Berlin: After forcing his predecessor Eberhard Zorn into an early retirement, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius named Major General Karsten Breuer as the new inspector general of the Bundeswehr, according to national media on Monday.
Previously serving as the army's national operations command commander is Breuer, 59. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he coordinated the military's deployment, and from November 2021 to May 2022, he served as the government's pandemic task force's leader.
Although the 63-year-old general had expressed scepticism about providing Ukraine with German heavy equipment, noting that the Bundeswehr had little spare, no official justification for Zorn's retirement was provided.
Also Read: Taliban in Pakistan kill police officers defending a census team
Zorn spoke with Focus magazine in September of last year and praised the Ukrainian advancements while pleading with Kiev not to overextend itself. Ukraine's counterattacks can "win back places or individual areas of the frontlines, but not push Russia back over a broad front," he said at the time.
US general Ben Hodges, a former NATO supreme commander, responded by labelling Zorn's assessment of Russian capabilities as "stunningly poor." By the end of January, Hodges himself had predicted that Ukraine would retake Mariupol.
Since then, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has bowed to US pressure and agreed to provide Ukraine with more than 100 Leopard tanks and other military equipment. Eva Hoegl, the parliament's military commissioner, appeared to support Zorn's worries on Monday, though, that domestic shortages might result from Ukraine's aid.
Also Read: Despite short-term obstacles, China will fully reopen its borders to foreigners
According to Hoegl, the Bundeswehr is lacking everything, including night vision equipment, radios, and basic personal items like backpacks and helmets. The barracks need to be repaired, the infrastructure needs to be operational, and we also require funding for ongoing operations, for personnel.”
Hoegl will support Pistorius's suggestion to increase the annual Bundeswehr budget by an additional €10 billion and add a €100 billion emergency special fund to her annual report on the state of the military to the Bundestag on Tuesday.
Hoegl, a member of Scholz's SPD party, deemed that demand to be reasonable. "The money is needed for the Bundeswehr."
The German economy is essentially at a standstill at the moment, and prices for food and energy have increased by 21.8% and 19.1%, respectively, since February 2022.
