To accelerate rearmament, Germany’s federal government has stepped up military procurement, but without any real strategic direction or effective political oversight. The country’s leading arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, has emerged as the main beneficiary of an increasingly opaque and poorly controlled defence policy.

When the Atlantic asked Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger in March why governments should spend millions on tanks when the Ukrainians have mastered cheap drone technology, he was withering: ‘This is not the technology of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics or Rheinmetall … It’s Ukrainian housewives. They have 3D printers in the kitchen and they produce parts for drones. This is not innovation.’ This response is indicative of Papperger’s self-assurance and ambition to compete with US giants several times his company’s size.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ‘historic turning point’ declared days later by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Bundestag’s vote to amend the constitutional debt brake, thereby enabling unlimited defence spending, have been a windfall for the conglomerate. And its chief executive’s satisfaction is growing in line with military expenditure, which is set to triple between 2022 and 2029, from €50.4bn a year to €153bn. Since 2022 Berlin has ordered 200 Leopard 2 tanks and 550 Boxer armoured personnel carriers; Rheinmetall supplies key components for both. Internal military projections envisage quantities five times higher in the years ahead.

Despite Papperger’s dismissal of drones, they raise serious questions about the future of armoured vehicles. ‘In a war of manoeuvre, you need the tank,’ says Ralf Raths, a military historian and director of the German Tank Museum in Munster. But the heavy tank’s days are numbered: ‘We’re moving towards combat systems that integrate several lighter, automated units.’ So why order so many tanks? ‘Because the Bundeswehr wants to be combat-ready as (…)

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(1) Björn Müller, ‘Verpasste Chancen – die neue Rüstungsstudie des Wirtschaftsministeriums’ (Missed opportunities: the economics ministry’s new defence industry study), 16 April 2024, www.pivotarea.eu/.

(2) ‘Europa allein zu Haus? Europas Sicherheitspolitik in Zeiten Donald Trumps’ (Europe home alone? European security policy in the Trump era), May 2026, www.greenpeace.de/.

(3) Patrick Keller and Max Becker, ‘Die Militärstrategie der Bundeswehr: Verantwortung für, aber nicht mit Europa’ (The Bundeswehr’s military strategy: responsibility for, but not with, Europe), DGAP, Berlin, 23 April 2026.