"Einsatzgruppen"

According to recent media reports, also designated to participate in the navy's "combat mission" (Defense Minister Jung) are four speedboats, three minesweepers, a communications espionage ship, the frigates, "Mecklenburg-Vorpommern" and the "Karlsruhe," as well as, the "Einsatzgruppenversorger" Frankfurt am Main".[1] With the claim that they want to prevent arms smuggling along the Lebanese coast, Jung has demanded a mandate of the UN and the Lebanese government to be allowed to seize ships: "German soldiers must be authorized, to board ships, even against the captain's will", he told the German press.[2] The military capacity to do this has already been developed: through military operations and maneuvers, in the company of so-called EGVs, the German navy has accumulated experience both in seizing vessels, as well as, supplying the combat fleet under wartime conditions.

Search and destroy

During the maneuver "Destroyer Exercise" (DESEX), carried out in mid-2005 in the North Sea, the crew of the EGV "Frankfurt am Main" exercised the defense against a submarine attack, while the accompanying frigates practiced "searching" for and "destroying" the submarine. Inversely, the "Frankfurt" was given the task of supplying a German submarine. In another maneuver, with a simulated heavy attack with extensive destruction, the "Frankfurt" was still able to refuel two ships of the fleet.[3] According to a participant, a "highlight" of the maneuver, was the so-called boarding exercise. The "Frankfurt" played the role of a civilian cargo vessel, that was boarded by a military commando from a speed boat, in search of "illegal goods".[4] The "Frankfurt," whose home port is Kiel, and its sister ship "Berlin" (home port: Wilhelmshaven) temporarily participated, in the course of "Operation Enduring Freedom," off the Horn of Africa, in the monitoring and control of international sea routes.[5]

World-Wide Area of Operations

For the German government's military policy strategy, according to navy spokesmen, the so-called "EGVs" are of crucial importance, because for the German navy, they enable the use of the oceans as an "omnipresent, world-wide area of operations and deployment".[6] These huge ships can remain at sea for up to 45 days and thereby save the other assigned combat vessels from having to make port calls, without logistical problems. Until recently, German naval combat units had to go ashore, at the latest, after 21 days. A supplementary increase in combat strength is guaranteed by the ship's casualty ward ("naval deployment rescue centers"), which are aboard the so-called EGVs. They are capable of treating up to 50 wounded soldiers simultaneously, patching them up to return to battle. The "EGVs" provide valuable maritime logistical support to combat forces in "on shore operations." The German military boasts of it being a floating High Tech Base, that has sophisticated "command and communications infrastructure", at the ready.[7]

Expeditionary Navy

The acquisition of the "EGVs," introduced in 2001 and 2002 into service, is based on demands made by the German admiralty in the 1960s. But the political and military policy makers found it opportune to fulfill these demands, only after the end of the east-west conflict, at the beginning of the 90s. The navy - like all other branches of the military - has since been systematically re-equipped to become an arm of a world-wide intervention and occupation force (an "expeditionary navy"). According to Navy Inspector, Vice Admiral Wolfgang Nolting, the crux of the matter is "to use the sea as a base, in cooperation with all forces, to obtain the desired effect in a targeted country." The measures which are to be used to achieve this effect, range from "demonstrative presence and intelligence operations," "support of allied ground forces or deployed maritime contingents" to "direct combat intervention." Besides, according to Nolting, in light of "Germany's maritime dependence," it is necessary to protect sea routes and navigation against attacks and plots ("perennial asymmetrical threat") - dangers, that would only intensify in the probable case of engagement in a "conflict".[8] The navy inspector's considerations correspond to the demands of government affiliated, military policy think tanks, who call for the monitoring and control over international maritime navigation routes.[9]

Civilian and humanitarian

Even though the "EGVs" are explicitly conceived to provide the necessary "staying power" at sea for naval combat forces and the logistical support for expedition forces on land, officials continue to speak of floating hospitals. This aspect of the "EGVs" have, on the one hand, made it possible to send this unit into crisis regions, without a previous vote of parliament ("humanitarian tasks"), while, on the other hand, providing for the integration of feigned, civilian relief organizations into military operations. Thus, in early 2005, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) participated in the deployment of the "Berlin" off the coast of Indonesia, where an "intervention camera team" of the unit for psychological warfare ("operational information") went ashore.[10] In the same year, under contract of the Bundeswehr, the THW tested the "Faster 650", general-purpose boat, that is used by the navy's "EGVs" for "amphibious landing of material and personnel" on the coast of the respective "country of deployment".[11]

Multifunctional Weapon

Thus the so-called "Einsatzgruppenversorgers" have already proven efficient as military and propagandistic multifunctional weapons. The German navy's ammunition and supply center has been given a discredited name, without provoking a scandalized outcry from German public opinion. The name brings to mind those SS "Einsatzgruppen", that, following the German attack on the Soviet Union, combed the areas behind the frontlines murdering hundreds of thousands. The nucleus of the German armed forces unit, that will be the first, since the Second World War to be engaged in the Middle East - thereby breaking one of the last taboos of the German military - is none other than an "Einsatzgruppenversorger".

Please read also Pirates, Zugriff, Ölversorgung and New wars in Africa

[1] Bis zu 1900 Soldaten für Libanon-Einsatz; www.spiegel.de 01.09.2006
[2] Bundesregierung drängt - Hilfe für den Libanon unter Zeitdruck; Frankfurter Rundschau 28.08.2006
[3] Besatzung auf Gefechtsstation!; www.marine.de
[4] Zur Übung; www.marine.de
[5] Erfahrungsbericht: Einsatzgruppenversorger mit Marineeinsatzrettungszentrum; www.marine.de
[6] Perspektiven - Neuausrichtung der Deutschen Marine; www.marine.de
[7] Der Einsatzgruppenversorger (EGV) - Full Service für die Flotte; www.marine.de
[8] Jährliche Weisung des Inspekteurs der Marine; www.marine.de
[9] see also Gesamtstrategie and Krieg um Rohstoffe
[10] see also Aufklärung
[11] Zivilmilitärische Zusammenarbeit einmal anders; www.lv-hhmvsh.thw.de