Dhe Bundeswehr bid farewell to the former Inspector General Eberhard Zorn with a ceremonial tattoo. Around 400 invited guests took part in the evening ceremony by torchlight, the procession of the guard battalion and the staff band in Berlin on Monday. Zorn had previously officially said goodbye to employees, companions, current and former ministers and state secretaries and numerous foreign military attachés in the Ministry of Defense. Zorn, who had been the senior soldier in the armed forces for five years and a military adviser to two chancellors, joined the Bundeswehr in 1978.
He described what he wanted from military life at the time: “I wanted to take on management tasks early on, expected camaraderie, was looking for international tasks.” He found all of this in the Bundeswehr, from each of the many locations in his career – he and his family had to move nine times alone Graduate from the family – guests are present, his career has far exceeded all expectations. Zorn, who served under three defense ministers and was eventually retired by Boris Pistorius (SPD) in March, has had his career spanning the Balkans, the war in Afghanistan, the Mali mission and most recently the Russian incursion to do Ukraine. The Corona crisis and the disaster in the Ahr Valley fell during his tenure. The Bundeswehr was able to fulfill all of Parliament’s orders, he said, albeit with the known difficulties.
The Saarlander, whom Pistorius had previously praised in his speech as a professional officer and a winning person who had never shied away from jumping into the cold water – even if it was as head of the airborne brigade by parachute into Lake Constance – but also criticized politics and reminded to unfinished tasks. He and his team had wanted to turn the “big wheel” of restructuring in the armed forces and in the ministry for two years, but were not allowed to turn it. You would have “recognized years ago, reported many times, explained that the orientation towards the deployment of the last 30 years meant the reduction of our ability to defend the country and the alliance, that we ultimately have no reserves, neither personnel nor material. Since at least 2014 we have been working to move forward. Only now, in the light of the Ukraine war, are we realizing how painful this situation is for us.”
Also, according to Zorn, to the approving laughter of many of those present, one is now waiting for the “publication of the national security strategy”; a paper that has been disputed in the coalition for months. According to Zorn, he was “grateful” to the new minister that he was now tackling the issue of “reforming the Federal Ministry of Defence”. Here, too, many things are “ready for collection”.
Pistorius has already started the conversion. In addition to the post of Inspector General, other personnel changes were made, including the announcement of a planning staff headed by Brigadier General Christian Freuding. Pistorius wants to announce further key points of his structural reform and personnel changes this Tuesday.
Zorn thanked his successor, General Carsten Breuer, for the collegial handover of official business, “good and crisp”. He wished the Inspector General “all the best, lots of success and luck as a soldier”. The staff music corps of the German Armed Forces played at the Great Tattoo that followed, which was hardly affected by the late winter temperatures in the constant rain. Also included, as usual, three melodies that the honoree was allowed to choose himself as part of a so-called “serenade”. Zorn chose a hit by Udo Lindenberg, Hinter dem Horizont, the piece Gabriel’s Obe and Joey Tempest’s Final Countdown had experienced many, more or less suitable transformations of popular pieces into the military-musical framework.
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