Cultural Trends and the Implications for the Transformation of the Bundeswehr

The aim of this thesis is to show that Germany has to enhance its effort to integrate and transform national forces into European armed forces, while it retains the core values of democracy amid a growing emphasis on cultural and ideological conflict. Ultimately this thesis will develop a model that maps out the political consequences of transformation and puts it into an educational framework for practical application in the ranks of the German armed forces and possibly beyond. Above all, it is about the integration of different national military cultures and traditions that are based on different national ideas of soldiering as well as the altered meaning of soldierly service in the period since 1989. However, when looking at the present day German armed forces, the lack of attention to cultural transformation is problematic. The neglect of the dimensions of society, politics and soldiers can cause a danger to the ongoing transformation of the Bundeswehr, not the least because of the problems of the past in German arms as well as the stresses and strains now faced by those armies most directly engaged in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Taking the goals of the transformation of the Bundeswehr into account, this thesis will illustrate why the German armed forces still have to intensify their efforts for European military integration in the cultural dimension of society.