Germany’s Military ‘Mindset Change’

German industry is retooling for war. For over a year now, stories have appeared in the press about struggling German manufacturers turning to weapons production. The Telegraph has another this morning, which makes an important point: This switch is an indicator of a massive, widespread change in German society’s approach to war.

When Germany’s oldest engine maker, Deutz, began thinking about making weapons in 2020, ceo Sebastian Schulte assumed his workers would be against it. “Haunted by the country’s Nazi past, many Germans are squeamish about militarization,” noted the Telegraph.

Instead, “[t]heir response surprised him,” it reported. “His engineers embraced the new technical challenge, and the wider staff welcomed both the potential job opportunities and the chance to help protect Germany from new threats.”

Why? In years before, Germans felt safe under America and nato’s protective umbrella. Now, they no longer trust it.

“If there’s a new threat, then sometimes mindsets change,” said Schulte, “that’s what is happening now.”

“Ten years ago, big industrial companies tried to get rid of everything which was somehow defense-related,” the Telegraph quotes Matthias Wachter from the business lobby group bdi saying. “Defense was like porn and cigarettes—nobody wanted to get involved. It looked really bad on your corporate social responsibility reports.”

“Now, really the opposite is the case. It’s about, ‘How can we help? How can we benefit? How can we bring new technologies and innovation into the armed forces?’”

Coming from highly skilled German engineers, that is a fearsome sentiment.

• “Germany has handed a huge pot of gold to its military, and the country’s vast but beleaguered industrial machine is pivoting towards it,” wrote the Telegraph.

Had this happened 10 years ago, American businesses would have scooped up most of the contracts. But Germany no longer relies on American businesses.

• A recent Politico report found that 160 out of a total of 178 German defense projects have gone to German contractors.

To keep that going, they’re encouraging German manufacturers to step up.

• Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Economy Minister Katherina Reiche recently brought together 100 ceos from defense and civilian industries to try to spur deeper cooperation.

“We are seeing a remarkable shift: Germany’s industrial powerhouse is becoming a military powerhouse,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote last year. The rapid and now open change in mindset is an important part of this.

Herbert W. Armstrong forecast in 1945 that Germany, instigator and loser of two world wars, would start another. For years we have said that its leading industrialists would play a vital role in restoring Germany’s war-making power. They’ve now led the mindset of the German people to turn around too. For more, see Mr. Flurry’s article “Germany Is Arming for World War III.”