Germany Has 1 Year to Replace Olaf Scholz

At a glance, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his defense minister, Boris Pistorius, share much in common. The two longtime members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), both in their mid-60s, were born in the same city, namely the old market town of Osnabrück in northern Germany, at the height of the Cold War. While Scholz moved on to become mayor of Hamburg, Pistorius took the post in Osnabrück’s city hall. From there, Scholz entered the federal government as then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s finance minister, Pistorius to interior minister in the state of Lower Saxony. And Pistorius, like Scholz—in fact, like their party overall—long saw chummy relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the best means to ensure stability in Europe, even well after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

But today, at the center of Germany’s painful debate on defense and security, the two men offer starkly contrasting styles and priorities—and the German public’s estimation of them is rapidly diverging, too. The tough-talking Pistorius, a hawk on rebuffing Russia and rebuilding Germany’s armed forces, is currently basking in the glow of being Germany’s most popular politico (by a long shot). His self-styled image is of a doer who says directly what he wants—and does it. What people like about Pistorius, opined the Süddeutsche Zeitung on June 13, is that he’s a “straight shooter” who trusts Germans to understand complicated issues when explained in plain language.

The dispassionate Scholz, on the other hand, comes off as indecisive, conflicted, and equivocal. Scholz understands himself as both Germany’s “peace chancellor” (Friedenskanzler) and at the same time as a cornerstone of NATO’s bulwark against Russia. As for the public eye, Scholz has plummeted—becoming one of the least popular of all of the country’s leading politicians—after his party bombed spectacularly in the June 6 to 9 European Parliament elections. It garnered a miserable 14 percent of the vote, which landed the SPD behind the fiercely far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Scholz’s dire numbers and the fiasco of the bitterly divided three-party coalition have fueled speculation that Pistorius, rather than Scholz, would make the better chancellor candidate in 2025. Were elections today, the SPD, liberals, and Greens would fall woefully short of a parliamentary majority. Germans are distinctly unhappy with the coalition’s work and Scholz’s bland leadership. Leading Social Democrats, including Pistorius, adamantly deny any musings about replacing Scholz (they have to, of course).  SPD member and deputy minister for economic cooperation and development, Niels Annen, told Foreign Policy: “There is no talk of this in the higher levels of the SPD. It would not have been the first time that people underestimated the chancellor. The autumn 2025 elections are much too far away to write off Olaf Scholz.”

And yet, so poorly is the current government faring, there is a real chance that Scholz may not run again—and if not, then who better to step into his shoes than Germany’s new favorite politician?

By any account, Pistorius’s turnaround of the defense ministry has been impressive. Scholz called Pistorius to the position to replace Christine Lambrecht, a senior SPD official who failed to step up to the mammoth job of overhauling the dysfunctional, underfunded, and understaffed German military in the aftermath of Russia’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine. Within the armed forces themselves, said insiders, confidence in Lambrecht was next to zero. In Lambrecht’s defense, the post had long been a thankless one in Germany—hobbled by meager budgets and German inhibitions. Yet, nevertheless, she, a non-expert with no military background, appeared particularly ill-suited to steer an unprepared armed forces suddenly obliged to respond to a full-scale war on the EU’s eastern border.

Pistorius took over in January 2023 and was tasked with fleshing out Scholz’s declared Zeitenwende (turning point) for Germany’s military, his response to the 2022 Russian invasion. Pistorius was made responsible for no less than turning the German armed forces into a military actually capable of repelling a threat to Germany’s security. Although Scholz announced shortly after the beginning of the invasion that a special one-off 100 billion euro fund—more than double the annual defense budget—would bankroll the endeavor, he didn’t go into specifics or say what would happen when it ran out. But Germany, Scholz promised, would no longer fall short of devoting 2 percent of its budget to defense, as NATO had long insisted its member states do.

Pistorius rolled up the sleeves of his fatigues and demanded that Germany’s armed forces provide “deterrence, effectiveness, and operational capability.” A month after he assumed office, the bulk of the 100 billion euros is spent: on new orders of F-35 fighter jets, main battle tanks, heavy transport helicopters (mostly purchased from the United States, not, to French chagrin, from France), and a digitalization drive to modernize the forces. The troops’ equipment—from weaponry to personal kit, long a sore spot—has been upgraded, lending Pistorius credibility with the armed forces that his recent predecessors never had.

Annen recognizes that Germany has long been uncomfortable with military issues—a legacy of World War II and the Nazi dictatorship—and that Pistorius is the first defense chief who dares to say things like, “We must be ready for war by 2029.” Annen said that in a very short period of time, Pistorius has resuscitated the Bundeswehr’s prestige in the public sphere.

Conscription is another taboo that Pistorius has violated, though tentatively. On June 13, he made public a new military service model for Germany, the goal of which is to recruit 5,000 conscripts a year as soon as 2025, building up troop size gradually from 180,000 to 200,000 soldiers. This is not a draft as such but rather a campaign to contact all 18-year-old men and women and entice them to join the armed services of their own volition. (Only men will be obliged to indicate their interest.)

“I make no secret of it,” Pistorius said on June 13. “I would like to train 20,000 conscripts every year.” But not only are too few young Germans interested, he also admitted that the Bundeswehr doesn’t have the capacity to turn 20,000 teenagers into soldiers. Eventually, Pistorius said, German women, too, will be included in the mandatory campaign.

Pistorius is not satisfied with the jump-start alone—and this is where he has run into his parteifreund, Scholz. Pistorius has demanded that the defense budget increase beyond the 52 billion euros currently allotted for 2025. Pistorius told Germany’s finance minister, Christian Lindner, that he needs up to 6.5 billion euros more, not least for 35 new Leopard tanks. Lindner, the guardian of the constitutionally inscribed debt ceiling, said no-go—and Scholz backed his finance minister.

Pistorius, off the record, apparently blew his top, exclaiming, “I don’t have to keep this job!” Afterward, he cooled off and denied any intention to resign. But he is not the only Social Democrat insisting that debt constraints are madness at a time with so many convergent crises and a stagnant economy. Observers say that this bone of contention could well bring down the coalition and prompt early elections.

Even before the EU election debacle, rumors were flying that Pistorius could make a play for the top spot on the SPD ticket in 2025. The obstacles to this, however, even if Pistorius desired it, which we don’t know, are considerable. For one, there are many Social Democrats who have not come around entirely in rethinking Germany’s defense and security positions.

“They remain nostalgic for the old days of Willy Brandt, who they think of a Friedenskanzler,” explains Christian Mölling, a security expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank. “The old answers from that past: reconciliation and detente, cannot be wrong, that is the strong belief in the SPD party base.“ Scholz, tries to keep this constituency in his camp by playing the Friedenskanzler, says Mölling, but also because he has no alternative idea how to shape security.

Moreover, Pistorius has never had a strong following or faction loyal to him within the party. When the SPD was struggling in 2019 (in the aftermath of a bruising EU election result), the minister from Lower Saxony ran for the party leadership in a crowded field together with Petra Köpping, a minister in the state of Saxony. The duo came in fifth place, receiving only 14.4 percent of the vote. It remains unclear whether a hawkish faction has emerged within the “peace party” to back Pistorius’s newest incarnation. From the tenor within its ranks, however, the answer is negative.

The SPD is currently in deep trouble, perhaps the deepest of its many troubles over the last 25 years. It has now in front of its eyes the real-time disaster of a major party—namely the Democratic Party in the United States—running an unpopular candidate who could very well flop because others in the party didn’t dare point out that the king is wearing no clothes. The Social Democrats have about one year left to stave off the worst—and perhaps a suitable successor will enable it to rise from the ashes.