Sarah
Kirchberger
Director
Institute
for Security Policy, Kiel University (ISPK)
Germany
The sudden breakdown of Germany’s government coalition on November 6 marks a turning point in Germany’s awakening from decades of geopolitical slumber. Outside observers could be forgiven for thinking that under Scholz – notwithstanding his “Zeitenwende” speech of 2022 – such an awakening has failed to occur. This is partly true, particularly for his own party. German Social Democrats have stubbornly resisted calls for a critique of Germany’s problematic Russia policies. Unlike the CDU, which found itself in the opposition since 2021 and conducted a stock-taking of the Merkel era’s failings, the SPD has kept many figures associated with “Ostpolitik” in power. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, formerly Foreign Minister under Merkel, remains State President, while Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s Governor Manuela Schwesig (whose methods while pushing for Nord Stream 2 are subject to a parliamentary inquiry) remains in office. Meanwhile former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a declared friend of Putin, the driving force behind Nord Stream 2, and – until May 2022 – a board member of Rosneft, remains an influential SPD elder. According to the current SPD secretary-general, Schröder retains “a place inside the party” while his “lifetime achievements need to be viewed holistically”.
Historical and economic ties to Russia are particularly strong in East Germany due to grudges held by disenfranchised former GDR elites who saw reunification with West Germany as a hostile takeover. But similar ties are by no means nonexistent in some of the Western federal states, where Russian gas connections likewise run deep. So far, no systematic investigation into elite collusion with Russian energy networks has been conducted.
A recent scandal at Federal President Steinmeier’s residence further illustrates how far the SPD still is from shedding its Russophile leanings. A speech by the East German public intellectual Marko Martin delivered on the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at Castle Bellevue directly addressed the problematic legacy of Steinmeier’s Ukraine and Russia policies as Foreign Minister and deplored his disregard for Germany’s Eastern neighbors’ security interests when pursuing Nord Stream. Steinmeier aggressively confronted Martin after this speech, leading to calls for his resignation as Head of State for his inability to endure well-founded public criticism with the necessary decorum.
It seems Scholz’s ambiguity in the support of Ukraine – his stalling the delivery of weapon systems in a “too little, too late” fashion; never committing explicitly to the goal of Ukrainian victory for fear of “escalation”, while constantly reaching out to Putin for “negotiations” – was not so much an attempt to mediate between an anti-military public and his own government. Rather, he was mediating between his own party’s leftist, Russophile wing and the rest of his government coalition, where a few isolated SPD figures, but particularly the Greens and some Liberals pushed for stronger support for Ukraine and actual military reform at home. As such, the SPD’s unresolved identity crisis came to hold all of German security policy hostage. To this day, the SPD remains an obstacle for Germany’s development into a more responsible and more responsive security policy actor at the heart of Europe and NATO. The breakdown of the Scholz government and early general elections are therefore a welcome prospect, even though it will be many more months with a lame-duck chancellor Scholz still in power.
Meanwhile it may come as a surprise that average Germans are far ahead of the SPD’s security policy thinking, which seems increasingly out of touch with the public mood. A recent representative survey, the Körber Foundation’s “Berlin Pulse 2024/2025” indicates that attitudes to security and defense have gone through a remarkable shift. According to the survey, 65% now think that raising defense spending to 3,0-3,5% of GDP would be “just right” (50%) or even “too low” (15%) – whereas now, Germany spends a mere 2% after many years failing to reach even that baseline. Further, 57% of the German respondents were in favor of military support for Ukraine (compared with just 41% of American respondents). And a full 82% see Russia as a “military threat” to Germany. Furthermore, in a May 2024 survey of 25,000 respondents conducted by East German state broadcaster MDR, a whopping 61% were in favor of reintroducing military conscription, which had been halted in 2011.
Predictably, ending conscription had increased the disconnect between society and the Bundeswehr, while decades-long underfunding and political neglect resulted in recruitment and equipment issues and a shrinking defense-industrial base. The political focus until 2022 had been on a progressive reform agenda rather than effectiveness of the Bundeswehr as a fighting force. The risk of going for a professional military in a pacifist-leaning country like Germany with no strong popular support for defense had been pointed out by experts for years, but reintroducing conscription once halted seemed impossible in light of popular opposition. With new and strong popular support for reintroducing it in some form, this is now on the election platforms of both CDU and SPD and therefore likely to become policy under a new government.
Chances for the SPD to regain its leading role in a new government coalition seem currently remote. Depending on the possible majorities, however, the SPD might yet enter a new coalition government – as junior partner of the expected election winner, the CDU. Scholz is likely to be out of the picture by then, but the dominance of leftwing-leaning Russophiles is likely to continue even in case Defense Minister Boris Pistorius should become SPD leader. Unless the SPD loses access to government resources for a while and is forced to conduct a soul-searching akin to the CDU’s internal reckoning process during a time-out in the opposition, chances seem slim that the SPD could become a more constructive force for German or, for that matter, European military security.
No matter the exact electoral outcome, the end of the Scholz government presents a glimmer of hope for a more grown-up, more realistic, and less ineffective German security policy. It would not come a day too early.