Contributions to the history of ground-based air defence of the German Air Force 1990 to 2022. The turn of the times proclaimed by Chancellor Scholz after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 included, among other things, an immediate strengthening of the Bundeswehr's operational readiness for national and alliance defence. This is not the first turning point that German armed forces have had to face. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union from 1990 onwards marked a turning point for the Bundeswehr with the opposite sign: Peace euphoria and the redemption of a peace dividend led to a massive reduction in size and a drastic reduction in capabilities in all branches of the armed forces. National and alliance defence were of secondary priority, crisis prevention and intervention, also and above all outside the NATO area, were the focus of the necessary capability profile.
This book traces the period between these turning points in a broad methodological fan. Core elements throughout are excerpts from the dissertation published in 2022 'A Roof over Europe. Political symbolism and military relevance of German ground-based air defence 1990 to 2014' (Hartung 2022). These observations, which focus on political and structural aspects, are supplemented by 26 author contributions in the form of eyewitness accounts of training, exercises, conceptual changes, international cooperation, armament projects and live missions, up to and including the deployment to the Eastern European NATO area in response to the war in Ukraine. The contents of the book illustrate that NATO's motto VIGILIA PRETIUM LIBERTATIS - Vigilance is the price of freedom is of timeless importance and that the ground-based air defence of the Air Force has an important function in operationalising this motto.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Hartung, Friederike/Maeßen, Servatius (Hrsg.),
Title
At Battle Stations. Beiträge zur Geschichte der bodengebundenen Luftverteidigung der Luftwaffe 1990 bis 2022
