As an express poll showed, about half of our interlocutors, in uniform and without, are quite calm about the fact that on weekends the Bundeswehr is, almost literally, locked up: rest is separate, work is separate. The other half is convinced that because of such "rampant democracy" from the middle of every Friday Germany becomes absolutely vulnerable and can be taken with bare hands. This revelation is usually voiced with pathos, but without the expected anxiety in the voice, since today nobody threatens Germany at all. And the Bundeswehr, even without nuclear potential, remains the strongest and most combat-ready army in Europe. At least on weekdays.
Born in captivity
After the unification of the two Germanys, about 12,000 officers of the GDR army entered service in the Bundeswehr. The armed forces of the socialist Germany that has sunk into oblivion are treated with respect in the Bundeswehr, while emphasizing that the East German army was strong not in its line units, but in its special forces units.
The appearance of the Bundeswehr in Western sources is explained very simply: in 1946, a year after the Victory, the USSR kept a million-strong grouping in the eastern occupation zone, while the allies reduced their military presence from 4.7 million to 880,000. The need for an adequate balance of forces arose by itself. But the last straw was the blockade of West Berlin that began in 1949. In 1955, the FRG joined NATO, and it got its own army, initially very limited in numbers and armaments. But we must take into account the military talents of the Germans: if at least one puts on a uniform, consider that military construction is in full swing. The secret of this amazing national feature was revealed to the correspondents of "Itogi" by Colonel Achim Lidsba of the German General Staff: "You have to have a goal and be able to work."
After the global changes in Europe in the early 1990s, the Germans, distinguished by innate rationality, came to the conclusion that the Bundeswehr, since tank battles were not expected, should become even more compact, and started a military reform.
The new staffing table should leave 285,000 positions. Including: 202,400 professional soldiers and contract servicemen, 80,000 conscripts, and 2,600 reservists called up for training. Since the beginning of 2002, the duration of compulsory service in the Bundeswehr has been reduced from ten months to nine. It is possible that the "pacifists" will manage to reduce the term of conscription service even to six months, but more significant concessions cannot be expected from the military: they have already given up enough defensive lines. Just the other day, Federal Defense Minister Peter Struck announced that married young people, as well as homosexuals who have registered a relationship with a partner, are exempt from military duty. Already from July 1, the conscription criteria will be eased. Henceforth, men will be called up for military and civilian service only up to the age of 23, not 25. Due to reduced funding, the 110,000-strong army of alternative service workers, representing cheap labor in the medical and social spheres, will also be reduced.
There is no talk yet of a full transition of the Bundeswehr to a professional basis. Why? Stefan Naundorf, a representative of the Federal Ministry of Defense for economic affairs, named three reasons. First, conscripts provide a living link between society and the Bundeswehr. They are considered sons of the nation and are never used in operations abroad. Second, conscription is the basis of mobilization readiness. Germany has no Ministry of Emergency Situations; during natural disasters, these functions are performed primarily by mobilized Bundeswehr servicemen under the leadership of territorial commands. And finally: the Germans calculated that a fully professional army would cost more. Recounting after the Germans is a futile exercise. By the way, the monetary allowance of German servicemen of all categories is more than ten times higher than the salaries of our military, even the currently increased ones.
Citizen in uniform
You can get to the infantry school of the German army in Hammelburg from Berlin by autobahn, or by high-speed train. There is no need to watch the station names: it is enough to get out of the car exactly at the time indicated on the ticket, and you will find yourself in the right place - you can set your watch by the trains in Germany. Along the road, the ears of unafraid hares stick up, and herds of roe deer graze fearlessly. And in the training center itself, if you believe the guidebook, exotic swallowtail butterflies fly in warm weather. In general, Hammelburg is a real German paradise, cleaned and polished to the point of impossibility. In such conditions, German grenadiers (infantrymen) master the science of winning.
However, periodically this flourishing Bavarian town had to perform "hellish" duties. First during the First, then during the Second World War, there were prisoner-of-war camps here. The local cemetery holds about three thousand Soviet officers. Among the most famous prisoners are General Dmitry Karbyshev and Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili. After the war, members of the NSDAP and SS men served time in the internment camp in Hammelburg. But today the city works for its main purpose - a training center.
The basic training course, whether in Hammelburg or in the other eighteen training centers of the Bundeswehr ground forces, is eight weeks, including weekly leaves home. The contingent for participation in peacekeeping operations is also prepared here (today about 10,000 Bundeswehr servicemen serve abroad). As early as 1938, residents of the villages of Bonnland and Hansefeld were evicted from their homes, which have since been used as training aids for urban combat practice. And according to the full scheme. At the same time, the villages still resemble elite settlements. To give the training streets and yards a non-German look, household garbage was specially scattered in some places before the start of training, but even the garbage lies suspiciously neatly here.
Before a recruit is given a rifle, the Bundeswehr philosophy is firmly drilled into his head during internal management classes: a soldier is a citizen like any other, only in uniform. A soldier must remember day and night that he is obliged to carry out all orders except those that conflict with the law, insult another person, or are not related to official duties. It follows that a German soldier can tell a German general to go to hell if he takes it into his head to involve a subordinate in building his own dacha. An order to deliver building materials intended for the construction of a military camp to the unit commander's plot is also in the category of impossible orders. If only because civilian authorities are already responsible for the upkeep of many military camps, and private firms do the cleaning in some premises where servicemen live. If it were otherwise, the Germans would not be able to train first-class military specialists in nine months. Everyday life, as in our country, would eat up all the training time.
Moreover, the German soldier is now being taught to think independently and take an interested part in service activities. They call this the "corporate solution to the assigned task." If in Prussian times and the times of the Reich the German soldier was seen as a biorobot blindly carrying out instructions from start to finish, now it is customary to assign a subordinate a task, and he must think for himself how to carry it out. The ideologues of German military construction see in this approach a good vaccine against herd mentality and stupidity in the army environment. And they laugh at the Americans, who, when assigning a task to a subordinate, allegedly indicate in what sequence to move his arms and legs in order to accomplish it.
A Bundeswehr soldier essentially decides for himself whether there is a service need to stay at the unit for the weekend. And if there is, he will stay. Of his own free will.
The second rule that a German recruit must remember upon crossing the threshold of the barracks: no one may insult him, hit him, or even touch him (the exception is the transmission of signals in poor visibility, in the dark, or during firing). Perhaps this is why German soldiers, who know nothing of fistfights, carry themselves with officer-like dignity. Including repatriates from the former Soviet Union - our former compatriots. Incidentally, having the opportunity to compare, they prefer to call service in the Bundeswehr not service, but work.
Incidentally, everything that lies outside the scope of official duties is beyond the control of commanders and service regulations. A commander can open a subordinate's personal locker without his knowledge (in our domestic practice, to conduct a shakedown) only in case of extreme necessity and in the presence of two independent witnesses. Otherwise, there will be a heap of problems related to the violation of personal rights.
A soldier can be arrested only by a decision of a judicial representative. Nor is it possible to force a soldier to engage in cultural entertainment (for example, to participate in a military sports celebration) if he does not consent. And if something is amiss, special representatives, who are elected in German military units from each category of military personnel, will voice their constituents' complaints to the commander. In one of the aviation garrisons, for example, servicemen refused to guard American barracks that had been left empty during the combat operations in Iraq. The demand was considered justified.
Today, German soldiers live several to a room. In the future, when the Bundeswehr's funding improves, everyone should have personal quarters in the barracks. And how to decorate them is a strictly personal matter. Even now, in his personal locker, a soldier may hang, at his choice, a portrait of the chancellor or a photo of a naked girl - commanders and superiors should have nothing to do with it. However, Bundeswehr servicemen are prohibited from having tattoos on exposed parts of the body. But if someone gets an SS symbol tattooed under his shirt, the commander will not be able to intervene. Even if he has a strong personal aversion to Nazism.
Shadows and Images
Officially, the Bundeswehr is once and for all separated from fascist ideology and the past. One may, for example, be interested in the history of the Wehrmacht, but attending meetings of a historical society in uniform is strictly forbidden for Bundeswehr servicemen. At the same time, the ban on Nazism does not prevent the study of Guderian's tank wedge tactics in educational institutions. The Bundeswehr also well remembers that the best air ace of World War II was Erich Hartmann, a native of Königsberg, and the most successful submariner was Otto Kretschmer. But neither the talented organizer of submarine warfare, Admiral Karl Dönitz, nor the creator of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, can, due to their ties with the Nazis, become official heroes of the Bundeswehr: such figures cause a persistent allergy in modern Germans. Another matter, for example, is General Johannes Steinhoff, who gives his name to the 73rd Fighter Aviation Regiment. During the past war, he shot down more than a hundred aircraft, including on the Eastern Front, and even flew the jet Me-262. But because the future general did not get along with Göring, his name remained on the lists of the Bundeswehr and in the history of the new Germany. As, incidentally, did the name of Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg, who made an attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944. The colonel and his closest associates were shot in the courtyard of the Bendler Block, which now houses the Federal Ministry of Defence. This event is recalled to everyone heading to the cafeteria of the military department by a rather unusual sculptural composition.
But if the history of the SS is completely rejected, the Bundeswehr has a more complex attitude toward the history of the Wehrmacht. For example, the ideologists from the Bendler Block even within their own ranks constantly have to explain why some military towns still bear the names of Wehrmacht generals. And this is not a simple question. Germans understand that the Wehrmacht brought a lot of evil to other peoples, but they do not understand why in some countries the Wehrmacht is treated with disdain on a professional level. As the chief of one of the territorial districts, Colonel Althoff, noted, the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition will be even more significant if the Wehrmacht is recognized as a strong opponent. But overall, the Bundeswehr prefers to have modern heroes rather than seek them in the past. With the possible exception of Moltke and Clausewitz. These names already belong to general military history.
Center of Power
It is believed that the disagreements over Iraq have greatly damaged relations between Germany and the USA. Moreover, it is emphasized that this situation plays into the hands of Germany, which is confidently turning into the economic, political and military center of power in Europe. And indeed, German politicians and the military have their own view of the war in the Persian Gulf, but this circumstance is unlikely to affect relations with the main allies, since today Germans see themselves not so much as a nation but as an integral part of the world community.
There will be no rupture in military relations either - one need not even dream of that. In just a few weeks, a MiG-29 squadron from the Steinhoff aviation regiment will fly along the great-circle route to the United States to participate with the Americans in joint live-fire exercises. The regiment's command does not even think of hiding that the main purpose of this trip across the ocean is to strengthen slightly damaged relations with the allies. By the way, in NATO armies the German squadron on MiGs is literally in great demand. Everyone who wants to test their strength against a former potential adversary summons the German 'MiG pilots'. And most notably, the combat capabilities of the old MiG came as a big tactical surprise to many NATO pilots, including those flying the Eurofighter.
Correspondents of Itogi were the first and only Russian citizens to visit the Bundesmarine combat diver unit stationed in Eckernförde. On the displays of the top-secret unit there are photographs confirming that the frogmen took part in both Desert Storm and the Yugoslav events, and they were even carried to the Caribbean.
For some reason, we developed the most trusting relations with the German underwater saboteurs. At our first request, they showed us their equipment and even opened an arsenal that, for some reason, contains our old wartime PPSh. We only did not understand one thing: why the sawfish became the official emblem of the frogman unit. Nearby at the piers, quite accessible submarines of Projects 205 and 206 rested peacefully, having in their time caused a lot of trouble for the anti-submarine forces of the Baltic Fleet. They very nimbly slipped away from sonar beams. But now other submarines are entering service with the German submarine fleet - Project 212, in which instead of periscope eyepieces there is a computer screen in the central command post. The technological revolution has perhaps affected only one German tradition: the fondness for moving around the naval base by bicycle.
...In the tactical rooms of the German submariners, models of Soviet ships are kept, which were used to recognize the forces of a potential adversary. But today these visual aids are relics of the Cold War. Germans have too good a life to allow themselves to fight anyone again.