German defence expert urges army to recruit 900,000 reservists

The chairwoman of the Defence Committee in the German parliament, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, has called for the recruitment of 900,000 German reservists in light of Russia's belligerent stance under President Vladimir Putin.

"Putin is training his people for war and positioning them against the West. We must therefore become capable of defence as quickly as possible," Strack-Zimmermann of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), a junior partner in Germany's governing coalition, told the Funke media group in remarks published on Saturday.

Russian industry is focused on manufacturing weapons, the defence expert said. "School books are printed that portray Germany as an aggressor state. Primary-school age children are trained to use weapons. All of this is frightening," she added.

Strack-Zimmermann called on Germany's Bundeswehr armed forces to "activate the roughly 900,000 reservists we have."

For that to happen, the military should first register those eligible, she added, pointing out that the armed forces had stopped keeping track of those who left active service decades ago.

"If we could recruit just half of them as reservists with their relevant expertise, that would be an incredible asset," Strack-Zimmermann said.

The chair of Germany's reservists association Patrick Sensburg put forward a similar proposal a few weeks ago, suggesting the systematic recording of health status and availability of all former Bundeswehr members, in order to be able to deploy them in homeland security and gradually allow them to train again.

In Germany, reservists include all former military service members as well as soldiers who have served for an extend period of time.

However, former soldiers who served in the armed forces of former communist East Germany and never joined the Bundeswehr after German reunification in 1990 are not included.

In the wake of the Ukraine war, launched by Russia more than two years ago, Germany has begun to boost defence spending to meet what German leaders have acknowledged are major shortcomings in the country's military capabilities.

Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the German government pledged that it would invest 2% of its total economic output into the military for the first time in decades - a long-held NATO target - and announced a €100 billion ($108 billion) special defence fund for this purpose.

The FDP in particular is in favour of ramping up defence spending, and has made it a core part of its European Parliament election campaign.

Strack-Zimmermann is leading the election campaign for ALDE, the European liberal grouping that the FDP belongs to, ahead of the June 6-9 polls.