Hundreds of millions for waking services
Bundeswehr cannot guard barracks themselves
20.03.2025 – 8:04 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
The Bundeswehr lacks soldiers. This means that expensive security services have to take over the protection of the barracks. The cost: 666 million euros in 2024 alone.
Does the Bundeswehr have a generation problem? For the “Financial Times”, the answer is clear: “The German Army has problems getting Generation Z to weapons,” the sheet last headlined. The missing soldiers are expensive. Because of its own staff, the Bundeswehr spent around 666 million euros for private security services last year to protect its own barracks, reports the “Bild” newspaper.
As the main reason, the Federal Ministry of Defense mentions the continued lack of personnel within the group. Since the reduction of the Bundeswehr after reunification and the end of the compulsory military service in 2011, there were no longer enough soldiers available for guard services. Therefore, the use of “qualified security personnel of civil contractual partners” has been common practice for years. According to this, around 2,000 private guards are deployed nationwide.
The Ministry of Defense emphasizes that the use of external security services is currently the “most economical option”. However, critics ask the question of whether it is justifiable from a security policy perspective not to protect sensitive military facilities through their own forces. The CDU member of the Bundestag Roderich Kiesewetter, himself a reserve officer, puts a general company into conversation, “so that there is not only more staff for the Bundeswehr, but also to protect the population and critical infrastructures”, as he told the newspaper.
The Bundestag had decided on Tuesday an increase in defense spending. But the Bundeswehr lacks attractiveness and staff. The Bundestag’s military officer, Eva Högl (SPD), had recently referred to the serious lack of staff in the Bundeswehr. In her current annual report, she criticizes that the forces have too few soldiers and civilian specialists in order to fully perform their tasks. The areas of logistics, maintenance and security guards are particularly affected.
The Bundeswehr’s strength strength has dropped from 250,000 soldiers to 180,000 since 2011. Before the fall of the wall, the Bundeswehr in the west came to around 495,000 men. The GDR’s National People’s Army (NVA) counted a troop thickness of around 170,000 soldiers in its high phase.
