How did Germany's first Veterans Day go?
‘Veterans Day? What’s that?’ asked a former soldier whom I intended to interview about … erm.. Veterans Day. It’s a new initiative by the German government to honour men and women who served in the Bundeswehr, the German military. How did it go down?
The country held the first formal celebration of veterans since the Second World War last Sunday. There were events in each of the sixteen German states, with the main one held in Berlin.
‘It’s high time for this step,’ said Julia Klöckner, the President of the Bundestag, the German parliament, when she opened the festivities. ‘This is a special day. A first for our country,’ she added. ‘For this day makes something happen that has long been missing: public visibility, gratitude and respect for all who served in the forces of our country.’
Veterans Day is part of a broader effort in Germany to regain a sense of military ethos without reverting to the militarism of the past. The new government want to work towards defence spending of 3.5 percent of GDP, even 5 percent if you count supporting infrastructure. That’s massive in the context of the third-largest economy in the world.
I’ve been saying for some time that this will require more than money. Germany can’t just buy a lot of gear, hope enough people will join to drive and use it and then sit there on the ‘largest conventional army in Europe’ that the new chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to build. It needs a military culture, a plan and a strategy to go with this and those are areas the country has avoided since Nazism.
So I can’t complain now that steps are being undertaken to normalise the relationship between Germans and the military that is supposed to protect them. And I also can’t complain that soldiers are finally getting recognition and public visibility. If Germany is serious about shouldering its fair share of the defence of NATO countries, then that fair share is large and it needs to come as a solid package of investment and culture change.
It’s not so long ago that the Bundeswehr were criticised for advertising or going into schools to talk to young people about their work. In 2023, the leftwing party Die Linke said this amounted to a ‘militarisation of society’ and complained that ‘even in schools, which are supposed to be safe spaces, war is depicted as something normal and killing is depicted as one job among many.’
Well, wars are ‘normal’ in the sense that they have always happened. And, as the old saying goes, if you want peace, you must prepare for war. I’ve never understood how German pacifists imagine Hitler would have been defeated if other countries hadn’t had functioning military forces staffed with people who were willing to fight and, if necessary, even die to stop him from subjugating the whole of Europe and more under his genocidal regime.
So, I think it’s a good thing that Germany is trying to normalise its relationship with its military. I believe most Germans share the same sentiment. According to surveys, the vast majority (usually around 80 percent) have a positive attitude towards the Bundeswehr.
When I was involved in a debate about the relationship between Bundeswehr and society in Hamburg a few years ago, one army officer told me afterwards how surprised he was when his unit staged a public day where people could come and look at their gear and talk to soldiers. He hadn’t foreseen how positive the experience would be. He had expected criticism, but instead, he had been met with curiosity and interest.
Nonetheless, post-war Germany’s first Veterans Day also showed that you can’t invent a new military culture overnight. I asked around among a few ex-soldiers whether they would be attending and got a ‘no’ from all of them, albeit for different reasons.
Some said they didn’t feel they had served in the military for long enough to be classed as a ‘veteran’ or that they hadn’t served in foreign missions. When I explained that the official definition encompasses anyone who served in the Bundeswehr for at least 6 months and was honourably discharged, some didn’t like that and said it should only apply to people who served in combat missions.
Another issue that arose in the part of Germany where I’m from was whether people who had served in the East German military before 1990 should be included. This is genuinely a complex question. On the one hand, people who were in the National People’s Army or NVA of the GDR are not only not Bundeswehr veterans but were actually the opponents of the Bundeswehr during the Cold War. On the other hand, it doesn’t sit right that older East Germans are, therefore, by definition, excluded because they happened to have lived in the wrong Germany.
What I find disappointing is not so much the exclusion of former NVA soldiers – I can see all sorts of problems with that myself – but the fact that nobody in politics thought about this question when Veterans Day was planned. A few media outlets had to ask parliamentarians what the plan was regarding East German soldiers, and even the politicians who responded said at first that they would have to confirm. In the end, it was decided that only NVA soldiers who also served at least 6 months in the Bundeswehr after reunification were eligible. After the long and acrimonious East-West debate over the last few years, I would have hoped that this would have been at least on the radar of politicians. But it seems they still only treat West German history since 1949 as German history.
I know someone to whom the hybrid status applies. He was a pilot in the Volksmarine, the East German navy, and then for a few years in the Bundeswehr in the 1990s. So I asked him whether he would consider taking part in Veterans Day. He was the one who said, ‘What’s that?’
In fairness, there were fewer events in most East German states than in West German ones. When I explained the idea to him, he wasn’t averse to it, just a bit worried that such events might be too ‘political’ with ‘politicians celebrating themselves rather than soldiers’. He also said that for years, ex-soldiers had been ignored or looked down upon, and that it would take a while to rebuild trust. But he said he wanted to see what happens with Veterans Day next year and go from there.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect Germany to build the kind of relationships France, Britain, or the US have between politics and military overnight. In its current form, Germany has only existed for 35 years, and it will take time for this new Germany to forge an identity for itself and its Bundeswehr. The fact that it wants to work on this is in itself a huge step. It was shameful how injured war veterans and their families had to fight for treatment and recognition, and how reluctant Germany has been to remember its war dead properly. Hopefully, that is about to change. It may take some time to get there, but it seems the country is ready to move in the right direction.
Interestingly enough, when the American Fighter Aces Assn still had living members in sufficient numbers to have an annual meeting, pilots from "the other side" were invited and were welcomed. As one leading American ace told me once, "during the war, most of us felt we had more in common with the guys we were fighting than we did with the other people on our side." I've also seen American pilot veterans of the Indochina Wars become friends with the pilots of the Vietnam Peoples Air Force - they've even gone to each others homes and met. When I found that out, as a veteran of that war, I was really happy to know it was going on. Indeed other American veterans of the war have visited Vietnam and met the survivors of those with whom they fought. Friendships have formed, based on mutual respect for each other.
I'd think that the Bundeswehr vets and the NVA vets should be able to get together on the same basis. They have a big thing to celebrate - that in fact they never fought each other.
The West German politicians need to consider that they *really* need to find a way to promote this, and to include NVA vets, if they are at all serious about really making Germany one again. We managed to have Union and Confederate soldiers meet at events after the Civil War, where they really were trying to kill each other.
It seems very unfair to exclude those who served in the NVA. As an ex-soldier much of the value of these events lies in recalling the comradeship of those who served with you. That need must be just as acute amongst NVA veterans as those who served in the Bundeswher.