Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards 2026, live | Svetlana Alexievich, Sergi...

The Germans cannot escape their past. But the invasion of Ukraine, the resurgence of the Russian threat and the unpredictable US policy towards Europe and NATO have prompted the rearmament of a nation traditionally reluctant to occupy a military leadership role due to its history and which now sees it necessary to confront its ghosts and have a strong army. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has a clear objective: to have the strongest Army in Europe in the future. To this end, the Government plans to increase defense spending to 179.9 billion euros in 2030 to modernize all equipment that had become obsolete since the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany in 1990, as well as to increase the number of active soldiers to 260,000 by 2035, from the current 185,000. Germany is the fourth country in the world with the highest spending behind the US, China and Russia, according to the annual report of the analysis center Sipri (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Germany has experienced two recent decisive moments for this radical change: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which led the then chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to proclaim the Zeitenwende, a change of era, in 2022, and the decision of the current head of the Government, Friedrich Merz, to lift the debt brake to increase military spending. But how to accept this change of direction in a country that unleashed World War II and was