Chronology of rearmament
Initiated ten years after the capitulation of the Wehrmacht in May 1945, the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany took place in a number of stages. It was enabled by the Bonn-Paris conventions, which came into force on May 5, 1955. This set of treaties with the USA, France and Great Britain put an end to the Allied occupation, thereby granting the government in Bonn the “full power” of a sovereign state. West Germany joined NATO on May 9 of the same year, giving it the right to deploy military units.
Theodor Blank was appointed the first “Federal Minister of Defense” on July 8, 1955. Generals Adolf Heusinger and Hans Speidel received their certificates of appointment on November 12, 1955 along with a hundred officers and non-commissioned officers. Known as the “new Wehrmacht” for years to come, the Bundeswehr was founded on this particular day to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gerhard von Scharnhorst so as to mark a revival of the tradition of military reform. The first voluntary recruits joined the Bundeswehr in January 1956, with Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer proclaiming the “Day of the German Armed Forces” at a traditional military ceremony held in Andernach on January 20, 1956. Conscripts began their military service for the first time since the Second World War from April 1957 onwards. The peacetime strength of the Bundeswehr grew rapidly, reaching 500,000 soldiers by around 1965.
International integration of the German military
In May 1945, Allied policy sought to prevent Germany from posing a “threat to world peace” and eliminate “all forms of Nazism and militarism”. Initially, this meant total demilitarization. Rearmament started when the Korean War broke out in 1950 as a result of the political and ideological conflict between East and West and the tensions of the Cold War. In their efforts to draw on the lessons of history, the Western Allies developed the system of “double containment” (Rolf Steininger): protection against communism and security from the Germans. This was the political and historical context that made rearmament possible. There were two consequences. Firstly, the German military was controlled within the structure of NATO. For decades, the Bundeswehr leadership had no independent operational authority over its soldiers. Instead, German security policy had to pay heed to the “reserved rights” of the Allies, as agreed in the 1955 treaties. The Bundeswehr was fully integrated internationally – a principle that continues to apply to this day. Secondly, the Bundeswehr was subject to a certain degree of transparency through the WEU (Western European Union): this organization possessed far-reaching authorities, including the ability to impose restrictions on the armaments industry and monitor all of the Bundeswehr’s own weapons stocks, barracks, depots and equipment. Hundreds of on-site inspections were carried out to verify the status of the German armed forces.
German initiatives to establish its own armed forces
On the German side, Adenauer was the main political driving force behind rearmament. His political approach was based on the classic notion of a nation state with its own military as an attribute of sovereign power. From 1947 onwards, former generals provided him with studies on the “security of Western Europe”; a memorandum of June 1948 called for the replacement of “occupying forces [...] with German armored troops” under US supreme command (Hans Speidel). Adenauer launched his rearmament initiatives after the Bonn Republic was founded in September 1949. After first clearing his plans with the High Commissioners headed by the American John McCloy, Adenauer presented his concept in interviews. The Chancellor secured a pivotal success when he issued official memorandum to the Western powers at the beginning of September 1950, in which he presented the two pillars of his policy: “sovereignty” was to be achieved solely “as a consequence of rearmament” (Konrad Adenauer). As such, rebuilding the military was a key element in his policy of Western integration. Heading the Chancellery military department that operated under the guise of the “Central Office for Homeland Service”, the former General Gerhard Detlef Graf von Schwerin was tasked with preparing this policy initiative from the beginning of 1950 onwards. It was in this department that intense negotiations were held to hammer out the terms of rearmament, notably with US General George Hays. An initial practical step in this direction was taken on October 6, 1950: the key plans were drawn up at Himmerod Abbey in the Eifel – the “Magna Charta of German Rearmament” (Hans-Jürgen Rautenberg). The underlying inspiration for a Europe-wide “total defense from the Dardanelles to Scandinavia” was provided by the operational principles of the Wehrmacht’s eastern campaign. In the spirit of the Wehrmacht, defense was understood to be “offensive from the outset”, including the deployment of nuclear bombs. The Himmerod memorandum can be regarded as the true founding moment of the Bundeswehr. It also contained the seeds of military reform. Based on Wolf Graf von Baudissin’s concept of ‘leadership development and civic education’ (Innere Führung), elements of the notion of the ‘citizen in uniform’ (Staatsbürger in Uniform) came to be established. The principle here was the primacy of democracy and pluralism, thereby preventing the formation of a “state-within-a-state”, as in militarism. Rearmament stirred up mixed feelings: traditionalism and reform stood in opposition to one another, with two “fronts” emerging – a situation that was to be a burden for decades.
Protest and warning on the part of the peace movement – in Munich, too
Described by its critics as “remilitarization”, rearmament sparked vigorous protest. This mainly occurred in the period 1949 to 1955, with subsequent controversy focusing on nuclear armament. Among the well-known personalities who went public were the politician Gustav Heinemann, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, the Catholic priest Franziskus M. Stratmann, the Protestant pastor Martin Niemöller and the philosopher Karl Jaspers. Calls for peace from various groups within society met with an enthusiastic response from the early summer of 1950 onwards. While the Protestant synods and church youth associations protested vocally against conscription and the build-up of military forces, the trade unions were divided on the issue of rearmament. Trade union protests tended to be seen at the local level, but a unanimous rejection on the part of the national trade union organization, the DGB, failed to materialize. This was not least because Adenauer involved the prominent trade union leader Theodor Blank (CDU): at the end of 1950 the latter took over the role of advisor on military and security issues that had previously been held by Gerhard Detlef Graf von Schwerin. Encouraging conscientious objection on personal grounds, the movement entitled “Ohne-mich” (“Without Me”) attracted widespread support. The British model of the Easter marchers then began to exert a fascination in Germany, and the peace movement organized its first mass demonstrations.
Strongly influenced by the French, Pax Christi gained influence with its compelling message of peace, presenting this to an initially hesitant German episcopate; significant events were the prayers for peace, large-scale pilgrimages and “peace routes” to Lourdes, with Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber taking part as early as 1948. Before long, almost all dioceses were involved; this broad-based movement included contacts with theologian Romano Guardini at the University of Munich and with Catholic publicist Walter Dirks in Frankfurt. The aim was to bring about peace and democratic renewal. In Munich, Manfred Hörhammer made public appearances in the style of an itinerant preacher, and there was a highly active democratic women’s movement, too. One particularly outstanding figure in Bavaria was Ilse Reventlow, a radio broadcaster; she was joined by Lisa Albrecht, the first chairwoman of the SPD, Renate Sprengel, and Jewish emigrant Jella Lepmann, who made a name for herself through the International Youth Library. They saw themselves as a mouthpiece for anti-militarist women who upheld democratic principles.
Anti-military protests figured large in the media, and Adenauer responded to the movement with intense campaigns: individuals and protests were discredited, with some even being accused of being the accomplices of Moscow.
