The German Greens stand ready to use their votes in the outgoing Bundestag (parliament) to adopt the gigantic rearmament programme proposed by the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD), who are set to form a grand coalition in the next parliament. This was announced by the Greens parliamentary group leaders, Katharina Dröge and Britta Hasselmann, in a press statement Friday.
On the same day, the Supreme Court in Karlsruhe rejected several urgent appeals filed against holding the special session of the Bundestag planned for Tuesday, at which the arms package worth hundreds of billions is to be voted on.
The adoption of the largest German rearmament offensive since Hitler and the Nazis is thus considered likely. In the outgoing Bundestag, the CDU/CSU and SPD, together with the Greens, still have the two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional amendment to get the massive rearmament and war package off the ground.
The CDU/CSU and SPD want to exempt all defence spending above 1 percent of GDP from the debt brake, which places a constitutional limit on government borrowing. This means that military expenditure can be increased without any limit, with €500 billion euros being discussed as a figure. On top of this comes a so-called “special fund for federal/state/local infrastructure” amounting to a further €500 billion, which essentially also serves to prepare for war.
The Greens, the party of the wealthy and warmongering upper middle classes, who fully represent the interests of the state and German imperialism, had signalled their agreement in principle to the plans of the CDU/CSU and SPD from the outset. While paying some lip service to climate protection, they wanted above all to ensure that the special fund would actually flow directly and exclusively into stepping up the repressive powers of the state at home and rearmament, war-related infrastructure and further support for Ukraine, and not be spent on “election gifts” by the grand coalition partners.
They have apparently achieved that. In an official post on X celebrating the “agreement with the CDU/CSU and SPD,” the Greens state, among other things: “We are investing in security. This concerns the Bundeswehr [Armed Forces], but also domestic security, e.g., intelligence services, cyber defence and civil defence. To this end, we are immediately supporting Ukraine with 3 billion euros.”
The Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz (CDU) and the SPD leadership also praised the agreement and made clear what it is all about: the unleashing of German imperialism. “It is a clear message to our partners and friends, but also to our opponents, to the enemies of our freedom: we are capable of defence, and we are now fully prepared for defence,” said Merz, celebrating the agreement and exulting, “Germany is back.”
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, who also heads its parliamentary faction, made similar comments; announcing in a brief press statement, “We want to free our country from financial shackles.” Adopting the spending package would achieve precisely that, he said. He added that Germany would be sending a “historic signal,” to Europe, Ukraine, but also to President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The rearmament programme “aims to rebuild Germany as an aggressive military power after two lost world wars and horrific crimes in the 20th century,” warned the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP, Socialist Equality Party) in a recent statement. It continued: “The consequences of this programme mean war, dictatorship and ultimately nuclear destruction. Official propaganda cannot hide this.”
The first parliamentary debate on the rearmament package on Thursday provided an indication of what the working class can expect. Deputies from the CDU/CSU, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), SPD, Greens and Liberal Democrats (FDP) were in a veritable war frenzy, outdoing each other in their demands for German rearmament and leadership. Klingbeil called for “Europe’s destiny to be taken more into European hands now” and that “Germany play a leading role in this.” It was “high time that we loosened the chains in this country.” Germany must “lead the way for a strong, united Europe, and that is why we are laying the foundations here.”
The SPD leader’s main concern is the escalation of the NATO war against the nuclear power Russia. “If Ukraine falls, then peace in the European Union will also be endangered,” he warned. We know “what Putin’s goals are” and “there is no time to lose.” Support for Ukraine, was “not a gesture driven only by purely human motives,” it was always “also about our own interests.”
Klingbeil could not make it clearer. In its “push to the east,” Germany is not concerned with defending “freedom” and “democracy,” but, as in the past, with predatory economic and geostrategic interests.
Above all, the debate made one thing plain: As in the 1930s, great power politics, rearmament and war go hand in hand with the abolition of democracy. In his speech, Merz demanded, “Germany must be capable of making decisions independently of election dates and independently of the composition of the Bundestag. Germany must become capable of defence, and Germany must return to the international stage as a capable partner in Europe, in NATO and in the world.”
Merz continued, saying he knew “that this decision is not shared by everyone in our country and obviously not by everyone here in this House either.”
“Not only in the east, but throughout Germany,” he said, “there are increasing doubts and questions about the political balance in our decisions.” And yet they had to be implemented!
“The whole world is looking to Germany in these days and weeks. We have a task in the European Union and in the world that goes far beyond the borders of our own country and the well-being of our own population.”
This is an open call for world power and dictatorship at the expense of the workers. Accordingly, the plans for rearmament and great power status must be implemented regardless of elections and the composition of parliament, against all resistance.
In saying this, former Blackrock banker Merz is not just speaking for himself and the CDU; he is articulating the standpoint of German imperialism and the German financial oligarchy. Like the ruling class in the US under the leadership of the fascist Trump, it is willing to enforce its interests with the utmost brutality at home and abroad and destroy all remaining social and democratic rights.
Regardless of what the party leaders officially say, it is clear that the enormous sums will be reclaimed from the working class in the form of wage cuts, mass layoffs and the destruction of the welfare state. In their exploratory paper, the CDU/CSU and SPD had already announced that they would “also make savings in the context of the budget deliberations and, in addition, gradually switch to target- and impact-oriented budget management.”
Among the parties in the Bundestag, there are only tactical differences of opinion as to how and under what conditions the armaments offensive should be implemented. The fascist AfD, the party of German militarism in its purest form, which fully agrees with the war mobilisation and even calls for Germany to have nuclear weapons, wants to finance the rearmament drive directly through budget cuts and “rigorously cut superfluous spending,” as its parliamentary faction leader Alice Weidel put it.
The Left Party, which made it clear on election night that it was ready for talks should Merz’s efforts to organise a majority in the outgoing Bundestag fail, is now appealing to the Greens not to back the spending package after all. “It is not too late,” party leader Ines Schwerdtner told the press. Otherwise, a central mistake of the outgoing government would be repeated, “namely climate protection and rearmament without social balance.” In other words, the war loans should be accompanied by some empty social promises in order to better control the opposition among the population against the war madness.
Such opposition is precisely what is happening, and it now needs conscious political leadership. “It is time to become politically active and to study the programme of and join the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei and the International Committee of the Fourth International,” the SGP writes in its recent statement. “Building a united movement of the European and international working class based on a socialist and revolutionary programme is the only way to stop the developing world war.”