Bundeswehr: Soldiers should receive more up-to-date uniforms

The Bundeswehr should receive more up-to-date service uniforms. The Ministry of Defense has submitted a funding request to the Bundestag’s budget committee, as “Bild am Sonntag” reports. A ministry spokesman confirmed general plans for renewal and modernization: “The priority is to improve the clothing that is worn every day by tens of thousands of soldiers in the so-called internal service in the associations, commands but also in the integrated deployments at NATO and the EU, among other things in terms of quality to the current level,” he said.

He did not want to comment on a possible budget proposal or the details in view of the pending parliamentary discussion. The newspaper wrote about new dress uniforms and mentioned a sum of 825 million euros, some of which had already been committed, so that the decision for 519 million euros was now still being made.

In the report, the CDU budget expert Ingo Gädechens called it an “absurd prioritization to want to spend a lot of money on uniforms that do not make the Bundeswehr any more war-fighting.” More than 800 million euros is an incredibly large sum that raises many questions.

Modernization was already decided in 2018

The ministry spokesman explained that the planned amendment agreement to supply the Bundeswehr with clothing and personal equipment includes, among other things, combat, work and sports clothing as well as “the service clothing used every day, which also includes dress uniforms”.

The modernization of service clothing was decided in 2018, but was then postponed in order to renew and modernize important combat clothing and equipment. This has happened in recent years, so that the work clothing project is now being further implemented. The financing of the entire project extends until 2032.