A ‘Green Book’ prepared by German military, ministry officials, and secret service agents outlines the integration of German civilians into military logistics in the event of a crisis or war.

It is based on a scenario in which tensions between Russia and NATO escalate and several major NATO countries, including Germany, France, and the United States, move at least 70,000 troops eastwards through German territory. In the east, these troops would directly confront Russian troops.

According to the document, even during the deployment of the troops, a large number of tasks arise that must be carried out by civilians, because regular Bundeswehr units are largely needed for combat operations.

Tasks in which civilians are also used include, for example, setting up so-called Convoy Support Centers (CSC), a type of ‘rest and assembly point for troops marching in motor vehicles’, which must be supplied.

Civilian infrastructure is also being used in the health sector to treat wounded soldiers, with up to 1,000 casualties expected per day. In this scenario, civilians are only treated ‘secondarily’.

Public Security Future Forum: ‘Shadow NSC’?

According to German Foreign Policy, the so-called ‘Green Paper ZMZ 4.0’ was prepared by a core team of 20 people, including several military personnel, representatives of various federal and state ministries and the three Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), and four employees of the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The work on the document is being carried out by the Zukunftsforum Öffentliche Sicherheit (Future Forum for Public Safety), a non-profit association founded in Berlin in 2007, whose board of directors includes representatives of various federal and state ministries, the fire brigade, various private security companies, and Marieluise Beck (Greens), a former member of the Bundestag and head of the Liberal Centre for Modernity (LibMod), which receives millions of dollars in funding from the federal budget.

As of June 3, 2024, the Future Forum for Public Security has 136 members, 77 of which are legal entities, i.e. organizations of various kinds. Its chairman is Albrecht Broemme, former head of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) (2006-2019) and former vice-president of the German Firefighters’ Association (1999-2006).

War scenario: Left-wing peace activists oppose the conflict

The Green Paper is based on the scenario of a rapid escalation of tensions between NATO and Russia in the spring of 2030.

According to this scenario, NATO countries react to the deployment of Russian troops around Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg by shifting large units to their eastern flanks.

For example, the Bundeswehr is deploying around 30,000 troops in Lithuania, reinforced by troops from the Netherlands, Croatia, and Norway. The US is sending 25,000 troops to Poland, most of them stationed in southern Germany. France, the United Kingdom, and Canada are preparing to send 15,000 troops to Estonia and Latvia.

In both cases, Germany acts as a hub for the transport of troops and materiel.

The Green Paper scenario assumes that the preparations for war will also meet resistance at home: ‘Peace activists from the left and right and opponents of NATO are calling for demonstrations and the blocking of bridges and border crossings to prevent a war with Russia.’

In addition, ‘arson attacks on Deutsche Bahn electricity distribution boxes… are causing interruptions in freight traffic,’ and are claimed to be the responsibility of ‘an unknown left-wing autonomous group’.

The authors of the Green Paper recommend immediate organizational preparations and, if possible, capacity-building using civilians, and also discuss measures to combat protest and resistance in the event of crisis or war.

‘Transit and host country’: A national mandate for civilians

According to the Green Paper, the task of the Federal Republic in this scenario is to ensure ‘the planned deployment and resupply of allied and own forces’ traveling through central Germany to NATO’s eastern flank, which has become the eastern front.

Germany is seen as a ‘transit and host country’ for the troops traveling through it.

But since regular Bundeswehr troops would be needed for a possible war in the east, this is a ‘national task’. Among other things, rations, fuel, ‘overnight accommodation and parking capacities’, ‘maintenance and security’ of military equipment, and ‘medical care’ must be provided. It also states that ‘traffic control’ is necessary for ‘large-scale military deployments’.

The Green Paper also states that Convoy Support Centers (CSCs) should be established: these centers are ‘rest and assembly areas for troops marching in motorized vehicles’ and should have everything that might be needed ‘in the range of food/bedding/fuel/workshops’.

In addition to emergency service organizations and civilian agencies, contractual partners from the private sector are asked to be consulted for the operation of the CDC.

Hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, pharmacies: Everything at the service of the army

The Green Paper emphasizes that in the event of a crisis or war, civilians will not only be obliged to assist in the care of the troops passing through, but also in the health care of sick or wounded soldiers.

In principle, according to the document, all players in the healthcare system will be needed: not only the relevant emergency services, hospitals, and rehabilitation facilities, but also outpatient care facilities, doctors’ surgeries, and pharmacies.

According to the scenario on which the Green Paper is based, the ‘provision of primary medical care for 60,000 soldiers’ must be guaranteed even during the deployment of troops to the east.

In principle, the so-called cloverleaf mechanism could be used to provide care for sick or injured soldiers in a crisis situation. This mechanism was developed in spring 2020 in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic with the aim of distributing acute patients to available hospital beds as quickly as possible.

The system has since been further developed and is currently being used to transport seriously ill Ukrainians and war wounded to hospitals in Germany.

The level of care for civilians will be reduced

However, the document notes that the cloverleaf mechanism is difficult to apply in a full-scale war situation because the number of victims is likely to be very high.

According to the scenario, 1,000 people could be wounded per day, of whom ‘33.6 percent would require intensive care, 22 percent more care and 44.4 percent minor injuries’ and would have to be transported from the front to Germany for treatment.

In Germany, on the other hand, they would become ‘absolutely dependent on civilian care structures’, which are already suffering from overload. The existing capacities will no longer be sufficient to serve the civilian population in the event of war to the same extent as before, which is already often insufficient.

The authors of the Green Paper strongly criticize the ‘lack of a public debate on reducing the level of care’ for the civilian population; due to the ‘lack of debate’, the population is considered ‘insufficiently prepared’ for the ‘necessary prioritization’, i.e. preferential treatment of soldiers and subordinate treatment of civilians.

The Green Paper points out that the situation would be even more serious in the event of war, given that ‘large movements of refugees from neighboring countries’ are expected, and that refugees would need at least medical care.

This would have to be taken over by ‘municipalities and districts’ supported by aid organizations.