The Chairwoman of the Committee on defense in the German parliament Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann called for the mobilization of 900,000 German reserve soldiers in the context of Russia's belligerent attitude under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
"Putin trains his people for war and keeps them available against the West. That is why we must be able to defend ourselves as quickly as possible," said yesterday to the German publication "Fünke". Schrack-Zimmermann of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), a junior partner in Germany's ruling coalition.
Russian industry is focused on producing weapons, the defense expert said. “Textbooks are printed in which Germany is presented as an aggressor state. Children of primary school age undergo military training. All of this is frightening," she added.
Strack-Zimmerman called on the Bundeswehr to “send call-ups to the approximately 900,000 thousand reservists with whom they are available” in the German army.
For that to happen, the military must first call up those who are eligible, she said, noting that the military stopped keeping records of those who left active duty decades ago.
"If we can hire just half of the reserves with their relevant experience, that will be incredibly beneficial," Schrack-Zimmerman noted.
The president of the German Reservist Association, Patrick Sensburg, made a similar proposal a few weeks ago, asking for a systematic report on the state of health and combat ability of all former Bundeswehr soldiers to be included in the national defense structures and gradually trained again.
In Germany, all ex-servicemen are kept in reserve, as well as soldiers who have served for a longer period of time.
Those who went through the armed forces of the former GDR, who never joined the Bundeswehr after German reunification in 1990, are not included in the reservist lists, however.
After Russia's war in Ukraine began more than two years ago, Germany began increasing its defense spending to fill the “big shortfall” - according to German leaders - in the country's military capacity.
Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the German government decided for the first time in decades to devote 2% of GDP to defense, a long-standing NATO goal, and announced a special fund to raise 100 billion euros for this purpose.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's German Social Democratic Party is the one that most actively supports increased defense spending, making it a major part of its European Parliament election campaign.
Strak-Zimmerman leads the election campaign of ALDE - the European liberal group of which the SDP is a member - ahead of the June 6-9 elections.