Strategic Readiness of European Defence - The Bundeswehr's internal structure

Blog post by Kerry Hoppe

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Jack Wang, Jannic Meyer & Kerry Hoppe
September 10, 2025

Kerry Hoppe on the Bundeswehr’s internal structure - Willing and capable to reform?

Welcome back to the Resilience Newsletter!

This week, we’re excited to share Part 3 of a 3-Part Series by Kerry Hoppe, where she examines perhaps the most pressing issue of our series: the Bundeswehr’s internal structure and its ability and requirements to reform itself.

Kerry Hoppe is founding member and host of the Munich Security Breakfast, a networking event within the framework of the Munich Security Conference fostering valuable connections between investors, founders and military personnel to promote innovation in defense. She is a reserve officer in the German Air Force and active within the German Liberals (FDP) furthering defence and resilience policy.

Yours,
Uwe, Jack and Jannic

Germany's military is drowning in administrators while combat units sit empty. No amount of new recruits will fix this - not even bringing back conscription. This oversimplification of personnel questions isn't new, and it reveals an Achilles’ heel in German defence policy. The current conscription debate is an excellent example. Regardless of one's stance on reintroduction, conscription alone will not solve the detrimental lack of personnel. It demands comprehensive action addressing reserves and active-duty troops alike.

The personnel issue is often reduced to sheer numbers – whether Germany needs 183,000, 203,000, or 260,000 active-duty soldiers. But this misses the point. Beneath the surface of headcounts lies a more consequential truth: the Bundeswehr lacks not just quantity, but efficiency and purposeful allocation of its soldiers. Its personnel structure has become bloated with administrators while deployable combat units remain understrength.

Without structural reform, additional funding and recruitment efforts risk reinforcing a fundamentally flawed system.

A top-heavy imbalance

The Bundeswehr’s rank structure has drifted far from its Cold War proportions. Today, 22 percent of its soldiers are officers. In the 1980s, that figure was just eight percent - nearly three times lower. The result? A military top-heavy with layers of command and reporting instead of operational depth.

Meanwhile, almost half of all soldiers serve in administrative roles rather than in frontline units. The Ministry of Defence now employs around 3,000 staff.  That's more than double the 1,300 it operated with during the Bundeswehr's founding years, when expansion pressures were far greater and the total army was larger.

The procurement office tells a similar story. It has swelled from 9,000 to nearly 12,000 employees in recent years. Yet procurement delays and cost overruns remain endemic. By contrast, despite having a larger army and a far more ambitious modernisation drive, Poland manages with just 600 staff in its procurement agency.

The Bundeswehr itself does not question how it allocates human resources. A structural commission in the 2010s proposed cutting ministry bureaucracy from 3,000 to 1,500 staff. It recommended reducing civilian employees from 82,000 to 50,000. These recommendations were not implemented. More recently, the Task Force Personnel established in 2023 put forward valuable ideas on recruitment and retention. But the question of efficient personnel deployment remains unaddressed, even in the “Zeitenwende" era – Germany's self-proclaimed time for defence transformation.

Processes outrank operational readiness

The question of proper resource allocation gets even more obscure when you look at what the Bundeswehr is actually required to do. Over time, the armed forces have absorbed large parts of Germany's civilian regulatory framework: labour law, environmental rules, and working-time directives.

This creates a fundamental mismatch. Military forces need to move fast and respond to emergencies. But these civilian regulations slow them down and tie their hands, clashing with military readiness requirements. The armed forces aren't just another government agency in camouflage – they require the flexibility to act decisively when threats emerge.

The German brigade in Lithuania shows what happens when you give the military the right framework. In preparing for permanent stationing, the former coalition recognised that deterrence requires more than equipment and funding. It needs flexible, deployable personnel. Legislative changes in late 2024 eased working-time regulations, expanded relocation allowances, and introduced new recruitment incentives. This gave the Bundeswehr greater flexibility to train, mobilise and sustain its forces.

This approach shouldn't stop with the 5,000 troops in Lithuania. It should serve as the first step toward broad reform for all military personnel. The broader force still struggles under layers of bureaucracy. Transporting heavy equipment across state and country lines gets entangled in approval processes and deadlines. In peacetime, these inefficiencies erode training time and readiness. In wartime, they are a serious cause of concern.

Comparative insight: Learning from allies

Many allies are already fixing these problems through major structural reforms. The UK's 2025 Strategic Defence Review puts personnel at the centre of defence transformation. Beyond addressing retention to boost troop numbers, Britain has explicit plans to move military personnel from back-office roles to frontline positions. It will automate HR, finance and commercial functions in the coming years. A new Military Strategic Headquarters will consolidate command across all three services, thus, simplifying reporting, reducing duplication, and speeding up decisions.

Finland is rebalancing assignments based on operational needs, phasing out outdated roles and moving personnel to maximise effectiveness.

Political courage necessary for transformative change

Disruptive change is urgent. German military historian Sönke Neitzel recently stirred debate by calling for drastic personnel reform. His proposal: early-retire up to 30,000 officers and non-commissioned officers. Cut at the top, build at the bottom.

The numbers support this approach. Germany's current military overhead stands at 50%. Israel manages with just 25% – showing what leaner structures can achieve. At the same time, the legal framework governing soldiers must be modernised. Current regulations clash with the flexibility required for operational readiness.

Without such comprehensive reforms, even substantial increases in troop numbers will simply feed the bureaucracy rather than strengthen deployable forces.

Such transformative change requires political courage. The entire new coalition must commit to confronting the conflicts this entails. Attempts to appease special interests – whether from parties, committees, advisory bodies, or groups within the Bundeswehr itself – would be detrimental to comprehensive reform. The expectations on this government and Defence Minister Pistorius are accordingly high.

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European Resilience Tech Newsletter Team

Uwe Horstmann co-founded Project A Ventures in 2012 as General Partner and has built Project A to be a leading European early-stage investor with over $1bn USD under management and having backed 100+ founders. In addition to Project A, Uwe serves as Reserve Officer in the German armed forces and advises the German Ministry of Defence in digital transformation issues.

Jack Wang is a software engineer turned product-driven tech investor and joined Project A in 2021 to lead the firm’s deep tech investing, which has grown to include DefenceTech. Prior to joining Project A, Jack worked in a variety of organisations such as Amazon and Macquarie Group across Australia, US and UK / Europe. Jack holds a MBA from London Business School and Bachelors of Engineering (Bioinformatics, 1st) from UNSW, Australia.

Jannic Meyer joined Project A initially contributing to what is now known as the Project A Studio, partnering with founders at the pre-idea stage, where he covered a variety of topics ranging from energy infrastructure to dual-use robotics and led our investment in ARX Robotics. He is now part of the investment team at Project A covering all things resilience.

Project A Ventures is one of the leading early-stage tech investors in Europe with offices in Berlin and London. In addition to 1.3 billion USD assets under management, Project A supports its 100+ portfolio companies with a platform team over 140 functional experts in key areas such as software and product development, business intelligence, brand, design, marketing, sales and recruiting. Project A have backed founders of Trade Republic, WorldRemit, Sennder, KRY, Spryker, Catawiki, Unmind and Voi as well as founders building in European Resilience: