berlin brief

In the middle of the euro crisis and growing pressure from both the opposition and her own party about how to manage the German contribution to the Greek and possible future bailouts, Chancellor Merkel was hit by bad news this week.

On Monday, 31 May 2010, German President Horst Köhler resigned in a surprise move over comments he had made in a radio interview on the role of the German military. Having given an interview to a journalist from Deutschlandfunk on a plane taking the President to a visit of the German troops in Afghanistan, Horst Köhler was criticized for seemingly suggesting that the German armed forces should be used to defend Germany’s commercial interests abroad.

Köhler said his remarks were misunderstood and that he certainly did not mean Afghanistan, but was speaking about the support of anti-piracy missions to secure German trade interests, for example. In his resignation speech in Berlin on Monday, Köhler said he was stepping down because of a lack of respect for the dignity of his office as President.

Köhler’s resignation was criticized widely by the media, politicians and the Germans. The resignation is also putting more domestic pressure on Chancellor Merkel.

Take a look at the comments in the German and international media:

(more…)

Last week, Germany’s five major institutes for peace research presented their annual Peace Report (”Friedensgutachten”) at the Federal Press Conference and in an evening discussion on 18 May hosted by the Protestant Academy Berlin (Evangelische Akademie zu Berlin).

Panellists at the evening event at the French Cathedral on Gendarmenmarkt included Jochen Hippler of the Institute for Development and Peace at University Duisburg-Essen (INEF), a co-editor of the 2010 Peace Report; Almut Wieland-Karimi, the Director of the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) and an expert on Afghanistan; Winfried Nachtwei, a former MP of the Green Party as well as Sabina Matthay, the ARD’s correspondent in New Delhi. Free Democratic MP Elke Hoffe gave a keynote speech.

The event was jointly organized by the Protestant Academy and the German section of Women in International Security (WIIS.de).

An English summary of the findings of the 2010 Peace Report can be found here.

The berlinbrief draws your attention to a new article on the criminal responsibility of German soldiers in Afghanistan. The text was written by Constantin von der Groeben and has just been  published in the German Law Journal.

Here’s the executive summary:

“On 4 September 2009 an officer of the German Bundeswehr (German Army) in Afghanistan, Colonel Georg Klein, ordered an airstrike against two gas tanker trucks hijacked by the Taliban.  In this airstrike, carried out by U.S. Air Force pilots, up to 140 people were killed,  among them not only members of the Taliban but also many civilians.   This raises the question of criminal responsibility of German soldiers who operate in Afghanistan.  The Generalbundesanwalt (General Public Prosecutor) investigated the case and recently decided to terminate the investigations against Colonel Klein.   Despite this decision not all questions are answered.  I will present a more comprehensive analysis of the case, not only commenting on the decision of the Generalbundesanwalt, but also applying different factual hypotheses leading to a different legal assessment of the case.  At the outset I will look back at the line of cases known as the “Road Block Cases,” and seek to explain how the criminal responsibility of German soldiers has been dealt with in the past.”

For the full text visit the website of the German Law Journal.

US General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, believed it was worth spending 14 hours on a bus to make it from Paris to Berlin last week. Europe was stuck in an ash cloud that stopped most of its air traffic.

McChrystal’s visit on 21 April 2010 came at a crucial moment of Germany’s engagament in Afghanistan. Within a couple of weeks, seven German soldiers have lost their lives there. On 9 April 2010, Chancellor Merkel for the first time attended a funeral for German soldiers that died in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. On 24 April 2010, another one followed.

The German public is increasingly confronted with the realities of the war in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s visit was another reminder of what it means to be part of the ISAF mission’s new “partnering” strategy. (more…)

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a “development offensive for Afghanistan” on Tuesday morning. The package, hammered out in controversial meetings between the Chancellery, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior over the last days, will be Germany’s agenda for the Afghanistan conference starting in London later this week.

The German contribution (described rather misleading as a “new strategy” in the media) consists of three pillars. (more…)

Constanze Stelzenmüller, a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin and a regular commentator on German foreign and security policy, has just published an interesting set of theses.

Her article “The self captivated republic” (”Die selbstgefesselte Republik”) appeared in the new issue of the journal Internationale Politik, published by the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

Here’s a brief translation of her five theses:

1. German security policy has not arrived at full sovereignty yet.

2. Germany does not have a security strategy.

3. Germany’s security elites and institutions are under-developed.

4. The ability to be part of alliances depends on our willingness to share an appropriate part of the risks.

5. The instruments of our security policy are inadequate even in accordance with our current ambitions.

You can read the full text here (in German only).

On 13 January 2010 Ms Stelzenmüller presented her thoughts to a distiguished audience at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), where she initiated a lively debate.

The parliamentary inquiry on the Kunduz airstrike in September 2009 starts in Berlin today. (For details on the case check the “Afghanistan” category in the middle column)

This morning, Spiegel Online opened with ten questions that the “war cabinet” of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg will have to face in the inquiry.

berlinbrief gives a translation of the questions:

1. Why did the bombardment happen at all?

2. Has there been a change of strategy of the German armed forces in Afghanistan; and how was it communicated?

3. Why did zu Guttenberg on the 6th of November initially describe the airstrike as “militarily suitable” and three weeks later fundamentally corrected his statement? (more…)

The Kunduz airstrike continues to dominate Berlin’s foreign policy debates and there is growing pressure on Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Chancellor Merkel’s defence minister.

Hopes of the Merkel government that with the then Minister of Defence Franz Josef Jung resigning from the government in November the debate would calm down have not materialized. Now, his successor zu Guttenberg is being attacked by the Social Democrat and Green opposition for having known about the civilian casualties when he took over the ministry from Jung in October 2009, asking for zu Guttenberg to resign too.

“The Disenchanted”: This is the front cover of the current issue of the weekly magazine Der Spiegel, picking up on zu Guttenberg’s hitherto high levels of popularity amongst Germans.

On Wednesday, a commission of enquiry on the Kunduz airstrike will start its work in Berlin.

Take a look at the debate:

Details on Afghanistan bombing have Merkel on the defensive (Charles Hawley in Spiegel Online International, 14 December 2009).

“Germany is not armed for war” (Spiegel Online International, 14 December 2009).

Defense Minister refuses to resign over Afghan airstrike (DW-World.de, 14 December 2009).

In berlinbrief I commented on several occasions on the events following the airstrike on two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban near Kunduz in September 2009. (Check the “Afghanistan” category in the middle column of the page)

The German armed forces in the area asked for air support and ISAF forces eventually bombed the tankers that were stuck in a river on the road to Kunduz.

In the attack there was reportedly a high number of civilian casualities. The then German Minister of Defence Franz-Josef Jung (CDU) denied there had been victims amongst civilians and justfied the decision to ask for air support,  even against growing pressure from NATO investigating the case.

In the new Merkel government, Jung was moved to the Ministry of Labour, and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU) was made the new Minister of Defence.

Now, Jung has to admit that in September he had withheld information on civilian casualties. When leaving the Ministry of Defence in October, Jung even withheld them from his successor zu Guttenberg.

Under pressure from the German Parliament, zu Guttenberg as well as Chancellor Merkel, Franz-Josef Jung had to resign from his government office as Minister of Labour on Friday November 27th. The Chief of Staff of the German armed forces, General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, had already resigned on Thursday. (more…)

I want to draw your attention to an article by Nicholas Kulish in the New York Times.

Kulish looks at the role of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, in the German society and discusses the country’s attitude to military missions abroad:

“The German men and women in Afghanistan set off for war without the support of the populace, and they know that when they return there won’t be crowds cheering in the streets, ready to make heroes of them. Germany has turned its back on hero worship. The soldiers fight alone.”

Read the full article here:

Nicholas Kulish: No Parade for Hans (NYT, 14 November 2009).