When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz met Donald Trump in the Oval Office in early June, the US President half-joked that General Douglas MacArthur had warned the world “never let Germany rearm”. While Trump said this in the context of praising Merz for increasing military spending and taking a more assertive posture on defence – clearly evident last week at the G7 – there is still something about the idea of German rearmament that provokes unease. It shouldn’t.
The war in Ukraine and Trump’s wavering commitment to NATO mean a stronger German military has become crucial for European defence and global stability, and not for the first time.
Western allies have sought post-war German rearmament before. While German defence spending has been miserly for decades, it is easy to forget how large the Federal Republic’s military was during the Cold War, with a strength of more than a half-million. Needing to deter the Soviets, Western allies aided in rebuilding the West German military’s size and rehabilitating its reputation by overlooking the extent of the military’s recent culpability in war crimes and its willing conformity with the Nazi regime.
Yet apprehension over a resurgent Germany periodically resurfaces. In the 1980s the prospect of German reunification appalled Margaret Thatcher: “We beat the Germans twice, and now they’re back.” A united Germany rearming as a response to Russia evokes further historical echoes, namely the concept of the Drang nach Osten, the genocidal expansionist German policies towards eastern Europe and Russia that led to national ruin and untold horrors.
Nowhere is historical memory as evident as in Germany, where militarism and involvement in “the east” are still sensitive topics. A visit to any cemetery demonstrates this. Scores of names stand on war memorials, most listed as having fallen in “Russland”.
But the war in Ukraine and the election of Trump have forced Germany to come to terms with reality, and the political landscape has shifted. Merz is a key factor.
While previous chancellor Olaf Scholz labelled the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a historical turning point, Scholz’s tenure became reminiscent of what historian AJP Taylor wrote about the 1848 Revolution: “German history reached a turning point and failed to turn.” Scholz’s heart never seemed in it. Merz’s is.
Since being elected this year, Merz has passed laws to increase defence spending dramatically, ensuring its exemption from a constitutional mechanism limiting government borrowing. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius indicated that military spending could increase from about 2 per cent up to 5 per cent in the next five to seven years. This dwarfs efforts of other NATO allies of the US, given Germany’s economy is the third largest in the world and more than double that of Russia. Germany also has stationed an armoured brigade in Lithuania, its first permanent foreign deployment since World War II.
Merz is more assertive than previous German chancellors on broader defence matters. At last week’s G7 he professed his “great respect” to the Israelis for “having the courage” to “do the dirty work for all of us” in attacking a regime that, he noted, delivered drones that Russia used on Ukraine.
The way in which German leaders are framing defence policy should ease any concerns from allies. Armed forces head Carsten Breuer emphasised the priority of protecting German democracy and Merz has sought to normalise rearmament by portraying it as nothing more than appropriate for Europe’s largest economy and a mere correction of the historical anomaly of the past 30 years. He also has framed it as a means of avoiding war: “We must be able to defend ourselves so that we don’t have to defend ourselves.”
Much of the resistance to rearmament is coming not from nervous neighbours fearful of a resurgent Germany but from Merz’s domestic opponents. On the right, Alice Weidel’s Alternative for Germany opposes “provocation” of Russia, wants Germany neutrality in the conflict and has associated support for Ukraine with emotive imagery of German panzers rolling eastwards again.
Perhaps the big moment of this year’s election campaign occurred during a television debate when Weidel outlined these policies; Merz angrily responded by stating he would do everything he could to prevent her from ever holding any political power.
On the left, Die Linke party want de-armament, while Merz’s centre-left coalition partner, the SPD, largely supports his efforts.
However, rumblings of potential SPD opposition emerged earlier in June with release of a manifesto by SPD figures opposing increased defence spending and calling for de-escalation and closer ties with Russia. This echoes an SPD tradition. Chancellor Willie Brandt sought rapprochement with the Eastern bloc in the late 1960s, and more recently and disturbingly SPD chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cultivated business interests in Russia as well as a friendship with Vladimir Putin.
Nonetheless, more than three years into the war in Ukraine, it seems German history is finally turning. If Trump wants Europe to pull its weight in defence, he should be delighted that Germany, as Europe’s largest economy and an industrial powerhouse, is stepping up.
Would MacArthur be rolling in his grave? Doubtful. Rather than a return to anything resembling the expansionist forces that MacArthur opposed in two world wars, Germany is standing against the potential military conquest of Europe by a tyrannical state and Merz is building a policy more reminiscent of the Cold War era, where a democratic Germany stood as the cornerstone of European security.
Bryce Sait is a historian and author of The Indoctrination of the Wehrmacht: Nazi Ideology and the War Crimes of the German Military
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