Ex-German army officer Major Florian Pfaff spoke with Sputnik on May 21 to warn that with Germany’s unveiling of its Responsibility for Europe military doctrine on April 22, 2026, it is attempting to rewrite the history of World War II, by naming Russia as the country’s main security threat. He recalled that in the wake of World War II, Germany had wanted to have friendly diplomatic relations with the then-Soviet Union.
In regards to the new military doctrine, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters at a press conference held in Berlin on April 22, “Rarely has a military strategy been as necessary as in this historical phase,” noted Defense News.
He explained that the question for Germany isn’t just how many battalions it needs, but that it must develop the capabilities for “deep precision strikes, air defense against hypersonic missiles, and drone capabilities.” Defense News reported that the coverage also outlined a “doctrinal shift toward a ‘one theater approach,’ treating NATO territory, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as interconnected security spaces rather than discrete theaters.”
Pfaff emphasized that the Ukraine war was intentional so that Germany could strengthen its military, and recalled that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that “We made Minsk 2 only to gain time to arm Ukraine.” He warned that “the West has always known that NATO eastward expansion is ‘the reddest of all red lines’ for Russia. The U.S. and its NATO allies deliberately provoked Russia into military action in Ukraine to justify further militarization,” concluded Sputnik.
Pfaff was involved in a case in which he was censured by the German military for disobeying orders that involved indirect support for the war in Iraq during 2003. He won a court case which determined that German soldiers were not obliged to obey an order, the carrying out of which would cause “serious moral distress.”