Restructuring of the Ministry of Defense: Boris Pistorius’ mammoth task

Defense Minister Pistorius faces a mammoth task: reforming his house. There is general agreement that this is urgently needed. But that doesn’t mean that success is guaranteed.

Actually, an organizational chart should provide an overview and orientation, should explain structures. When Boris Pistorius arrived at the Ministry of Defence, however, the impression was quite different. That tells the SPD defense politician Johannes Arlt.

The minister got to know his antechamber, took possession of his desk and then familiarized himself with the organizational chart. “He wanted to understand how his house works. And that’s where he failed.”

It’s a scathing verdict. At the same time, it is an impression that even less experienced administrators than Pistorius, who previously headed the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior, will share. The organizational chart shows gray boxes for the Berlin office and white boxes for Bonn. Striped for both sites. Ten departments, 3000 employees. For Arlt, this organizational chart shows above all a house that cannot be managed in this way.

Pistorius has now taken a few weeks to be able to better assess the processes in the house, in the next step he is now informing the employees – then the conversion will begin. Or, as Arlt puts it, Pistorius “washes the head, so to speak,” of the ministry. And this head is disproportionately large: with 500 managers.

Union: Success in leadership is also a question of personality

Anyone who tackles these structures must anticipate resistance – especially in a house that was repeatedly noticed for piercings, especially under its predecessor Christine Lambrecht (SPD). For Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), who heads the defense committee, this is also due to the fact that the ministry was led by the Union for many years. There are certainly some, she says, who would be happy if an SPD minister failed.

But the opposition Union also believes Pistorius can do a lot. Even the restructuring of this giant ministry. CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter says in conversation with the ARD Capital Studio, Leadership success is also a question of personality – and that’s exactly what Pistorius brings with him. At the same time, he had to make the painful cuts at the beginning of his term of office. One thing is clear: “It will be a mammoth task”.

Strack-Zimmermann says it in her casual way: “He only has one shot”, and he should fire it very early. So that everyone really knows that something is changing.

Pistorius sets up new planning and management staff

Pistorius announced a first measure by letter at the beginning of the month. “Soldiers, employees,” is the succinct military salutation. The letter is dated April 6th. The ministry must position itself better for the new challenges. Pistorius first announces a new planning and management staff. It also existed before, until it fell away under CDU Minister Lothar de Mazière.

Like a magnifying glass, this staff should bundle the diversity of the house for the minister. According to defense politician Arlt, a minister receives 150 to 200 documents from his house every day. They would have to be sorted and filtered. Otherwise it could be that in the end “completely different decisions are made about the same template” in different areas – and nobody coordinates.

The goal: a “cold start capable” Bundeswehr

Brigadier General Christian Freuding will lead this planning and management staff. Pistorius has already announced this in his letter to the employees. Freuding was previously head of the Ukraine special staff. In addition, he was already a consultant in the old planning staff and is therefore familiar with their work. He also knows what needs to be done better and differently.

It’s not about “a copy of the old days,” says Kiesewetter. Because that wasn’t particularly successful either. The task today is to use the capabilities of the various areas and ultimately to organize a “cold start capable” Bundeswehr.

However, the first critical voices are already being expressed. For the left, this shifts a certain amount of political leadership to the military level. Under certain circumstances, this could “extremely impair” the political leadership of the house. From Kathrin Vogler’s point of view, this is a mistake. She finds such a development “highly problematic”.

Demanded massive job cuts will probably not come

There are no signs of massive job cuts – at least not for the time being – in the Ministry of Defence. “There are no mass layoffs in ministries,” says defense expert Strack-Zimmermann.

But that’s exactly what critics are demanding. That’s how Christian Mölling sees it. He is a security expert for the German Society for Foreign Relations and is in favor of a radical downsizing. This is the only way real dynamics can develop so that “the organization shakes itself”. In other words: understands that a fundamentally new path has to be taken. But if only ten percent of the jobs were cut, says Mölling, then “the apparatus will absorb it itself, that’s not a problem.”

Remodeling will take time

Mölling welcomes the fact that Pistorius is starting the restructuring at the head of the Defense Ministry. That is where the most power is. “But it’s also clear that you can’t just stand still.” It may take years before the goals are actually achieved – if they are actually achieved.

It is therefore questionable how influential Pistorius, who is now 63 years old, will and can be for the house. At the same time there is definitely strength in this possibly last task of a political life. “Pistorius has nothing to lose,” Kiesewetter sees it. The minister is at the peak of his career and can bring his full weight to bear.

Urgently needed turning point

The turning point must finally reach the Ministry of Defense itself, and this assessment is also heard again and again from defense politicians, from traffic lights to Union. “There just has to be momentum in the booth,” Strack-Zimmermann puts it in a nutshell.

So there is a lot of advice for Pistorius. After less than 100 days in office, he has become very popular. With the restructuring of the Ministry, he is faced with another test, after all, the house has often proven its tenacity.

For Pistorius, that should be a pretty bad word. He prefers to speak of a new drive, as was the case recently with the change of head at the Bundeswehr Procurement Office. And it is precisely this drive that is necessary, “because we want and need to turn every acceleration screw that we can find.”