Germany Can't Rally One Combat-Ready Division After Giving Guns Away to Kiev

The NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine has drained alliance armories of substantial portions of their inventories, with Germany committing over €7.5 billion ($8.4 billion US) in arms assistance to Kiev, second only behind the United States.

The German military cannot scrape together even a single 20,000+ troop-strong combat-ready division, and hopes to build up the first of three planned new ones by 2025, and the second by 2027, Bundeswehr chief Alfons Mais has said.

"I am very optimistic that we will get it done," Mais told US media in a report published Monday.

As a stopgap measure, Germany will instead provide two mechanized brigades (units with about 5,000 troops apiece) for alliance defense.

"This will be good enough," Mais said. "It will be sufficient, in any case, to contribute the best-equipped division of all European NATO partners in 2025. At least, this is our joint goal with our Dutch partners," the commander said.

Mais also hinted at the deleterious effect of sending Germany’s weapons and ammunition stockpiles east to Ukraine.

"If we rush ammunition to Ukraine, we don’t have it available ourselves until the new orders come in. You can’t buy munitions at the DIY store, production capabilities have shrunk over the past 30 years," he complained.

"But supporting Ukraine is more important right now than establishing a division, as NATO-Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has stressed," the lieutenant-general quickly added.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a vast, €100 billion defense spending bump last year, citing the historic "turning point" he said had resulted following the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-on NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine.

However, a year on, Berlin has only doled out (but not spent) €30 billion of the promised €100 billion, and indicated that the money wouldn’t be transferred to defense contractors until the promised weapons and gear were actually delivered. The Scholz government’s cautious approach has sparked complaining both within Germany and from Berlin’s NATO allies, with some observers picking apart his comments and concluding that the chancellor may not make good on the spending commitments.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker has calculated that Germany has delivered or committed to deliver over €7.5 billion in military support to Ukraine between January 2022 and May 2023 – more than any other country besides the US.

Ukraine military aid by country in billions of euros compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy

© Photo : Kiel Institute for the World Economy

German business media reported last fall that the Central European power’s military had enough ammunition to last just 24-48 hours in the event of a major conflict, and that stocking up would cost at least €20 billion. Other European nations have faced similar problems, with some giving up their entire inventories of some categories of weapons to send east.

Berlin and other European NATO allies have sent over 260 Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, including 18 of Germany’s latest Leopard 2A6s. Germany has also sent dozens of Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, M270 MARS multiple rocket launches, Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Bergepanzer armored recovery vehicles, Panzerfaust RPGs and other weapons, support equipment, ammunition and supplies.