Posted on 12/27/2018 10:02:43 AM PST by Olog-hai
Struggling to fill its ranks, Germany’s military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces.
Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians, magazine Der Spiegel said, citing a ministry document.
The German military, or Bundeswehr, has stepped up its recruitment efforts as part of a broader reset following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Last year, Germany said it would increase the size of its armed forces to 198,000 active soldiers by 2024 from 179,000.
Pressure on Berlin mounted again in July when U.S. President Donald Trump told a NATO summit that Washington could withdraw support for the alliance if Europe did not boost military spending.
According to the classified ministry document, some 255,000 Poles, 185,000 Italians and 155,000 Romanians, aged between 18 and 40, live in Germany — about half all foreign EU nationals. If 10 percent of them could be interested in the Bundeswehr, that could generate 50,000 new applicants, it said. …
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I wouldn’t bother with the French.
We’re doing the same thing. I see tons of guys who are foreign born in the US army when working at Ft Bragg.
Good one!
I’m blind, eh? I get it.
I lived in Germany for four years. I hung out with the wrong crowd, simple people who happened to be Germans, folks who are often called deplorables, or bitter clingers, or simply people who work hard, love their country and only want to be left alone to go on with their lives.
Hard to believe that a blind guy like me can actually see the aspects of regular folks—just like us FReepers—exist in the most unlikely places.
Lived three years in Italy. Knew folks there from the same crowd.
Can’t speak for Poles or Romanians, but I’d suspect there some regular hard workers there, too.
Maybe I was only “seeing” things, who knows?
Germans have had the “nationalism” beaten out of them after two world wars, and especially by the global elites from the past 70 years or so.
Why can’t Germans simply love their own country and be proud of her (or his—it is the Fatherland, after all) accomplishments?
Instead, they have to whisper to each other, and yes, the occasional American (me) that they do, just like any other people do. Else they’re called imperialists, HRE evangelists, Teutonic knights or worse—Nazis.
Germans have had the “nationalism” beaten out of them after two world wars, and especially by the global elites from the past 70 years or so.
Why can’t Germans simply love their own country and be proud of her (or his—it is the Fatherland, after all) accomplishments?
Instead, they have to whisper to each other, and yes, the occasional American (me) that they do, just like any other people do. Else they’re called imperialists, HRE evangelists, Teutonic knights or worse—Nazis.
The Eastern European countries (who suffered enough under communism) are the beginning of the resistance against Islam and the focal point of the likely breakup of the New World Order.
It behooves them not to have their citizens in the German military because it is likely that they will face off before the European Union disintegrates.
My point is unrefuted by anecdotal references to leisure activities with Germans who still faced the Soviet Union during the cold war or German civilians who ignored politics for the most part.
Ditto the Nips.
Ha ha.
You called me blind. You made NO other point.
Now, I actually agree with what you most recently wrote, but you didn’t say that now, did you.
Alas Babylon!, NOT a mind-reader for 20 years.
Eisbrecher: This is Deutsch
Though Peanutgirly is kinda cute.
No, it was not beaten out of them, thanks to the left in the USA who built them back up and facilitated the EU to make them dominant on the continent again. No chance for them to learn anything of what the US Founding Fathers conceived as a free society; the US left is in full agreement with people like Marx and Hegel, sadly.
There are lots of Germans who are as you describe, but it’s the leadership that lies to them and leads them down the wrong paths. Right now, Germany’s media broadcasts the most virulent anti-Trump propaganda, even more so than the US media.
a million mooses and none want to fight? whodathunk?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.