The left-right positioning on major boosts to the German military gets a bit garbled in high-level generalizations. There are left criticisms of the current rearmament drive. But the Left Party itself has been split over high defense spending. German feminist activists have also been split on the issue.
The recent policies of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to revive the military, including the observation of Veterans Day, are important in ending this isolation and reviving support for a democratic military. The reintroduction of conscription is also being discussed. This concern for the revival of German militarism, to which Trump briefly alluded during the Merz visit to the White House, is not shared by Germany’s allies in NATO, who are looking for Germany to take on a much larger role. This includes even one of its greatest victims from World War II, the Poles. [my emphasis] (2)This change in German priorities for military spending did not suddenly appear with the beginning of the Trump 2.0, though it has certainly accelerated it. Stephen Milder wrote in 2023 about how the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine had affected the political framing of higher defense spending in Germany:
In reality, the actual watershed isn’t the sudden appearance of “war in Europe” for the first time since World War II—a breathtaking instance of historical amnesia, erasing not just the hot wars of the 1990s in Yugoslavia but also decades of militarization during the Cold War. The real, deeper change has elicited little commentary: the culmination of Germany’s transformation over the last three decades from a post-fascist country—which seemed to have overcome its Nazi past on account of its “culture of peace,” as historian Thomas Kühne has put it—to a post-pacifist country eager to ramp up defense spending and convey a posture of readiness to fight back against heavily armed aggressors. [my emphasis] (3)The current phase of the process raises some issues that historical ironies in themselves. The far right in Germany (principally the AfD, Alternative for Germany) is very pro-Putinist in its foreign policy orientation and also makes a show of being enthusiastic for Israel’s current war on the mostly-Muslim Palestinians. As Szabo points out:
It has become clear that the Trump administration is not simply concerned about free-riding on defense but is actively opposing those elements in German society that Americans would have supported until this year. America is no longer a partner but is now an adversary for those in Germany who don’t want to forget the past and understand the cost of trying to sanitize it. Vance, Musk, and Steve Bannon seem to not understand or don’t care that the elements they are now encouraging in Germany have roots in political and cultural anti-Americanism that go back to the Third Reich and were nurtured in Communist East Germany. The AfD, the most important component of this movement, is pro-Russian and anti-NATO. It is divided in its reaction to Trump’s embrace and would clearly be opposed to a close relationship with any administration in Washington. It is ironic that while the American administration has its own version of a campaign against anti-Semitism, it is strengthening those forces in Europe. [my emphasis]
Notes:
(1) Berger, Magdalena (2025): Frauen, lasst die Waffen liegen – zumindest für Deutschland. Jacobin 06/06/2025. <https://jacobin.de/artikel/feminismus-bundeswehr-krieg-frieden-zetkin-baerbock-wehrpflicht-waffenlieferungen-frauenrechte> (Accessed: 2025-14-08).
(2) Szabo, Stephen (2025): Germany’s New Confrontation with the Past. The National Interest 08/11/2025. <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/germanys-new-confrontation-with-the-past> (Accessed: 2025-14-08).
(3) Milder, Stephen (2023): The Alarming Stakes of German Rearmament. Boston Review 01/11/2025. <https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/ukraine-and-the-eclipse-of-pacifism/> (Accessed: 2025-14-08).
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