Inspector General Breuer: problem solver on duty

Yesterday the Corona crisis team, today the Bundeswehr: As the new highest-ranking soldier, Carsten Breuer is now supposed to manage the sluggishly begun turning point. The new inspector general is accompanied by high expectations – not for the first time.

Administrative assistance in the flood disaster, the management from the Chancellery in the Corona crisis, the establishment of a command for domestic use: Lieutenant General Carsten Breuer was in key positions several times when things were difficult. Apparently he convinced Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius of his abilities.

The 58-year-old Breuer is now the man who should bring momentum to the difficult start of the turning point and turn the Bundeswehr into a combat-ready force. He is considered a logistics expert with extensive experience in crisis management.

1984 in the Bundeswehr

Breuer joined the Bundeswehr in 1984. When he began his service in an anti-aircraft regiment and soon afterwards completed officer training at the army anti-aircraft school in Rendsburg in Schleswig-Holstein, the confrontation between East and West, the Cold War, was still rife in Europe. He graduated from the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg with a degree in education.

In his younger years, Breuer was a troop instructor for the later disbanded army air defense and is thus an expert in the use of the “Gepard” anti-aircraft gun tank, which Germany gave to Ukraine to ward off Russian air attacks.

The father of three can look back on several military deployments: he was KFOR commander in Kosovo and, after stations at NATO headquarters in Brussels, also served in Afghanistan.

Experience in the Department of Defense

The Federal Ministry of Defense knows Breuer well. From 2010 to 2013 he was head of department in various areas. In 2014 he became head of the policy sub-department for security policy affairs. In 2015 and 2016 he was project officer for the so-called white paper on security policy and the future of the Bundeswehr.

In 2018, Breuer took over as head of the Territorial Tasks Command, the forerunner of the Territorial Command Command. Under his leadership, the command responsible for domestic Bundeswehr operations also helped with snow and flood disasters. And from 2020, Breuer also coordinated the tasks of the Bundeswehr in pandemic matters, such as administrative assistance for municipalities.

Head of the Corona Crisis Management Team

Breuer doesn’t like to be called a “corona general”. But the fact that Scholz brought the general to the Chancellery as head of the Corona crisis team was unusual and was also understood as a vote of confidence. His appointment as head of the Corona crisis team in November 2021 was the first personnel decision by the traffic light government, which was not even in office at the time.

The new job also brought Breuer special attention from corona deniers and opponents of vaccination. Because of feared attacks, he had to be placed under personal protection. In view of the easing of the corona situation, the crisis management team was then dissolved again in May 2022.

A few months later, Breuer was back in the Julius-Leber barracks in Berlin, where he set up the new territorial command for domestic operations. It bundles tasks of the Bundeswehr in Germany that are distributed over several areas in order to enable faster decisions in crisis situations – for example in the case of attacks on important infrastructure such as the energy supply.

Promoted to Four Star General

So now inspector general. Breuer is promoted to four-star general. The Dresden decree from 2012 stipulates that the Inspector General is the highest-ranking soldier, responsible for the overall concept and military adviser to the federal government.

There was once solid evidence that under former Secretary of Defense Christine Lambrecht some sort of disempowerment of the inspector general within the ministry’s hierarchy was planned. At the latest with Lambrecht’s resignation, this is off the table.

Breuer is now the successor to Eberhard Zorn, who had to leave after five years. The replacement of the inspector general is the first major personnel decision by Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius since he took office a few weeks ago.

Breuer faces a mammoth task. In view of the threat posed by Russia, it is also very urgent to trim the troops back to national and alliance defense and to remedy chronic equipment shortages.

(Source: dpa, AFP)