Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Saturday that the country’s armed forces belong at the “center of (German) democratic society,” as the country marked the 80th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Scholz made the comments during a swearing-in ceremony for nearly 400 recruits of the German armed forces, or Bundeswehr, after having previously laid a wreath with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Memorial Center of the German Resistance in Berlin.
The Chancellor said that members of the Bundeswehr, in addition to their military duties, must also remain civilians.
“If you serve in the Bundeswehr today, you have to think for yourself and not just blindly obey,” he added.
Scholz said that many German soldiers were torn between their conscience and their military oath at the outbreak of World War II. They wondered whether they should “rise up against the war of extermination and mass murder.”
The current constitutional order in Germany is based on the principle that no soldier should ever be faced with such a choice again, he said.
Scholz also commented on the war in Ukraine.
The Chancellor said the new recruits of the German Air Force are taking their vows at a difficult time: “Not only peace in Europe, but also our freedom is under pressure,” Scholz said.
Authoritarian regimes around the world are gaining strength, he argued, posing challenges for democracies. “Even within virtually all liberal societies, movements that look to tyrannical rulers like Putin as role models are gaining ground,” Scholz added.
The challenging global situation reminds us how important those are who “courageously defend peace and freedom,” the Chancellor said.