The special forces command is urgently looking for new recruits. To achieve this, it has fundamentally restructured its selection process. Can women also be among the commandos in the future?
In the video, a caramel-colored storm mask covers the face: KSK soldiers should remain anonymous. This is also the case with the one who explains on the Special Forces Command’s Instagram account what it takes to become a commando soldier. On the basis of a new entrance test, the “potential assessment procedure”.
Like many other units in the Bundeswehr, the KSK urgently needs young talent. Young men or women who face a tough selection process that will in future place greater emphasis on cognitive aptitude than before.
On Instagram, the anonymous soldier explains what this means: “The performance-determining muscle, the one that sits between the ears, can be trained to a certain extent, but you also have to have the right attitude.” True to the KSK’s motto: “The will decides.”
Focus on “untrainable attributes”
The Special Forces Command consciously doesn’t just want to appeal to those who think the cliché of the muscular elite soldier is great. “So you have to be very, very fit to have a chance of getting into the process,” explains the commander of the KSK, Brigadier General Ansgar Meyer, to the dpa news agency.
But the new test places an emphasis on the “non-trainable attributes” such as mental fitness: “These are cognitive skills that are only possible to a limited extent to develop further.” That shouldn’t mean that you compromise on physical fitness and endurance, but performance will be tested differently in the future.
The chairwoman of the Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, welcomes the new selection test: “I think it is very clever that applicants for the KSK in the future not only have to survive in a group, based on their physicality, but also as an individual, with a appropriate attitude. No more toxic types should come to the KSK.”
Soldiers who are exposed to such harsh missions as the special forces are at greater risk of becoming radicalized – also a result of a study by the Military Counterintelligence Service from 2020. That’s precisely why it is important to put other skills in the foreground, says Strack-Zimmermann.
Development potential in physical fitness
The Green Party’s defense expert, Sara Nanni, sees it similarly. Too strong a focus on the physical does not tap into the right potential for the KSK. “It’s about being more open about the skills you know you can train.” When it comes to physical fitness, there is often potential for development – unlike mental abilities. This is also supported by sports doctors and psychologists who accompany the training.
The KSK was put into service in 1996 after Germany had had to ask other countries for help two years earlier to evacuate German citizens during the genocide in Rwanda. The tasks of the special forces stationed in Calw include freeing hostages, rescuing Germans abroad, but also gaining key information in crisis and conflict areas and even carrying out combat operations in enemy territory.
In the meantime, the Special Forces Command had repeatedly fallen into disrepute because of individual right-wing extremist incidents. The former Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer therefore initiated a comprehensive reform of the KSK. Among other things, it was about breaking up the independent life of the command, which, according to many people in Calw, led it – also in exchange with other special forces, for example the Navy’s combat swimmers. At that time, some people asked themselves whether the KSK was even needed.
Significant difference to the USA
Strack-Zimmermann answers this question today with a resounding yes. “We are lucky to have them,” explains Strack-Zimmermann, referring to the KSK’s successful evacuation of Germans from Sudan.
However, from the FDP defense expert’s point of view, the chain of command needs to be improved. The special forces should be directly subordinate to the minister and not, as is currently the case, to the various branches of the armed forces – the army, the navy and the air force. “In terms of organizational importance, they belong in one hand, comparable to the United States Navy Seals.” In this way, direct information can be guaranteed and there is no loss of upward reporting.
However, there is a significant difference to the USA: in Germany no one can apply directly to the special forces. The prerequisite is that you are already in the Bundeswehr and have completed initial training there. These can also include women. Female soldiers apply again and again, but so far none have passed the test for so-called commandos, i.e. the fighting special forces.
The women who are on duty at the KSK can be found among the long-distance surveillance staff or in the medical service. Commander Mayer emphasized to the dpa that there would be no double standards for women and men in the future. The high physical demands apply equally to both genders.
Nanni: There is no guidance from the ministry
For the Green Party politician Nanni, an improved selection of special forces is an important step, but she also sees a political challenge. “We have to ask ourselves what the KSK’s task will be in the future.” Instead of foreign missions, alliance and national defense are once again coming to the fore in view of the war in Ukraine. The question therefore arises as to what limits should be placed on the task of spying on enemy territory.
So far there seems to be a lack of clear orientation from the ministry. Nanni sees a need for discussion, also because the use of the KSK in national defense can hardly be as transparent as in previous foreign missions.
“World champion of training”
Military historian Sönke Neitzel also believes this debate is necessary. The big question will be whether the federal government is prepared to use the association’s entire range of capabilities. “The command can conduct reconnaissance behind enemy lines. But it can also carry out acts of sabotage, blow up bridges, and the like,” said Neitzel. “And the Bundeswehr now has to prepare for a possible – let’s hope it never comes – NATO interstate war with Russia. And in such a scenario, the special forces also have completely new tasks.”
Internally there is the “humorous sentence” from the KSK as “World champion of training,” says Neitzel. The special forces had trained at a very, very high level, but had never actually used these skills. All of this only makes sense if there is the political will to use them. “Otherwise you would have to be consistent and dissolve this association,” said Neitzel.