German soldiers' union rebukes Lutheran bishop over war stance

Jan 4, 2010, 15:36 GMT

Berlin - A union representing Germany's soldiers has rebuked the country's top Lutheran official over what was perceived as her anti-war stance, and the German government added Monday that it too had a 'difference of views' with Bishop Margot Kaessmann.

At two January 1 church services, she told congregations in Berlin and Dresden she did not approve of the western strategy in Afghanistan, where 4,500 German military personnel are deployed with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

'Nothing is right in Afghanistan. All these strategies have just obscured that soldiers are using their guns and even killing civilians,' she said. 'We need people who are not paralysed by the logic of war, but present a clear witness for peace.'

The German Armed Forces Association, representing personnel in all three defence arms, suggested she had done soldiers a disservice.

'It would have been better if Kaessmann had talked to soldiers about their difficult task before she got up to preach,' Colonel Ulrich Kirsch, the association chief, told the newspaper Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung.

'Her rejection of the Afghanistan deployment just creates new frustrations.'

Kaessmann, a clergywoman who heads the Evangelical Church in Germany EKD, a council that unites many of the independent regional Protestant churches, denied she had criticized the deployment.

'My sermon did not say the Afghanistan deployment was bad, but that we need more imagination to pursue peace,' she told the German Press Agency dpa.

Christoph Steegmans, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's government said every military mission involved ethical dilemmas and the bishop should give the government more credit.

'There is a difference of view here,' he said. 'Just as we respect the opinions of others, those who never had and do not have an easy time deciding to send to troops to Afghanistan are entitled to receive some respect.'

Surveys have repeatedly shown a majority of Germans are more opposed to than supportive of the Afghan deployment.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle welcomed Monday Kaessmann's explanation of her remarks, saying, 'What we are doing is civilian reconstruction, which has to be militarily defended.'

He reiterated his stance that moves should begin before this year is out to transfer security responsibility for Afghanistan to the Kabul government as a prelude to withdrawing western forces.