Germany’s rearmament strategy is relying on missiles, drones, and air defence systems provided by Israel. Photo / Getty Images
It was the moment that marked an extraordinary new partnership between the descendants of a genocidal regime and its victims.
At the G7 summit in June, Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, was challenged by a reporter about Israel’s ferocious bombardment of Tehran in the Israel-Iran war.
“Das ist die Drecksarbeit, die Israel macht, für uns alle,” Merz replied, with a stony glare at his interviewer: “Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us”.
To German ears, it was an unusually blunt and bellicose remark for a post-war chancellor.
But it revealed something quite profound about Merz’s world view: that Germany’s security now depends on Jews, the very people it once sought to annihilate.
Merz, the leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), has vowed that Germany is “back” as he draws up plans to build “the strongest conventional army in Europe” to confront Russia.
The former banking executive has reversed decades of underinvestment in the Bundeswehr (German armed forces), which once sent soldiers on an exercise with broomsticks instead of guns, by passing reforms that allow potentially unlimited defence spending.
His coalition is also trying to pass a new law conscripting young men into the Army by lottery and is working through a €377 billion ($771b) “wish list” of new equipment for the Bundeswehr.
But what is perhaps most striking about Germany’s rearmament strategy is the extent to which it will rely on missiles, drones, and air defence systems provided by Israel.
Eighty years on from the Holocaust, senior Israeli defence officials have told the Telegraph they are not only playing a key role in Germany’s new rearmament policy, but are “proud” to do so.
MPs in Merz’s party also told the Telegraph that Germany had become “hugely dependent” on Israeli defence technology, as it faces increased aggression from both Russia and the Iranian regime.
Leaked copies of the German wish list for rearmament state that €700m has been earmarked for self-detonating drones produced by the Israeli arms firm Elbit. A further €100m is also being set aside for Israeli ammunition to be used in Germany’s fleet of Heron drones, made by Israel Aerospace Industries.
Two versions of the list were leaked earlier this month, to the German investigative news outlet Correctiv and the American news website Politico. Germany’s Defence Ministry has declined to comment on its contents.
The disclosure follows a €2b deal between Israel and Germany in October to supply the Bundeswehr with Spike anti-tank missiles.
The deal is a joint venture between two German arms firms and Israeli company Rafael and is reportedly one of the largest European deals the latter has ever signed.
On the ground, Berlin is already reliant on Israel for intelligence. Last month, three suspected members of a Hamas cell were arrested in Berlin for allegedly plotting attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Germany.
Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, has said the raid was made possible largely because of an “extensive” operation it has been running across Europe.
Before the rise of Merz, Germany was starting to lean heavily on Israel to provide some of its most important new weapons systems.
In September 2023, under then Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Germany signed a €4b deal to buy the Israeli Arrow 3 air defence system, which can destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles such as Russia’s RS Sarmats.
Senior Israeli defence officials have hailed this trend as a reversal of their shared mid-20th century history, when German technology was being used to exterminate European Jews.
“The fact that Germany now relies on Israeli capabilities to defend its citizens carries deep historical resonance and stands as a testament to how our relationship is defined not by past wounds but by a shared commitment to prevent their return,” said Major General Amir Baram, the director-general of the Israeli Defence Ministry.
“As Germany undertakes a significant rearmament effort, we are proud that Israeli combat-proven systems – from Arrow 3 missile defence to Heron UAVs – are helping to shape the new Bundeswehr.”
Germany’s Holocaust guilt is a particularly sensitive issue for Merz, whose maternal grandfather was a Nazi party member and mayor of the west German town of Brilon during the early years of the Third Reich.
The Telegraph uncovered Nazi-era documents from Brilon earlier this year which showed that the Chancellor’s grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, was praised for his “National Socialist spirit” in a town circular. During his tenure, two streets in Brilon were renamed as “Adolf-Hitler-Strasse” and “Hermann-Goring-Strasse”.
The depth of emotion Merz feels over German war guilt became clear in a recent speech at the reopening of the Reichenbachstrasse synagogue in Munich, which was desolated by a 1938 Nazi pogrom. As he spoke of the “systematic, industrialised extermination of the Jewish people”, the Chancellor burst into tears.
The moment that caused the flood of emotion was a section of his speech praising Jews who have made Germany their home once again, despite it once being the architect of the Holocaust.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a senior MP from Merz’s party, said he could understand why it might cause surprise that Israel is so heavily involved in German rearmament, considering their history.
“However, it is strategically and politically very important, especially on an emotional level of international understanding, that Israel is now helping Germany to rearm,” he said.
“Germany is hugely dependent on Israeli technologies and developments, particularly in the areas of drone technology, reconnaissance, and air defence.
“Germany also benefits greatly from intelligence co-operation, which has already prevented many terrorist attacks here.”
He added: “It’s not just about technology, it’s also about the lessons learned from history. While Germany’s focus was on ‘never again war’, Israel’s was on ‘never again defenceless’. That’s why Israel has an enormously strong security culture and a powerful army and security service.”
Merz’s Government has been accused of turning a blind eye to the charge that Israel is committing genocide and manufacturing famine in the Gaza Strip, allegations that Israel denies.
His Government has also endured moments of tension with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, such as Berlin’s decision in August to pause deliveries of weapons to Israel that would be used in Gaza.
Merz said at the time that he was finding it “increasingly difficult to understand” Israel’s war goals in Gaza, where some 62,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to statistics from the United Nations and the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
There was speculation that he was trying to appease dissenters in his coalition, who felt their support for Israel needed to be tempered with at least some criticism of the scale of destruction in Gaza.
Merz also said in May: “Harming the civilian population to such an extent, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism”.
Israel issued a muted and reflective response to the criticisms, in contrast with its penchant for energetic rebuttals against those who take issue with their methods.
“When Friedrich Merz raises this criticism of Israel, we listen very carefully because he is a friend,” was the reaction from Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to Berlin.
What is perhaps more telling is the fact that Merz’s Gaza arms embargo has had little impact on his own appetite for advanced Israeli technology; if anything, it has increased.
Germany’s €2b Spike missile deal with Israel, for example, was signed just weeks after the partial embargo was announced.
And so, Merz’s war machine marches on.
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