German politician: The army must be armed as quickly as possible

A prominent German politician has called for the country’s arms industry to speed up production capacities, with an emphasis on equipment shortages for the German army.

Lars Klingbeil, co-leader of Germany’s ruling center-left Social Democratic Party, said the misconception there was that much of the available equipment should be discarded entirely.

“It all had to be produced,” Klingbeil told German broadcaster ARD late Sunday.

He said that the German arms industry, which has greatly reduced its capabilities in the past few years, if it cannot meet the demand, the German army will have to look for armaments from abroad.

“It is clear that we must prepare the German army quickly and well, and we must work on this as quickly as possible,” Klingbeil added.

Klingbeil explained that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, it became necessary for the German army to purchase modern equipment very quickly.

The German government recently set a goal of buying 20 billion euros ($20.8 billion) worth of ammunition both to equip its forces and to ship them to Ukraine.