Hi.
Too tired for a proper reply, here's just some rambling. Do ask again in deutsch/pol/ if you want though,I never miss a chance to bitch and moan about the Bundeswehr.
Moral IS shit, and history isn't even the biggest issue. People got somewhat upset when ALL our songs got banned (Including the beloved "Panzerlied" for the tankers, and "Rot Scheint Die Sonne" and "Grüne Teufel" for the paratroopers). But what's more important is that we have basically no material at all. It starts with stuff like tanks and fighter jets, but goes all the way down to simple shit like armored vests, night-vision googles and winter wear. If you only get to train once or maybe twice a year, and that only after a gargantuan effort is made to consolidate vehicles from all over Germany, it just really drains moral. If you WANT to be a soldier, if you WANT to be trained well, and HARD, but 99% of the time you're damned to stew in your barracks, it just fucks you up. If you're training with other nations, and you're running around in a uniform that's older than you, carrying a radio that was outdated during the Vietnam war and wearing a webbing belt (and not even a west or, godforbid!, a plate carrier) that was introduced during the late 80s, you just feel like a joke. None of this is an exaggeration by the way.
Don't think we even teach any military history to recruits (or anything else, really) anymore . Back when I was in basic training, which I did with the Fallschirmjäger, we were taught quite a bit about the famous battles of our "ancestors", such as Monte Cassino and Eben-Email, but even back then it was a very grey area, and with the new guideline about traditions that was published last year I can't imagine them still doing that.
The military history, or what is considered tradition of the Bundeswehr, is also incedibly retarded. The Wehrmacht and the Imperial Army are not part of it at all, but Prussian reformers like Moltke and Scharnhorst are, yet the Franco-Prussian war or the Unification wars or even the liberation wars are not. The Wehrmacht, sure, but why not the Kaiser's army? And why include a selection of Prussian genereals, but not the wars or armies they fought in?
It gets even more complicated, because, while the Wehrmacht is taboo, and it is explicitly said that "mere military competence is not enough when it is in service of a dictatorship" (paraphrased) Rommel is still considered a role-model and bases are named after him.
Now, you might have noticed, what IS considered our military tradition doesn't include any actual battles or even combat at all. What kind of military culture can be founded on that?
(1/2)
Attached: berlin.jpg (832x1280, 280.59K)