German defense minister announces resignation | Hacker News Reader

German defense minister announces resignation

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20 pointsrntn10 comments

This is off topic for HN. Please don't post garden-variety politics or daily news. There needs to be some unusual intellectually interesting angle for a story in these categories to count as on topic.

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May I please ask why does Germany have a recent history with picking such poor defense ministers? AFAIK Ursula v.d. Leien was also not a very competent one, which is why she got promoted to the EU where she proved further incompetence through various scandals and magically self-deleting/lost emails.

It's more of a stepping stone. Generally in German coalition governments, the smaller of the two parties (things get more complicated when there are more than two parties) gets to pick the Vice Chancellor who is also the Foreign Minister. But Minister of Defense is normally more of a "shut up and don't bring any attention to yourself while you pad your resume" position than anything.

The German population is generally not too excited about its military (which was originally abolished after WW2 then revived as a defense force in the Cold War, expanded to include peacekeeping missions in the 90s and only post-9/11 again expanded to more direct involvements in ongoing military conflicts as in Afghanistan) so you can't really win any hearts and minds in that position.

There have also been numerous dodgy attempts at modernizing the military which broadly failed for various reasons (poor quality in purchased equipment, etc) and more recently a number of scandals with far-right extremists in the military. Basically any attempt to do something noteworthy in that position have historically been more likely to cause trouble. Ursula von der Leyen was actually fairly okay but her legacy was mostly in her work on accomodations for women in the military, which was seen as a continuation of her previous tenure as Family Minister, which was seen as too feminine for the small demographic which actually cared about her job.

The fact that she never got around to learning the ranks of the soldiers in the army didn't help either. It looked like she didn't really care and would rather be doing something else.

Maybe I don't understand the particular sensitivities, but she says some stuff about the war in Europe while there are New Year's fireworks in the background? Is this why she was forced to resign?

Article mentions some questions about qualifications and other issues.

Death by a small cuts maybe?

Article is very short.

There was general dissatisfaction with her work and multiple other things she was criticized for.

She didn’t want the job to begin with and had a series of small PR mishaps.

Her saying she met interesting people wasn't received well. It was several small scandals though.

"In a widely criticized New Year's Eve address she stated that the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to "a lot of special experiences" and a chance for "many encounters with great and interesting people"." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lambrecht#Federal_Mi...)

There is a huge list of stuff she did and didn't. Honestly, I'm not really concerned about our defense minister, as I'm already mad that we spend 100bn EUR on military equipment instead of education and more opportunities for poorer folks. If we'd help Ukraine with that money, it would be a different thing, but right now we are only spending and not planning to do anything with it. Most of the money will probably land in the pockets of McKinsey and executives anyway, like it happened with von der Leyen.

Anyway, maybe it's useful for some context:

- She requested a helicopter of the Luftwaffe as "holder of command and command authority" (IBUK booking) for a troop visit. This got her high on the priority list (higher than if she would've requested the helicopter as defense minister). But, unlike a booking as defense minister, an IBUK booking does not allow her to use the booking as a private escort. She took her son with her, which is against the rules. While she was flying, she ordered her bodyguards to drive with two empty cars from Berlin to Ladelund, where the helicopter landed (so, she could've driven with the bodyguards, instead of taking this expensive flight).

Coincidentally, a day after the troop visit, she went by car and bodyguards to the nearby island of Sylt for a vacation with her son. [1]

- She ordered F-35 jets, but those do not fit into the existing hangars. She didn't know this beforehand, and now the parliament had to spend an additional 700M EUR for new hangars because of her mistake. [2]

- Shortly after taking office in December 2021, Lambrecht canceled a Christmas trip to a Bundeswehr mission in Mali, which had previously been a must for ministers. [3]

- When Russia invaded Ukraine she only delivered 5.000 Helmets. Klitschko was very disappointed. [4]

I think the following two points are not relevant, but they are raised pretty often, therefore for completeness:

- She did not know the name of the Air Force Chief of Staff Ingo Gerhartz when she announced that she'd buy F-35 jets. [5]

- She does not know the duty ranks across the Bundeswehr. [6]

[1] https://www.businessinsider.de/politik/deutschland/nach-nied...

[2] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/bundeswehr-bohrende-fragen-zu...

[3] https://www.greenpeace-magazin.de/ticker/lambrecht-muss-reis...

[4] https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-klitschko-konflikt-deu...

[5] Interestingly the video has been taken down everywhere (at least I cannot find it). There are some articles which still mention it, like https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/christine-lambrec...

[6] https://rp-online.de/politik/christine-lambrecht-ministerin-...

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