Federal President Steinmeier: “We are experiencing a human tragedy”

After the bumpy start of the Bundeswehr’s evacuation mission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense have come under fire. In view of the situation in Kabul, Federal President Steinmeier speaks of a “human tragedy”.

The pictures of desperate people at Kabul Airport go around the world. Of people clinging to planes, running across the tarmac, hoping to get out of the country. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier explained that these images did not leave anyone untouched.

They are particularly depressing for all the people who have committed themselves to a better life there in recent years and who have often committed their own health, even their own lives. These days we are experiencing a human tragedy for which we share responsibility and a political turning point that will shake us and change the world.

Was the chaotic situation at the airport to blame?

The evacuation of German citizens and their Afghan work colleagues is now the top priority. But the operation is getting off to a slow start. The conditions at the airport in Kabul are too chaotic. The first Bundeswehr machine from Afghanistan could only take seven people away.

Defense Minister Annegret-Kramp-Karrenbauer explained that this was also due to the short time slot that the Bundeswehr was given for their stay on the airport premises ARD morning magazine. “That’s why we only took those with us who were actually there now. And yesterday, because of the chaotic situation, there weren’t any large numbers of them at the airport.” Another Bundeswehr machine should make its way to Kabul today, said Kramp-Karrenbauer.

“People have to be helped now”

This prospect is not enough for the opposition in Berlin. How could it be that the US Army is meanwhile taking hundreds of people out of the country in overcrowded planes, asks left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch. In Phoenix he speaks of a “grandiose” failure. “I think it’s scandalous that there were only seven people in this machine.”

It is not now time for German bureaucracy or to work with lists, so Bartsch. “The people have to be helped now. And it is the catastrophic situation that we may already know about the people in Kabul, but even with the people in Mazar-i-Sharif, nobody knows how they are doing.”

The accusations from the opposition are increasingly directed against the Federal Foreign Ministry. The German embassy in Kabul warned the ministry early on of the dangers posed by the advance of the Taliban and urged rapid action. Claudia Roth, Green Party politician and Vice President of the German Bundestag, concludes in an interview with the ARD capital studio: “Total failure of a German federal government that acts cynically, has shown itself ignorant for a long, long time, has completely blocked the support and evacuation demands.”

FDP demands personal consequences

In particular, the role of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Defense Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer will be discussed. The FDP even demands personal consequences. “We are of the opinion that, in view of this situation, this misjudgment, both the foreign minister and the defense minister should give up their office in good time,” said FDP defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.

Similar tones at the AfD. Her co-chairman, Jörg Meuthen, describes Maas on Twitter as a “dream dancer”. His misjudgments had led to Germans now sitting in fear of death in Kabul.