German Army Issue

The German Bundestag (the parliament) woke up yesterday and got disturbed over the German army and money spent.

You see.....between 2004 and 2014 (an entire decade)....there was roughly 125-million Euro spent on renovating infrastructure on various German army bases.....which shut down.  That got them all pepped up and angry at the present leadership (not the leadership of a decade ago, oddly enough).

Then they woke up again and realized that they will spend roughly 375-million Euro from now to 2022 on more German bases which are on another closure list.

It's an odd discussion.  The SPD and Greens (probably the Linke Party as well) were all hyped up two decades ago since the Wall came down.....to downsize the German military.  Less military.....less cost.

So around a decade ago....the downsizing game went into effect.  Certain bases were identified for closure shortly, and some several years in the future.  They've gone back to the list and added more bases, with more time-lines.

The thing is....you need these bases while in operational use....to be somewhat safe and useful.  Crafting an positive operational and budget plan for a base on a closure list....is next to impossible.  You have boilers that need replacement at certain times.....roofs that need complete renovation....and waterlines fixed when they break.  So simply putting a base on a list for closure in five years doesn't mean you spend zero on infrastructure situations for the five-year period.

When the Americans got ready to turn Rhein-Main Air Base over to the Germans.....there was a curious episode under way.  They'd already signed a construction contract to build the new clinic on the base.  So as the last eighteen months unfolded with the Americans there.....German crews were busy working on this clinic...which would never be used.  Canceling the contract?  You'd pay a fee, which was as much as the contract itself.  So a couple of months after most Americans had left.....it was supposedly handed over....but that stopped when serious electrical issues were noted in the building and the contractor had to be taken to court.....to force him to fix the issues. Needless to say....it took around eighteen months of court action to get over to a final point where the building was flipped to the Germans.  The building today (roughly 15 years later)?  Gone.  It was dismantled as part of the Flughafen's master plan of usage for the property.  Roughly 50-million for the construction project in the early 1990s, and gone today.

That's the problem with these closure lists and the guys trying to stay ahead of the game.  Someone suggests to fix a problem.....you plan out a project and get funding.....you sign the contracts and wait on the start.....someone comes up with a closure list....and you wake up to a significant problem of waste but you couldn't have known how things would play out.

So now?  A bunch of political thugs sit around and whine about this.  Course, one might ask them about the Berlin apartment episode in the 1990s where millions were wasted building special apartments for the incoming Bundestag members.....discovering that these were all without balconies and no one wanted to live in an apartment without a balcony.