Internal complaints to the German armed forces about sexual and other abuse rose sharply in the first half of 2017, a report says. The news puts yet more pressure on Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.
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Germany's Defense Ministry on Saturday confirmed a media report that a growing number of army personnel were coming forward with reports of abuse within the Bundeswehr, saying that the spike in complaints resulted from an increased sensitivity to the topic.
"There is a clear connection between the high number of reports and the public discussion about certain cases," a spokesman for the ministry said.
In recent months, the Bundeswehr has been in the headlines a number of times amid allegations of sadistic sexual practices and right-wing extremist tendencies amid some of its members.
The spokesman was responding to a report in the Düsseldorf-based Rheinische Post newspaper on Saturday that spoke of an increase in the number of complaints made, some of them related to older events.
The complaints are mainly alleged cases of superiors maltreating subordinates, the number doubling from 28 in 2016 to 56 cases reported by July 9 this year.
In the case of reports of violations of a sexual nature, the previous year's level of 128 cases had almost been reached, with 127 complaints made.
In addition, there have already been 96 reports of incidents with a right-wing extremist or xenophobic background this year. In 2016, there were 63 such complaints.
Bundeswehr scandals: Von der Leyen on the defensive
For German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, 2017 has so far been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. She's had to weather numerous Bundeswehr scandals and is under fire for not supporting her own troops.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
Von der Leyen under fire
Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wanted to show she's not blind to problems among her own troops. In light of the most recent scandal, she openly criticized army leadership, saying the Bundeswehr had an "attitude problem." But Bundeswehr officials found her comments to be outrageous. Their response to the defense minister's criticism: "Leadership goes from the top down."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Fischer
A fake Syrian refugee
The story causing the uproar: Bundeswehr lieutenant Franco A. was allegedly planning a terrorist attack and led a double life, pretending to be a Syrian refugee. He was granted partial asylum status as a war refugee in December 2016. His alleged goal: another attack blamed on a refugee. Bundeswehr officials are said to have known about Franco A.'s right-wing tendencies since 2014, but did nothing.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Rumpenhorst
Abuse in Bad Reichenhall mountain rangers unit
The Bundeswehr is currently investigating 275 cases of suspected right-wing extremism. But they're also dealing with other types of scandals. In March 2017, the public learned about the case of a lance corporal who had suffered months of abuse in a Bavarian mountain rangers unit. The victim reported being threatened and sexually harassed in 2015 and 2016. Prosecutors investigated 14 people.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Hoppe
Female recruits forced to pole-dance
The biggest scandal of von der Leyen's term so far: the horror stories coming out of the Staufer army base in Pfullendorf. In January, it was revealed that superior officers there forced recruits to undress and perform sexually-motivated acts and filmed them. Female recruits were forced to pole dance as part of an "entrance exam." The top Bundeswehr training commander was fired as a result.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T. Warnack
Many cases of right-wing extremism investigated
According to a report from Germany's federal parliamentary commissioner for the Bundeswehr, Hans-Peter Bartels, 2016 wasn't a great year for the Bundeswehr, either. There were around 60 incidents related to alleged right-wing extremism or "violations against the bases of Germany's free democratic constitutional structure." Troops shared anti-Semitic images and music or did the Nazi salute.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
Death on board the Gorch Fock
The Bundeswehr wasn't immune to scandals before von der Leyen became defense minister in December 2013. One that garnered significant public attention was the death of a 25-year-old recruit on the Navy training vessel Gorch Fock in 2010. The woman fell from the rigging during an exercise. As a consequence, other cadets refused to climb the rigging. Officer training on the ship was suspended.
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The birth of the Bundeswehr
Directly after World War II, Germany was not allowed to have an army. The Bundeswehr had its start in West Germany in 1955. After reunification, the Bundeswehr took in 20,000 soldiers from East Germany's armed forces. A big change came in 1999, when the Bundeswehr first participated in an international conflict: the Kosovo War. Before that, they had only gone abroad for peacekeeping missions.
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No more mandatory service
Today the Bundeswehr has roughly 178,200 active soldiers. As of March 2017, 11.4 percent of them are women. Until 2011, men were required to do mandatory military service, the length of which varied between nine and 18 months. Today, the Bundeswehr has to appeal to young people to recruit soldiers. The most recent scandals are making that that more and more difficult.
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Problem not going away
In May, Germany's defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, came under fire after a series of scandals in the armed forces involving sexual harassment, bullying and a far-right plot to instigate a racially motivated terror attack.
The latter scandal involved a 28-year-old soldier identified as Franco A, who was arrested at the end of April on suspicion of planning an attack thought to be targeting asylum seekers and left-wing politicians, including the Social Democrat interior minister, Heiko Maas, and the former German President Joachim Gauck.
The soldier registered as a Syrian refugee last January, applied for asylum and was drawing money from the state.
Germany's military intelligence agency, MAD, announced in late April that going back to 2011, it had identified 275 suspected right-wing extremists in the military's ranks, 53 of them from this year alone.
At the beginning of the year, accusations were made about sexual and physical abuse at a German army barracks in Pfullendorf in Baden-Wuerttemberg.