The 58-year-old has had a steep career in the German Armed Forces.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The last enemy that Carsten Breuer was supposed to help fight was microscopic. In November 2021, the then designated Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) presented the two-star general as head of the new Corona crisis team, which was supposed to get the sluggish vaccination campaign going.
The officer, who joined the Bundeswehr in 1984, apparently did his job in the Federal Chancellery so well that he recommended himself for higher positions. Because now the 58-year-old, who was promoted to lieutenant general last October and received his third star on his shoulder board, is about to take the next step in his career: Breuer is to replace Eberhard Zorn as inspector general and thus become the highest-ranking general in the Bundeswehr.
The Sauerland has long been considered a man for difficult tasks. He set up the new Territorial Command, which he has been in charge of since last year. After the experiences with the devastating floods in the Ahr valley, the threads come together there in the disaster relief.
The commander also directs domestic operations of the Bundeswehr and is responsible for the movement of troops from friendly nations through Germany.
After a visit to the leadership command in Berlin at the end of February, the chancellor expressed his satisfaction with the performance of the troops and Breuer’s work: “My impression today: you are succeeding here in organizing alliance and national defense quickly and efficiently in such a way that we are armed against threats ‘ Scholz wrote on Twitter.
A trained educator becomes the most important military adviser to the federal government
Breuer began his military career in the army air defense, which was dissolved in 2012 and is sorely missed in the Bundeswehr today. After the general staff training in Hamburg, he held various command posts in the army air defense and the armored infantry. The trained pedagogue was a staff officer in the Ministry of Defense in Bonn and in the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Under department head Ursula von der Leyen, he headed the politics sub-department in the Ministry of Defense in Berlin. It was also von der Leyen who made Breuer the project officer for the new “White Paper 2016”. In it, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, the security policy guidelines for the coming years were formulated.
As the 17th Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, the officer will be the Federal Government’s most important military adviser in the future. In addition, he is then part of the management of the Ministry of Defense as the highest military representative.
Lieutenant General Carsten Breuer (right) at the New Year’s reception by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
(Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen)
There had been speculation for a long time about a replacement of Zorns, who has been the inspector general of the Bundeswehr since April 2018. After the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) initially left the 63-year-old in office.
The new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) is now likely to hope that Breuer will support him in implementing the “turning point” and provide impetus for reforming the armed forces. Pistorius explained in an interview with “Spiegel” in mid-February that he had made the experience that one should not make decisions about personnel in the first three or four weeks in office. He prefers to look at the processes and “decide after careful consideration whether and what changes may need to be made”.
>> Read here: White Paper on Security Policy: Dramatic turning point in the Bundeswehr
Apparently, Pistorius has now come to the conclusion that there needs to be a personnel change at the top of the Bundeswehr. Breuer will also have the task of keeping special requests from his subordinate generals within bounds in future military procurements, which in the past have often made armaments projects lengthy and expensive.
The military commissioner Eva Högl said on Tuesday that Breuer, whom she knows well, was a decision by Minister Pistorius, who wanted to set accents. If the change is accompanied by an acceleration of the necessary reforms, then she will be very happy.
The main task of the new inspector general will be to realign the army, which has been trimmed for years for foreign missions, more towards national and alliance defense. The Russian annexation of Crimea had already shown that this area had been neglected too much, Breuer said last fall in the Bundeswehr video format “Demand”. In the future, it will again be about “having to think about the war in Germany, being able to think about it, so that it doesn’t happen”.
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