To sum up our many announcements during the past days and weeks, we have prepared this 🧵 to keep our followers up to date:
👉 Germany 🇩🇪 is the second largest troop contributor to @NATO after the USA!
1
‼️ Germany’s contribution to the NRF and additional engagement to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank now comprises over 15,000 soldiers and is thus a major contribution to the Alliance.
👉 13,700 soldiers from the #Bundeswehr in the NATO Response Force (NRF).
2
👉 Around 900 Germans in the enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup in Lithuania 🇱🇹. @BG_LTU_eFP
👉 Six #EUROFIGHTER combat aircraft for Air Policing South in Romania 🇷🇴.
👉 Corvette #ERFURT deployed to the Baltic Sea as part of SNMG 1. @COM_SNMG1
3
👉 Fleet service ship #Alster deployed to monitor the Baltic Sea area. @NATO_MARCOM
👉 Announcement by Defense Minister Lambrecht last week that 🇩🇪 will be involved in the establishment of a battlegroup in Slovakia 🇸🇰 and also in air defence.
The Federal President is visiting soldiers from #NATO’s #eFP mission, part of the NRF, in Lithuania 🇱🇹 today. But what do these abbreviations mean? Over the next few days, we’ll try to explain the most important terms, starting with NRF, which stands for @NATO Response Force. 1/4
NATO Response Force, enhanced Forward Presence – here are the most important terms: 👇
👉NRF = NATO RESPONSE FORCE = A highly ready force made up of land, maritime and air forces who can carry out various kinds of military operations very shortly after being activated.
2/4
👉 VJTF = VERY HIGH READINESS JOINT TASK FORCE = The NRF’s spearhead force made up of various units that can be deployed in a very short space of time.
👉 NTM = NOTICE TO MOVE = Time from an alert to the deployment of troops.
3/4
Remembrence means #reconciliation: Germany accepts full historical responsibility for the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. An example of this acceptance is the famous ‘Warschauer Kniefall’, of Chancellor Brandt, in Warsaw in 1970. #75Liberation#NeverForget
Remembrance means keeping the memory alive: fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses can give first-hand accounts of the crimes of World War II. Germany promotes international projects, memorials and meeting places. For us, this is a matter of conviction. #75Liberation#NeverForget
Remembrance means #vigilance: Germany opposes any attempt to trivialize the crimes of World War II and the barbarism of National Socialism. We must counteract anti-Semitism and hatred wherever we encounter them. #75Liberation#NeverForget
Ambassador Lucas addressed guests at our reception at the occasion of the 29th anniversary of German unity and the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin. These are the key lines:
1/ As a historian and diplomat I sometimes ask myself what dates like the 3rd of October 1990 or the 9th of November 1989 tell us today, three decades later. (…) I will limit myself to some brief remarks on three lessons that might be drawn from the years 1989 and 1990.
2/ The first lesson to be remembered is that the courageous people in the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia who brought down the Communist regimes stood up for freedom, dignity and respect for human rights, not for their nations’ superiority.