugly word for an ugly thing. War is ugly,” said the SPD politician on the ARD program “Report from Berlin”. “But if we want to prevent it, we have to tell a potential aggressor: We are capable of defending ourselves.” This requires a change in mentality in Germany, including in society.
In new defense policy guidelines that Pistorius presented last Thursday at the Bundeswehr conference in Berlin, “warworthiness is a maxim for action.” Pistorius and Inspector General Carsten Breuer write in the document: “We must be the backbone of deterrence and collective defense in Europe. Our population, but also our partners in Europe, North America and the world, expect us to take on this responsibility.”
Among others, the left-wing SPD member of the Bundestag Ralf Stegner criticized Pistorius for the statement. The chairman of the Bundestag’s European Committee, Anton Hofreiter (Greens), also distanced himself from the choice of words.
Source: Stern
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