Description
In September 2025, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced €35 billion in funding for space security through 2030 and revealed discussions on developing offensive capabilities. Four years earlier, his predecessor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had declared at the inauguration of the Bundeswehr’s Space Command that “for Germany, space operations are always defensive operations.” This radical change in discourse reflects the Zeitenwende, the “change of era” proclaimed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After decades of chronic underinvestment since the end of the Cold War, the Zeitenwende seeks to increase funding for the Bundeswehr in the context of growing strategic competition in space.
This study explores whether these developments mark a new trajectory in German military space policy, adopting a constructivist approach grounded in the concept of strategic culture, understood as the interpretation of historical experience by national political actors (Berger, 1996). It examines whether Germany is departing from its traditional “civilian power” orientation (Maull, 1990) — based on multilateralism and reluctance toward military engagement — that has long shaped its space policy.
To this end, the analysis traces the evolution of German military space policy since its origins in the aftermath of the Kosovo War. The notion of a broader “normalization” of German military policy (Hellmann, 2006) can be extended to the space domain—reflecting a growing acceptance of space as a strategically significant arena for national security (Peoples, 2013). This historical grounding of Germany’s strategic culture serves to highlight that a paradigm shift is currently underway and assess what its implications might be for the future.
