Militarization of State and Society


Bundeswehr and Economy


Document of the plenary session of the Central Committee of Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD, July 2000



German government, led by social democrats, just published a comprehensive programme of militarisation of state and society. Essentials of this have recently been published in a brochure called “Bundeswehr and Economy – Strategic Partnership on the Road Towards a Modern State”, published by the defence ministry. These plans are widely unknown within the ranks of the people although parts of them have already been carried out and other parts are on the way to be carried out. Even within the trade unions these plans are not being recognised, or they are seen in a completely wrong manner. They are regarded as some sort of “civilizing” the army. They are not seen as a militarisation, where the state apparatus, the economy, and society are used to carry out German imperialism’s plans of war and armament.


To regard these plans as plans to civilize the army is completely wrong. But exactly this view is deliberately produced by the authors of these plans. They are speaking about “modern methods of management”, of “fruitful cooperation” between the Bundeswehr (the German army) and “Länder”, departments, municipalities, and companies. The superintendent for the medical service of the army drivels on “the melting of the medical service of the army with the civil medical service”, which might lead to a civilization of the military forces. The contrary is true. As things are all these agreements (already carried out or on the way to be carried out) confirm what Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD (Workers’ Union for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Germany”) stressed in its programme: “Monopolies are subordinating state apparatus to themselves using it to interfere into economy, to plunder working people by means of taxes, to redistribute the wealth of society in the interests of the monopolies and to militarise society.”

War minister Rudolf Scharping talks about checking of social wastefulness by the beneficial effects of market economy and competition. This is a lie, too. It was in 1991, at a meeting of representatives of German monopolists with the leaders of the army at Fürstenfeldbruck, when Mr. Roy, a civil servant from the war ministry, seduced those people fearing about their profits of the armament. Hexplained to them that research and development within the weapons’ industries would be pushed forward by the means of defence ministry even in the future. Private economy, he stressed, would not be able to provide by its own means what weapons’ industries require. So he did not speak about market economy. He spoke about capitalist planned economy.

Indeed – if you look at the plans to militarise state and society you have to go far back to the Kohl government. Those plans have been elaborated shortly after the annexation of GDR when Kohl spoke about Germany having finished with its history and being able to take her role as a world power. Demands were made at Fürstenfeldbruck (see above) that Germany should “become normal” again and that the people be made ready for war. What was meant is: Volksgemeinschaft. (A very German word which means: reconciliation between the people and its oppressors.)

There were and there are many stages to produce this “Volksgemeinschaft”. There was the intervention of Martin Walser in Paul’s Church at Frankfurt, when Walser tried the waste disposal of German past. There is the so-called “Zwangsarbeiterentschädigung” (financial compensation for the slave workers in Germany during World War II), which in fact is a law to make vanish the victims of German forced labour during the rule of the Nazis. All this leads to very direct effects on every day’s life of German people. A governmental commission working about the future of the German army knows very well that a working class which is kept quite is absolutely necessary for a new war. This commission claims that “settled social structures are a precondition for sustained security”.


Those plans were prepared by the Kohl government and are now executed by Schröder. (For example: all those plans to melt the military and the civil medical services have been prepared by the Kohl government from 1997 on.) So you can see again the validity of the sentences of our programme: “Social democracy – that means hypocritical pacifism – that means active support for militarism, for imperialist wars and rearmament of our country.”


“A Strategic Partnership on the Way towards a Modern State” – that title of war ministry’s brochure is representing a whole programme. It might be surprising to use the military terms of strategy to describe the way into a modern state. But that is well said. Indeed this is a plan of the allocation of means and forces towards the next war. All the experiences of German bourgeoisie and of its state in the history of war are reflected in these plans. German bourgeois class remembers very well World War I when they carried out their plans for the direct grip of the capitalist state apparatus onto economy not before the midst of wartime. They tried to avoid that mistake before World War II by the means of the fascist four-years-plans. The modern state they are announcing nowadays will be the attempt to produce without dictatorship what needed fascism in the thirties of this century. That will be a state in which “Volksgemeinschaft” comes out of the shadows of ideology, becoming reality of every day’s life, having great impact on the life and the work of working class.

Indeed all that means the deepest militarisation of German society since the rearmament of Western Germany, a fact that is seen very clearly for example by the former German ambassador in Italy and the Netherlands who indeed compares – in an ethical, a political and in a military sense - the new plans with German rearmament in the fifties of this century. (But remember well: the rearmament of the fifties could only be achieved against sharp class struggle: 9.119.667 signatures against that rearmament have been collected then, there was a big strike especially led by workers and miners on Ruhr river. There have been 35.189 proceedings against the fighters against militarism, 425 trials which resulted in 1012 years of prison. Workers should remember well these facts instead of betraying there comrades of the fifties silently!)


The underlying fact behind these plans of militarisation is that in imperialism development of the productive forces means development of the means for destruction and war. The above mentioned brochure of the war ministry stresses, that “German industries have worldwide acknowledged industrial and management capacities. In the ongoing process of European structural policy (!) and globalisation of economy it is important to keep these capacities, supported by investment of the army.” This is, as the “agreement on innovation, investment and economicalness tells us, the only way to secure important industrial capacities.

There will be a series of “pilot projects” to prepare for the close connection of army and economy:


Despite all that the most important impact of militarism for the whole of the society will be the impact on working class itself. The free worker who sells his capacity for work voluntarily (“only” restricted by economic necessities like the necessity to survive by selling this capacity); the freedom of the choice of profession – all those freedoms are lifted in tendency.

The war ministry tells the truth: imperialism does not need a lot of workers any longer, and this part of our class is growing. Imperialism produces a superfluous army of workers, an army only to be used in war and by war. According to this we are told that the army “as an important employer and place of training will contribute to solve the problems of the market of human work”. So soldiers, that means murderers, will be recruited by the job centres. For that sake there will be an agreement between the central office of the job centres and the army. What will happen if the unemployed are not prepared to become murderers? Will they loose their earnings-related benefits? (We will have to find that out! Perhaps we can organise the possibilities for a class conscious worker to go to the Supreme Court in that question.)


Militarism is acquiring by all means. “Civil training places will be acquired on regional level” as the war ministry tells us. The young worker who thought to sell his capacity for work to a capitalist will then have two masters: the capitalist and the army. For “during their training the trainees will be in the care of Bundeswehr” (brochure of the ministry for defence). Of course it will not be only the young worker who will suffer from this continued presence of the armed forces within the factories. The job stewards will be concerned, too. They are obliged by law to work for the welfare of the company. Does this mean: for the welfare of the army, too? There are more than 1000 companies which joined the agreement between the army and economy. The job stewards of these companies are made lackeys of the militarisation of the rights of workers and employees, because they will have to agree with these agreements – for the welfare of the company. Even if they refuse to cooperate, which is their class duty, they are involved in these acts of militarisation. All that is a very malign trick to destroy the rights of the workers’ movement and its job stewards.


It is the fear to become unemployed by which young workers shall be lured to join the army. But unemployment, as we all know, can be made rather easily. So the army stresses that it will concentrate on those young workers who will not be employed after their training. How many workers will that be? And who will be part of that number? This will be decided by the big business and the army “in cooperation”. In this way the suppressed and their job stewards are drawn into the apparatus of the state. In this way the freedom of the choice of profession will me made a farce. Voluntariness (which, of course, is very limited by capitalism itself) will be substituted by force. And all that takes place without any fascist dictatorship. It takes place because the “Volksgemeinschaft” becomes material reality within the factories. When capitalism is dying, as it is, workers may call for “labour at any price”. It will be the call for production of war, for preparation of war, for service of war, and finally for war.


Militarism is not only acquiring places of training for future soldiers. It is acquiring such places for former soldiers, too. The job centres will help to bring former soldiers, now unemployed, to working places in factories and offices. Therefore “we will acquire vacant working places and offer them to soldiers if the soldiers want to be informed about them” (as the brochure “Bundeswhr and Economy” tell us). Some of these soldiers will even have the possibility for a future as petit bourgeoisie. The representatives of craftsmanship in several cities in Germany will coordinate the efforts to solve the problems of craftsmanship to find successors for their small plants. Parts of these representatives are very proud for a long lasting cooperation between them and the army. (We remember: in ancient Rome former soldiers got a small piece of land, in most cases a piece they had helped to conquer when they were in the army.)


So the choice of profession vanishes. And so does the right for refusal to fight in a war, because training in factories and requisition for the army are melting completely. Of course: class conscious workers have always known that individual denying or pacifism are no solution for imperialism and militarism. There is only one way out: to fight imperialism as a whole, to fight against the system of labour. Just and only in doing so the worker can avoid to die in the wars or to become murderers of other peoples.


There is a special branch of public life which militarism is subjugating at the moment in a way that will have the most dangerous consequences for life and health of the whole of the people. (It is kept quite secret but has been brought to the public by members of the trade union of the public health workers – not even the parliament do know everything about that.) There are agreements between the army and public hospitals to bring the civil medical service under the control of the army. There are some pilot agreements. According to these agreements hospitals will merge with sick bays of the army. In this way the army wants to raise the number of beds in its hospitals by about 56.000. (This is a figure that demonstrates a lot about the kind of wars they intend to wage in the next future! There will be no comparison with the war they waged against Yugoslavia.)

The private hospitals, if they agree, will get medical equipment of the army for free. But the price is high!

They will have to train medical doctors for the army. The will have to train first-aid attendants for the army. In the case of war these people might be withdrawn from the hospitals within six hours’ time. Private health care will not be allowed to use them any longer.

The hospitals will have to agree in taking care for up to 1000 hurt soldiers in case of war. If the sick bays of the army will be under too great a strain the private hospitals will have to send nurses and medical doctors into these sick bays of the army. And that means: in uniform, and they will have to go abroad if this is required! As the trade union for public health employees informed the public the army is trying to get agreements according to which nurses or medical doctors will have no possibility to protest against that or to refuse that kind of service.


The trade unions in Germany are not prepared to fight against that militaristic penetration of the whole of society. On the contrary. They agreed to become part of that. This is another step on the way that leads trade unions downhill. Beginning with neutrality towards militarism they went on to tolerating militarism. Now they finish with cooperation with militarism. The next step would an could only be: To call for the defence of the fatherland and for war.


Some leaders of trade unions have already signed an “agreement about the principles of cooperation between the trade unions and the ministry for defence”. With that agreement it is said that there should be a close and trusting cooperation. That the trade unions will be involved in creating a modern structure for the management of the army.

Instead of the old slogan: War to the war! our trade unions now raise the flag of war services for the ruling class. Workers will have to remember our old slogans. For example: young workers of the German Mail, postmen and postwomen will go to work with tinhats on their heads in the next weeks to protest against the cooperation of German Mail with Bundeswehr.

We will have to collect signatures in the factories against this programme of militarisation. It is not important at the moment if these signatures represent a majority of the workers. Important is that with methods like that there will be information for and mobilisation of the colleagues.


And last not least, and not to forget: In the framework of the 2+4-treaty about German unity the Federal Republic of Germany has tied herself on a maximum of armed forces of 370.000 men. In the meantime the war ministry speaks about 680.000 to 700.000 men in the case of war. With those measures as we explained in that article more and more all the working people will be subjugated under German militarism, even if they are working in the “private sector”. They are subjugated under a Joint Staff (Generalstab) which has been banned by Potsdam agreement against German imperialism. And all that is not only valid for the soil of the Federal Republic of Germany. German imperialism thus creates instruments for the infiltration of other countries, an infiltration that has been sufficiently prepared by recent years’ “agreements of cooperation”.


Arbeiterbund für den

Wiederaufbau der KPD

Central Committee

July 2000