Afghanistan
“A dilemma that worries us morally”: Bundeswehr General Jens Arlt describes the dramatic evacuation mission at Kabul Airport in the star
Brigadier General Jens Arlt, commander of the military evacuation operation from Afghanistan
© Christophe Gateau / Picture Alliance
by Uli Rauss
Under the command of Bundeswehr General Jens Arlt, thousands were rescued from the Taliban in August 2021. In the current star Arlt speaks about the dramatic evacuation mission.
Under the leadership of General Jens Arlt, 52, the Bundeswehr rescued thousands of people from the Taliban in Kabul in August 2021. After the end of the 20-year war mission in the Hindu Kush, the paratrooper commander called for “clear political guidelines” for the troops’ missions abroad. “The goals have to be achievable and have to be checked again and again,” said the brigadier general in an interview with the magazine star. In the case of the Afghanistan mission, “it is not enough to say that it is a disaster.” Arlt: “It is essential to come to terms with these 20 years”.
After the Taliban came to power in Kabul last summer, the commander of Parachute Brigade 1 in Saarlouis led the largest and riskiest rescue mission in the history of the Bundeswehr, during which more than 5,300 people in need of protection were flown to Germany. Tens of thousands of those authorized to leave the country, however, had to stay behind – “a dilemma that worries us morally”. In the coming year, an investigative committee of the Bundestag should clarify the background to the operation, as the SPD, Greens and FDP announced their coalition agreement; A study commission is charged with assessing the overall German operation in Afghanistan.
Dramatic rescue
The German engagement in the Hindu Kush ended under dramatic circumstances, which General Arlt in conversation with the star describes. While fleeing the Taliban, thousands of Afghans and their families crowded in front of the few entrances to Kabul airport. There was sometimes “enormous brutality” and the “law of the strongest”, Arlt. Women were “simply rolled down, children trampled on the barbed wire”. In order to rescue those in need of protection from hiding in the city, soldiers from the Bundeswehr Special Forces Command “pulled out all the stops”.
On Monday (December 6th) Jens Arlt will be awarded the Leibniz Ring for his work in Hanover. In September he received the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.
You can read the complete interview with Jens Arlt here.