by JOHANNES STERN
Commenting on these plans, former secretary of defence Willy Wimmer (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) has warned of a “cold military putsch”. In an interview with the weekly Freitag, Wimmer said “Certain military circles” wanted to “turn back history” and return to solutions that had been “used by the “Wehrmacht”; going back to “Prussian traditions, putting the military leadership at the centre of the state again.”
According to Wimmer, there are those in the leadership of the Bundeswehr who are presently considering “whether it could return to the grand old scale of things”. This tendency clearly questions “the primacy of politics” over the military. He warned that the “next thing to go after compulsory military service, would be the Parlamentsbeteiligungsgesetz [parliament participation law, laying down the authority of parliament over foreign military missions by the Bundeswehr]”.
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