Big tattoo and final roll call: soldiers celebrated in Berlin after the end of the Afghanistan mission
Big tattoo and closing roll call
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Soldiers honored after the end of the Afghanistan mission celebrated in Berlin
Tens of thousands of German soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan. THEY were celebrated on Wednesday by the leaders of the state – ALTHOUGH THE record of the commitment is ambivalent even on this day of honor.
With a big tattoo in front of the Berlin Reichstag building on Wednesday the Bundeswehr’s 20-year Afghanistan mission is the highest ceremony of the German armed forces, on the evening around 200 soldiers for all Afghanistan veterans participation.
The honors began in the early afternoon with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Bundeswehr memorial in the Bendlerblock to commemorate the members of the Bundeswehr who were killed in the operations. The central closing roll call will take place in the afternoon at the Federal Ministry of Defense. In his speech, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier drew a mixed assessment of the Afghanistan mission.
“Questions about the meaning of this mission”
At the closing roll call, Steinmeier said that it was right to proclaim the NATO alliance case in 2001 and go to Afghanistan. However, it was not possible to build stable state structures. “Twenty years after September 11th and two months after the fall of Kabul, many people who died in Afghanistan have served and suffered questions. Questions about the meaning of this mission,” said Steinmeier. He paid tribute to the soldiers’ work in Afghanistan. “The Bundeswehr did everything that politicians told it to do.”
This is followed by a reception in the Bundestag at the invitation of Parliament President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU). He thanked the soldiers on behalf of Parliament. “The assignment we placed could not be fulfilled as we had hoped,” he said. “It wasn’t because of them. Parliament must also look for and name the reasons for this. And it must draw conclusions from them.”
The Greens, the FDP and the Left are calling for an investigative committee of the Bundestag to come to terms with the Afghanistan mission.
Votes for and against the ceremony
There had been discussions about the big tattoo beforehand. Originally, the Bundeswehr only planned a public roll call at the Bendlerblock. However, there were increasing voices – including from politics – demanding greater appreciation of the soldiers.
Criticism came from the left. This big tattoo was completely out of place, the Afghanistan mission completely failed, said the left-wing defense expert Tobias Pflüger. Organizations from the peace movement not only demanded the cancellation, but also the general renunciation of this ritual. In view of the countless victims, the killed Bundeswehr soldiers and the situation in Afghanistan, this form of appreciation of the mission is “completely inappropriate”, according to an appeal to the Defense Minister from August, which was published by 24 organizations.
Most recently 1,100 Bundeswehr soldiers in Afghanistan
During the operation in Afghanistan, the US was originally supposed to receive military support after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In January 2002 the first forces arrived in the Afghan capital Kabul. According to the Federal Ministry of Defense, around 93,000 soldiers were in Afghanistan – sometimes several times – and 59 of them lost their lives there.
First, it was intended to keep the peace in mind, but then it became a combat mission against the insurgent Taliban. Most recently, the core mission of the NATO troops was the training of Afghan armed forces.
The Bundeswehr had recently pushed the withdrawal significantly when, after the US government under President Joe Biden had accelerated the withdrawal. Before the relocation began in May, 1,100 men and women of the Bundeswehr were still in the country.
After the withdrawal of the international troops, the militant Islamist Taliban quickly seized power and the Bundeswehr launched a worldwide evacuation mission for German citizens and endangered Afghans from Kabul.
Broadcast: evening show, October 13th, 2021, 7:30 p.m.
Correction: In an earlier version of this article, 160,000 soldiers were mentioned who were deployed in Afghanistan. In fact, it was 93,000. Since some of them flew to Afghanistan several times, “arithmetically the sum is 160,000,” they said Declaration by the Bundeswehr [bundeswehr.de].
