‘No longer an exercise, but an operation’
The Bundeswehr says this year’s Quadriga manoeuvre, which continues until March, is no longer purely an exercise; it is a “mission-ready operation”. Military trainings are now run in public spaces.
BERLIN (own report) – The current Quadriga war exercise, which will continue until March, is no longer being conducted “purely as an exercise”. Rather, it is being run as a “mission-ready operation”, according to the German Armed Forces. Quadriga manoeuvres have been conducted each year since 2024. They rehearse a war against Russia and, this year, includes military exercises in Germany, Lithuania, the North Sea and the Baltic. A transition is taking place, moving from fictitious training exercise scenarios to a “mission-ready operation”. To this end, the Bundeswehr is increasingly shifting its manoeuvre activities in Germany from military training areas to civilian areas. This deployment last year already resulted in injuries. During a recent Bundeswehr manoeuvre “in a public space”, officials had to hand out claim forms to the civilian population for “compensation for damage caused during exercises”. Germany’s written constitution, the Basic Law, allows proper military operations by the army on domestic territory only in exceptional circumstances, including a state of tension (Spannungsfall). Parallel to a rapid expansion of manoeuvres and exercises across Germany, there has been a stark change in official language: the word ‘war’, which until a few years ago was nowhere to be found in public statements, is increasingly finding its way into discourse of politicians and the mainstream media. War against Russia has become an openly discussed real scenario for the future.
Quadriga 2026
According to the Bundeswehr, the area of operations for this year’s Quadriga manoeuvre covers Germany, Lithuania, the North Sea and the Baltic. Around 1,000 troops are involved, including personnel from other countries. Compared to the large-scale manoeuvres of previous years, this is a small number. Quadriga 2024, for example, involved 12,000 military personnel. The focus this time is reportedly on the “short-term deployment of combat-ready forces via all transport routes” to Lithuania, thus deploying towards Russia’s western border.[1] The Bundeswehr has stationed troops in Lithuania since 2017. This presence has been significantly ramped up over the last few years and is now Germany’s first permanent military base on foreign territory.[2] According to the Bundeswehr, the army forces it is deploying to Lithuania are “so heavily armed that they can hold their own even against a strong enemy”. Part of the 2026 exercise involves not only the rapid eastward deployment at short notice but also the “immediate testing of operational readiness as a joint combat force” as well as the transfer of wounded personnel from the eastern front back to Germany into the civilian health service. The Bundeswehr also says that, as part of the manoeuvre, special forces are being trained in “urban and maritime special operations” with a view to a war with Russia.[3]
Aligned to a common objective
Until now, such manoeuvres have generally been assigned to one of the armed services, i.e. explicitly designed as naval, army or air force manoeuvres. In this year’s Quadriga, the leadership units of the armed services are being integrated into the Bundeswehr’s overarching operational command, which was established two years ago, and will direct Quadriga manoeuvres from this year onwards. The head of Operational Command, Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, explains that he is now able to “align the forces and capabilities of the Bundeswehr to a single objective, a military impact”. The Operational Command not only ensures that the individual branches of the armed forces are closely networked, but also that the army as a whole is interconnected with “civilian security agencies such as the federal police and customs”.[4]
No longer fictitious
This year, Quadriga is, as the Bundeswehr itself puts it, for the first time “no longer purely an exercise, but designed as a mission-ready operation. This means that training is as close as possible to a real warfare situation – without long lead times and fictitious parameters.”[5] Indeed, the NATO manoeuvres Steadfast Dart, with which Quadriga is “closely linked”, is also no longer based on a “fictitious exercise scenario”. It is officially announced as being “planned and conducted as an operation”.[6] This means that the support provided by German soldiers to NATO’s allied reaction force during NATO’s mission-ready operations right across Europe is not “part of an exercise” but “provided as real support”, claims the Bundeswehr. This suggests that the number of soldiers actually participating in the manoeuvre is higher than the number officially given for Quadriga 2026. After NATO troops have completed their movements, they will attach themselves to the Bundeswehr’s Quadriga manoeuvre.[7]
Military operations in public spaces
Independently of Quadriga activities, a German tank brigade with 1,200 soldiers and 280 wheeled and tracked vehicles is undergoing training until the middle of this week in a so-called “free-play combat exercise” (Brave Lion 2026) near Lüneburg. The Bundeswehr says it is in action “both on public roads and off-road”, and that “training ammunition ... will be used”. The army is asking the local population for their understanding and caution. The combat exercise is part of the “ongoing measures to establish combat readiness by 2029”.[8] From 11 to 23 January, the Bundeswehr had already declared the entire Potsdam-Mittelmark district a military training area for two weeks. The exercise included the use of ammunition in public spaces. The local press distributed application forms for the public to claim “compensation for damage caused during the exercise”.[9] Last November, German soldiers in Berlin were reportedly training in “counter-sabotage” and “urban warfare” in “public spaces”. Troops were even ordered to storm Berlin’s Jungfernheide underground station.[10]
Live ammunition
Previously, Bundeswehr soldiers had fired blank ammunition at police officers during an exercise in public spaces in October. They mistook the police presence for part of the exercise. The police officers had actually been called out in response to an emergency call from a civilian who reported seeing a heavily armed masked man, not realising he was a manoeuvre participant. A police officer fired back with live ammunition during the incident, hitting and injuring a soldier.[11] A month before that, the Bundeswehr had conducted training exercises in Hamburg’s harbour and city centre. Pictures of the action show roadblocks being set up by pretend demonstrators as part of the military exercise.[12]
Not fully at war – yet
Germany’s Bundeswehr and Ministry of Defence have remained silent on the question of the constitutional basis for an army increasingly conducting military operations in public spaces within the Federal Republic. The potential damage to civilian life and limb from so-called “free-play exercises” is considerable. A way of resolving this is to declare a “state of tension”, i.e. a constitutional pre-emergency phase in which the military are granted wide-ranging powers. This was called for back in the autumn by Roderich Kiesewetter, the hawkish CDU defence policy spokesman with deep connections into Germany’s military policy circles. Kiesewetter, a former Bundeswehr colonel who has held leadership positions in the Reservist Association and the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS), among other roles, raised this prospect in response to alleged Russian drone incursions. At the time, Chancellor Friedrich Merz and leading intelligence officials raised the temperature by referring to hybrid warfare by Russia with no proof. Merz declared that Germany was “no longer entirely at peace, nor yet entirely at war”. In fact this phrase had already been fed into public discourse back in 2022 by the current Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, Carsten Breuer.[13] The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Sinan Selen, argues that Russia’s alleged “hybrid attacks” are characterised precisely by the fact that there is no proof of Russian perpetrators.[14] This, of course, turns accusations into evidence, and blurs the line between the activities of German citizens and those of foreign agents conducting sabotage.
‘Can you make war?’
Last year, Bundeswehr Inspector General Breuer declared in a “dialogue with citizens” that Germany needed to talk frankly about war again: “We had suppressed use of that W-word. We didn’t want it anymore.” For Breuer, times have changed. He asked, “Are you ready to defend yourselves? Are you fit for war? Can you make war? Can we make war?”[15] Instead of the formally fictitious and diplomatically vague scenarios of previous large-scale manoeuvres, the Bundeswehr is now treating war with Russia as a very real scenario for the future. Meanwhile, mainstream media are discussing war as a viable option. “How would Germany operate in war?” is the title of a programme on the public service radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. In a report entitled “What happens when Germany is at war?”, the Bavarian Broadcasting Company (BR) tells viewers how best to prepare for war: “Keep a few basics at home. Arrange with your family where to meet if the worst comes to the worst,” the explanatory video flippantly suggests. “Because the alternative – surrendering or burying your head in the sand – is not an option.”
[1] Quadriga 2026. bundeswehr.de.
[2] See: A new era.
[3] Quadriga 2026. bundeswehr.de.
[4] „Wir wissen täglich mehr darüber, wer uns wie bedroht“. bundeswehr.de 08.10.2025.
[5] Quadriga 2026. bundeswehr.de.
[6] Steadfast Dart. bundeswehr.de.
[7] Quadriga 2026. bundeswehr.de.
[8] Panzerbrigade 12: Freilaufende Übung Brave Lion 2026. soldat-und-technik.de 20.01.2026.
[9] Munitionseinsätze geplant: Bundeswehrübungen in Potsdam-Mittelmark. Märkische Allgemeine 06.01.2026.
[10] Bollwerk Bärlin. bundeswehr.de.
[11] Polizei schießt auf Soldaten – wie konnte es dazu kommen? dbwv.de 24.10.2025.
[12] See: Hamburg im Krieg.
[13] „Nicht mehr ganz Frieden, aber auch noch nicht Krieg“. dbwv.de 13.10.2022.
[14] See: Kriegstüchtige Geheimdienste.
[15] Der General und die Zeitenwende. NDR-Doku vom 13.10.2025. Also see: Kriegstüchtige Geheimdienste.
