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Name: Marcel Bohnert

Occupation: Lieutenant colonel

Company commander in Kunduz 2011 ©Privat

"We also stand up for the other side, for people who are against us and against the war."

You called for a brainstorming session on social media and via Deutschen Bundeswehrverband for the future organisation of Veterans' Day. How far have you got? 15 June is already just around the corner.

At the end of April, the German Bundestag decided on National Veterans Day and set 15 June as the date. According to this decision, the day will be officially celebrated for the first time in 2025. Nevertheless, as the Deutscher BundeswehrVerband, we received baskets of mail from all areas of society: sports clubs, churches, companies, educational institutions and, of course, from soldiers themselves. We were surprised by this positive response and have therefore decided to collate all the suggestions so far and publish an initial ideas paper. We are making this document available to anyone who is interested and wants to get involved in organising Veterans' Day next year (https://www.dbwv.de/multimedia/fuer-veteranen/veteranentag). A campaign is currently underway on social media and the paper continues to grow. We see it as a living document. A lot will happen on 15 June this year too. Veterans' associations and motorbike clubs are organising actions - some are marching or visiting memorials. We will be following everything on social media under the hashtags #Veteranenkultur, #Veteranentag and #DieUnsichtbarenVeteranen and will be delighted if people like and share it, thereby expressing their solidarity.

Is violence against the armed forces also an issue?

We rarely experience violence against members of the armed forces in Germany, so this is only a secondary issue for us. Of course, there is sometimes hostility on social media and we also hear from people who are against Veterans Day. But we also stand up for them - for people who are against us and against the war. One of our guiding principles in the Bundeswehr is: "We fight so that you can be against us".

I heard that Veterans' Day was born out of a "moment at the Invictus Games"?

The call for a Veterans Day is much older. Many of our partner nations have had their Veterans' Days for many years; we in Germany are quite a way behind. The Invictus Games 2023 were an accelerator for the topic with their emotional atmosphere, the thousands of visitors and the large political presence. Invictus Germany, which will be held again in Düsseldorf from 26 to 28 July 2024, will also bring the topic of veterans into the spotlight a little more.

We hear that the various German veterans' organisations are now united? What does that mean?

There are almost 25 associations, foundations, initiatives and projects, some of which have been working for veterans at a national level for many years ( https://www.dbwv.de/multimedia/fuer-veteranen/gemeinsam-engagiert). As the BundeswehrVerband, we took the initiative a little over two years ago and began to work with all players to draw up a joint catalogue of demands. One of our most important demands was indeed the introduction of a national Veterans' Day. Together, we published the so-called Veterans' Flyer (https://www.dbwv.de/multimedia/fuer-veteranen/forderungen ) and publicised our common concerns in the book "Deutschlands Veteranen" (Mittler Verlag). Among other things, it contains portraits of veterans and lists all the associations and support options for those affected. In February of this year, we also held the first veterans' congress to demonstrate our solidarity to the outside world. There is now even a central veterans' office in Berlin that is open to all interested parties.

"In the last two years, we have made faster progress than we expected. One of the most important catalysts for the movement was, of course, the Invictus Games." 

How rocky was the road to the Bundestag resolution?

It was a very rocky road, for which the foundation stone was probably laid with the Bundeswehr's first foreign deployments in the early 1990s. At that time, a large number of soldiers returned for the first time with traumatisation or injuries and were initially not adequately cared for and reintegrated into society. The topic received greater attention when our soldiers were increasingly involved in combat operations in Afghanistan from around 2006. Individual returnees began to write books or give interviews about their experiences. As a result, a wider public gradually became aware of the issue. Veterans' associations such as the Combat Veterans, the Recondo Vets and the Bund Deutscher Einsatzveteranen (Association of German Deployment Veterans) were founded and the major established military interest groups such as the German Armed Forces Association and the Reservists' Association also paid increasing attention to the topic. There were conferences, congresses, memorial marches, social media campaigns, reports, films, photo exhibitions, musical projects and much more. With the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 and the accompanying social rethink on how to deal with armed forces, the topic gained further momentum.

 "It may surprise you, but the answer to both questions is the same: it was my deployments abroad.“

What was your most difficult and your favourite time in the Bundeswehr?

It may surprise you, but the answer to both questions is the same: it was my deployments abroad. I am 45 years old and have now spent most of my life as a soldier with almost 26 years of service. I was a squad leader in Kosovo in 1999/2000, a company commander in Afghanistan in 2011 and a military advisor in Iraq in 2023. All deployments were associated with emotions, danger and the suffering of the people on the ground. On the other hand, they were always extremely formative experiences where I learnt a lot about foreign ways of life, cultures, cohesion and comradeship.

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Marcel Bohnert, Irak Baghdad 2023 ©Lars Gundlach