Germany’s new Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, has only been on the job for a shade over a month, and already he’s the shining star of the German government from a popularity standpoint. The well-documented stumbles of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (whose ‘any guy’ face I could barely pick out of that Sound of Music picture) government dealing with ongoing energy and economic crises have certainly cast some shade. One can easily see why your average German would be put out with them. We’ve covered a lot of that here at HotAir, but not so on the German defense side of the house.

After learning about the woman Pistorius replaced, I can understand why he’s this big breath of fresh air – she sounds like a military Mayor Pete-type hire.

…Opposition politicians and international players are full of praise about the new man commanding Germany’s armed forces — and the general public also thinks he’s pretty nifty.

Strikingly, the Social Democratic politician has gained the very top slot in a German political popularity rating, ahead of Scholz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck. That’s even more remarkable considering that in Germany, defense ministers often find themselves on the lower rungs of the political popularity ladder, with the office frequently referred to as a career-killing “ejection seat.”

“He is a politician who makes clear announcements, who doesn’t utter nonsense sentences, who also answers questions and doesn’t beat around the bush,” said Alexander Müller, the defense policy spokesperson of the Free Democratic Party, which governs in coalition with Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens.

Müller suggested that some of Pistorius’ popularity might have to do with the fact that Scholz and previous Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht struggled to clearly communicate the government’s position on Ukraine — a gap that Pistorius is now filling.

…Having previously served as interior minister of the regional state of Lower Saxony, Scholz unexpectedly appointed Pistorius in late January when Lambrecht resigned amid a series of gaffes and blunders. She had also faced mounting criticism over failing to deliver on reforms following Scholz’s Zeitenwende sea change in German foreign policy, which is supposed to turn Germany into a leading European security force.

Since his first day in office, the new defense minister, who served as a conscript in an air defense regiment in the early 1980s, has felt visibly comfortable managing the military — in contrast to his predecessor, who was still struggling to read service grades one year into the job.

A year into the gig, and the woman in charge of the military still couldn’t handle READing the rank structure, less mind bothering to have them memorized?

PAH-THEH-TIK

Yeah, I’ll bet this guy looks like a superstar next to that.

What’s also earning him lots of kudos and a fair amount of confidence from the public is his plain outspokenness. In an interview with the Washington Post 2 weeks ago, Pistorius spoke about how changing the entrenched German culture towards their military was going to be difficult and that the special €100M fund to do so – created in February 2022 and allocated that summer – had yet to be spent. Did Germany have no sense of urgency? His answer was pretty circumspect.

Q: Given that Europe is facing the biggest security crisis since the Second World War, do you think time has been wasted in the past year? When it comes to getting orders to industry — we’ve had industry crying out for orders — do you think more urgency could have been there?

A: To be honest, I’m not focusing on the past year. I’ve been in office for four weeks. I am responsible now, and we are doing everything we can to do what is necessary as quickly as possible. And you must not forget that the special fund, the Zeitenwende speech, is from February 2022. The special fund was made available and passed in the summer and afterward the appropriate conditions had to be created to spend the money. You might well have been able to commission one thing or another sooner but … I’m looking ahead and looking at my current responsibilities.

Two weeks have passed. I’m guessing he’s had time to check things out and was hardly enamored with what he found. Pistorius is not a fan of holding back, and let some hard truths fly yesterday.

German Defense Minister Pistorius:

We do not have an armed force capable of defending against an aggressor like Russia.

The German Army does not have the strength to defend its NATO allies as well.

Bundeswehr does not have enough personnel, ammunition, equipment and weapons. pic.twitter.com/8XIuaAqVcV

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 1, 2023

There were some folks here who found the candor refreshing, too.

There should be a reckoning about the 16 years of Merkelism.

Did she make Europe safer? Germany safer? Were the Trump-Grenell warnings right?

There are some good German reporters but most are afraid to criticize the media’s group think.

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 1, 2023

How bad have those 16 years of Merkel left Germany’s defense forces, or Bundeswehr as they’re called?

HO-LEE-CRAP

German army is not capable of protecting the country against any offensive, said Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. He further alleged that the Bundeswehr is understaffed and under-equipped after being left neglected from the federal government for decades.

“We have no armed forces that are capable of defending [Germany] that is, capable of defending [it] against an offensive, brutally waged aggressive war,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said during a meeting with fellow members of the Social Democratic Party.

…Last week, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, the commander and highest ranking officer of the German army, said the 100 billion euro previously promised by Chancellor Olaf Scholz would not be enough to make the country’s armed forces battle ready.

“The army that I have the duty to lead is more or less bare,” a report by press agency DPA quoted Mais saying.

Pistorius’ remark came within hours after chairman of German Armed Forces Association, Colonel Andre Wustner, in an interview to Bild claimed that only 30 per cent of approximately 300 Leopard 2 tanks in Germany’s stock are currently operational.

…The German government has transferred two state-of-the-art air defence systems to Ukraine that were meant to protect Berlin, said CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, to Pioneer podcast on Tuesday.

They’re a shambles. The Bundeswehr is in complete disarray, with some people in government still in complete, Merkel-like denial,

While the opposition is still talking about stripping military spending for social programs, Pistorius has floated the reintroduction of military conscription and it’s being seriously considered.

A familiar discussion has begun in Germany, almost a year after Russia started its war on Ukraine: Should compulsory military service be reintroduced? Some countries, for example Latvia, have recently reintroduced it, and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius fueled the debate when he said earlier this week: “It was a mistake to suspend compulsory military service.”

Article 12a of Germany’s Basic Law reads: “Men can be obliged to serve in the armed forces, in the Federal Border Guard or in a civil defense unit from the age of 18.”

And until 2011 German men between the ages of 18 and 27 were obligated to either serve in the nation’s military, the Bundeswehr, or perform an alternative service for a limited period of time in civilian areas such as emergency management or medical care.

General conscription was scrapped in 2011 with the goal to professionalize the troops and reduce the size of the Bundeswehr. Now the German army consists only of career soldiers and long-term contract troopers.

…Over the past two decades, the Bundeswehr has shrunk from more than 317,000 soldiers to just over 183,000. Sensburg is convinced that this number, together with the approximately 100,000 reservists, is not sufficient for an emergency. And voluntary military service is not attractive enough to substantially increase Bundeswehr numbers.

Germany’s military is a hollow man giving away the last bits of exoskeleton holding their frame up.

I wish we had someone here paying closer attention to the parallels.