The Bundeswehr is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Bundeswehr is divided into a military part and a civil part, the military part consisting of the German Army, the German Navy, the German Air Force, the Joint Support Service, the Joint Medical Service, and the Cyber and Information Domain Service.
The German Army is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German Bundeswehr together with the Marine and the Luftwaffe. As of January 2022, the German Army had a strength of 62,766 soldiers.
The Iceland Defense Force was a military command of the United States Armed Forces from 1951 to 2006. The IDF, created at the request of NATO, came into existence when the United States signed an agreement to provide for the defense of Iceland, which has only limited defense forces.
Exercise Campaign Reforger was an annual military exercise and campaign conducted by NATO during the Cold War. The exercise was intended to ensure that NATO had the ability to quickly deploy forces to West Germany in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. Although most troops deployed were from the United States, the operation also involved a substantial number of troops from other NATO countries including Canada and the United Kingdom. It was a basic military planning exercise to smooth out issues in the event of an invasion of western Europe, and not a show of force. Once the Cold War ended, it was superseded by other exercises.
The Allied Command Europe Mobile Force (AMF) was a small NATO quick reaction force, headquartered at Heidelberg, Germany, active from 1960 to 2002. It formed part of Allied Command Europe (ACE), headquartered at SHAPE at Casteau, Belgium. The land component of the force, consisting of a brigade-sized formation of about 5,000 personnel, was composed of units from 14 NATO states.
Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1) is one of NATO's standing naval maritime immediate reaction forces. SNMG1 consists of four to six destroyers and frigates. Its role is to provide NATO with an immediate operational response capability.
The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a high-readiness NATO rapid deployment force comprising land, sea, air, and special forces units capable of being deployed quickly within short notice. The NRF currently comprises more than 100,000 troops, with plans to increase its manpower to over 300,000 troops. Its forces include units from several non-NATO member partners, including Ukraine, and Georgia. Its forces also include units from Sweden, which joined the Response Force in 2013 and became a NATO member in 2024.
Adolf Bruno Heinrich Ernst Heusinger was a German military officer whose career spanned the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, West Germany and NATO. He joined the German Army as a volunteer in 1915 and later became a professional soldier. He served as the Operations Chief within the general staff of the High Command of the German Army in the Wehrmacht from 1938 to 1944. He was then appointed acting Chief of the General Staff for two weeks in 1944 following Kurt Zeitzler's resignation. That year, Heusinger was accused of involvement in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but was cleared by the People's Court. Heusinger was later appointed head of the military cartography office when the war ended. He later became a general for West Germany and served as head of the West German military from 1957 to 1961 as well as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1961 to 1964.
Nordic Response is a military exercise hosted by Norway with other NATO and invited Partnership for Peace countries held every other year.
With a contingent of 4,350 soldiers and policemen, Germany was one of the main contributors of troops to coalition operations in Afghanistan. Although German troops mainly operated in the comparatively quiet north of the country, the Bundeswehr suffered a number of casualties during participation in the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan.
The 10th Panzer Division is an armoured division of the German Army, part of the Bundeswehr. Its staff is based at Veitshöchheim. The division is a unit of the German Army's stabilization forces and specializes in conflicts of low intensity.
Harald Kujat is a German retired General of the Luftwaffe. He served as Chief of Staff of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, from 2000 to 2002, and as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2002 to 2005.
Lechfeld Air Base is a German Air Force (Luftwaffe) base located 1 km east of Lagerlechfeld in Bavaria, about 20 km south of Augsburg on the Bundestrasse 17.
The Bundeswehr Cross of Honour for Valour is the highest military decoration of the Bundeswehr. It is the highest class of the Bundeswehr Cross of Honour. The decoration is the first combat valour award presented by Germany since World War II.
Neuburg Air Base is a military air base in Germany. It is located in the district of Neuburg-Schrobenhausen on the Danube River, approximately 20 km west-southwest of Ingolstadt. Its primary user is Jagdgeschwader 74 of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), which provides air defence for Southern Germany. Since 2006 Eurofighter Typhoons have been operated from the base. Although Neuburg is the smallest fighter aircraft base in the Bundeswehr, the air base was virtually unaffected by the Bundeswehr reform announced in 2011.
The transformation of the United States Army is part of a strategy using Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). In 2019, the planning was for Large Scale ground Combat Operations at echelons above the brigade combat team. Multi-Domain Task Forces operate in a combatant commander's theater.
The Multinational CIMIC Command, is the fourth generation of Civil-military co-operation of the Bundeswehr. The first predecessor was already formed in 2001 out of parts of the German Army (Heer), the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and the German Navy (Deutsche Marine) as part of the Joint Support Service (Streitkräftebasis) at the Clausewitz-Barracks in Nienburg, Lower Saxony. In 2017 it employs around 200 soldiers and Civil Servants Additional to this the centre receives support by the local state commands (Landeskommando) of the States of Germany (Bundesländer) and the academy of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance in Bad Neuenahr.
Air Defender 23 is the name of a major maneuver of armed forces of member states of NATO and other European countries in European airspace in 2023. It lasted 10 days, from 12 June to 23 June 2023. Although Air Defender 23 was not an exercise of NATO, but initiated by the Bundeswehr, it was the largest exercise of air forces announced since NATO was founded. The maneuver took place in the airspace of the Federal Republic of Germany, under the leadership of the German Air Force. It involved up to 10,000 soldiers and 250 aircraft from 25 countries.
Steadfast Defender is the name of a series of NATO exercises. The latest exercise, being held in 2024, is the largest since the Cold War. The first one was held in 2021, and they are planned to be held every three years.
