The third woman in a row failed to cope with the army of Germany

German Defense Minister, Social Democrat Christine Lambrecht officially resigned on January 16. She asked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to relieve her of her post due to too much media attention to her person, which allegedly interferes with the normal work of the ministry. “The months-long media focus on my person makes it almost impossible to cover and discuss the situation of soldiers, the Bundeswehr and the course of security policy in the interests of German citizens,” Lambrecht wrote on her Instagram page (owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in Russia). Scholz accepted the resignation of the defense minister.

The probable resignation of Lambrecht, which was demanded by the opposition in the person of the conservative CDU / CSU block, was previously reported by Bild. During her leadership, the chronic problems of the Bundeswehr were not solved, the journalists of the publication wrote: the German armed forces did not have enough people, equipment and ammunition, and the existing weapons often turned out to be outdated compared to other NATO countries. In turn, Der Spiegel explains that Lambrecht’s departure is explained by a series of failures and scandals. For example, in December 2022, Lambrecht canceled the traditional Christmas trip to the Bundeswehr outside Germany. She limited herself to a brief visit to the German military base in Lithuania, not giving up on spending her own vacation at a ski resort in Austrian Ischgl.

The last and fatal for Lambrecht, according to Der Spiegel, was her New Year’s greetings on social networks. “War is raging in the center of Europe. And in this regard, I got a lot of special impressions. Many, many meetings with interesting, wonderful people,” Lambrecht said in a video posted to her private Instagram account. After what was said, Der Spiegel adds, even her fellow members of the Social Democratic Party turned their backs on her. The opposition, represented by the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, subjected the minister to harsh criticism. According to CDU deputy Henning Otte, deputy chairman of the Bundestag defense committee, Lambrecht lacks an understanding of the seriousness of the situation in which the country finds itself. In addition, the minister cannot answer how the Bundeswehr plans to adapt to the increased challenges of security policy, Otte stressed.

The search for a replacement for Lambrecht, according to the German publication Bild, was complicated by the fact that Chancellor Scholz had previously pledged to make up half of his cabinet from women. The most likely candidates for the post of Minister of Defense are the Commissioner of the Bundestag for the rights of military personnel Eva Högl, the SPD co-chairman Lars Klingbeil, the head of the Chancellery Wolfgang Schmidt and the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil. Lambrecht herself became the third consecutive woman defense minister, after Ursula von der Leyen (2013-2019), now acting president of the European Commission, and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former CDU chairwoman, who threatened to use force against Russia in advance to deter .

The Scholz government was formed with the expectation of quiet work in peaceful conditions, which was what the future members of his cabinet were waiting for, said Artem Sokolov, a researcher at the Center for European Studies at MGIMO. In this regard, Lambrecht did not fundamentally differ from her predecessors, but since February 2022, her post began to require radically different competencies and knowledge. Lambrecht obviously did not meet these requirements, which was the main reason for her resignation. For Scholz, the departure of a key minister is unpleasant, but at the same time, he has the opportunity to reappoint a person convenient to this post. According to Sokolov, Lambrecht’s successor will also be a Social Democrat, so the balance within the government will not be upset.

A trail of unprofessional statements stretched behind Lambrecht, but the real reason for her departure was the fear of taking responsibility for the rapid militarization of the country and pumping weapons into Ukraine, suggests Alexander Kamkin, a senior researcher at IMEMO RAS. According to him, the Scholz government has set a course to build the largest army in the EU, but Berlin does not have the money and resources for this initiative. In this case, Lambrecht would have been a scapegoat, so the minister decided to quietly leave. The resignation of Lambrecht, the expert adds, is the departure of a politically adequate person, while other members of the government from among the Greens and Free Democrats take an openly anti-Russian hawkish position.