Many European governments have ramped up defence spending in recent years, driven both by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and by Trump’s threats not to honour US commitments to NATO.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has been at the forefront of the spending surge. Berlin aims to double its military expenditure to over €200 billion (US$230 billion) by 2030.
Breuer, a 61-year-old army officer, earned the nickname “the chancellor’s general” after then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz picked him to lead a crisis committee that helped manage Germany’s response to the COVID pandemic in 2021 and 2022.
He joined the Bundeswehr in an air defence unit in 1984 and later attended the US general staff college in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as well as German general staff training in Hamburg. In 2014, he served with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in the Afghan capital Kabul.
Germany’s current army chief, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, is expected to succeed Breuer as chief of defence before the end of the year.
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