On December 5, Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to testify before the Bundestag’s inquiry committee on Afghanistan about why her government was taken completely by surprise when the radical Islamist Taliban suddenly seized power in August 2021 and why the evacuation of both German citizens and local Afghan personnel was at times chaotic. It looks into decision-making procedures and actions of the German government, and intelligence services including the interaction with foreign actors.
The Bundestag inquiry committee was set up in July 2022 and will have to present its final report before this legislative period ends in 2025.
Two of Angela Merkel’s former cabinet members, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Development Minister Gerd Müller, were among the last to be questioned.
Heiko Maas: ‘We misjudged the situation’
Just before the Islamists marched unopposed into the Afghan capital, Maas, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), had claimed such a scenario was very unlikely.
On August 16, 2021, Germany’s chief diplomat had to acknowledge something that could not be sugarcoated: “All of us — the German government, the intelligence services, the international community — we all misjudged the situation.”
Now, three years later, the inquiry committee asked Maas for his assessment of the German government’s policy in Afghanistan. “The cooperation within the government was very transparent and thorough,” Maas said.
He admitted that on some specific factual issues, there were different interpretations.
“But everyone tried to make the best of the situation,” the former foreign minister stressed. In his view, the issuing of visas for local Afghan personnel could have been handled better, as they were afraid of Taliban revenge. “It may have been possible to get a lot of people out earlier if an agreement had been reached more quickly,” Maas surmised.
Federal Intelligence Service’s error
The SPD chairman of the committee of inquiry, Jörg Nürnberger, found this account plausible. Nürnberger told DW that this fatal misjudgment was made at all levels of the German government that were involved in the Afghanistan mission.
Information from the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) resulted in an incorrect assessment of the Taliban’s military capabilities, he said.
Even in August 2021, the Development Ministry, led by Gerd Müller of the Christian Social Union party (CSU), was planning to continue its activities in Afghanistan. This was confirmed by Müller during his testimony to the committee of inquiry. He called the hasty withdrawal of international troops an “absolute surprise.”
Angela Merkel’s upcoming testimony
Nürnberger commented on Angela Merkel’s role in more detail. He pointed out that it is not clear in the records, whether her role was rather that of coordinator or a moderator. According to Nürnberger, there is little evidence that she exerted any direct influence. However, Nürnberger also pointed out that she had advocated for a large-scale evacuation of local Afghan personnel.
In preparation for Angela Merkel’s testimony, members of the committee might refer to a few pages from Merkel’s recently published memoirs. She writes that, on August 13, 2021, two days before the Taliban’s ultimate victory, she was briefed on the telephone by her defense minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, about the escalating situation around Kabul.
In her book, Merkel describes her reaction: “The next morning, in a telephone conference with the ministers responsible, I gave Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer the go-ahead to begin detailed preparations for an evacuation.”
This article was originally written in German.
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