Armed with a tin of cookies, a thermos of coffee and a carton of oat milk, a small group of campaigners spent a sunny afternoon outside a factory in central Berlin last week handing out flyers to workers arriving and leaving the site.
The plant, located in Wedding, a former working-class district, is undergoing a controversial change. From this summer most of its roughly 350 employees will be assigned to produce shells for large-caliber munitions. The owner, Pierburg — a subsidiary of industrial giant Rheinmetall — has emphasized there will be no explosives on site.
“Our aim is to get into conversations with the workers here,” said Andreas, who declined to give his surname, speaking for the Berlin Alliance Against Weapons Production (BBgW), a network of about 30 groups opposing what they see as creeping militarization of German industry.
“We stand on your side,” read the flyers. “We are all affected by the crisis, the cuts, and the threat of unemployment. But we think that war industry and defense production are not the solution.” The leaflets invited workers to local meetings to discuss persuading the company to return to civilian production.
The demonstrators met a chilly reception. Few workers stopped; most hurried past, declined the flyers or kept car windows closed as guards waved them through. “Wow, you can really see how nervous they are,” one protester said. Andreas suspected workers had been instructed not to speak to campaigners, though that could not be confirmed.
Locals were also uneasy about the factory producing weapons in Wedding for the first time since World War II. Traditionally left-leaning and once nicknamed “Red Wedding,” the district has a history of labor unrest, including the clashes of Bloody May in 1929.
“I’m a child of the war — me and my brother were evacuated, we’re all against war,” an 87-year-old passerby told DW. “As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t have to [manufacture weapons] here, I don’t want it. But on the other hand we have to protect ourselves,” she added.
Andreas acknowledged the workers’ dilemma. “The workers need work. It’s a dilemma that in a capitalist system, the workers don’t get to have a say in what actually gets produced in a plant,” he said. Still, he argued, “you can make plans and suggestions and approach the management with criticisms,” and noted a plant could manufacture non-military goods.
Some employees appeared unhappy with the shift. “I think it’s shit,” one worker called to DW from her car as she left, adding she would not be there long because she was retiring.
Rheinmetall is one of Germany’s largest industrial firms, active in machine engineering, auto parts and, increasingly since recent years, weapons. The company helps build vehicles used by the Bundeswehr and NATO partners, and its Weapons and Munitions division — into which the Pierburg site is being folded — specializes in medium- to large-caliber ammunition. Rheinmetall’s share price has risen sharply since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In a statement to DW, Rheinmetall said the factory’s conversion responded to “economic developments characterized by declining sales in the automotive sector and a simultaneous enormous increase in demand in the military sector.” The company added it was pleased the change would “enable us to continue to offer secure jobs to the workforce at the Berlin plant in the future.”
The workforce’s lack of choice is a central argument for critics and some union members. “Of course, they’re not enthusiastic about what they’re producing. I think no one likes to manufacture for the defense industry,” said Klaus Murawski of IG Metall Berlin, who knows the Pierburg works council. Though sympathetic to the protests, Murawski has not joined them, arguing the demonstrations risk making workers feel “guilty by association.” “What alternatives are they offering the workforce?” he asked. “It’s not a matter of conscience; it’s an existential question for those workers.”
IG Metall itself is divided. “For us at IG Metall, it’s not an easy subject,” said Constantin Borchelt, head of IG Metall Berlin. “Our charter says that we’re for peace, for demilitarization, but at the same time, it also says we want to defend the free democratic social order. And first and foremost, we represent the employees.” Borchelt questioned the economic rationale for switching to defense production: “We need investment in future products — and we don’t mean weapons. We know from history that defense production is not infinite.”
The shift at the Pierburg plant sits within a broader trend. The German government and many European states have been boosting defense investment amid a changing geopolitical landscape, greater perceived threats from Russia and uncertainty over US commitments. Last March, the Bundestag approved a multi-hundred-billion-euro debt package to fund defense and infrastructure. Since then, hundreds of German factories have quietly retooled for military production.
Andreas and his BBgW colleagues plan to return to the factory gates next week to try again to engage workers. He warned of wider dangers in Germany’s industrial militarization. “Those who are armed are more prepared to follow a riskier foreign policy,” he said. “And we have to look at why Germany is doing that. Why is [Chancellor Friedrich] Merz saying that Germany needs to become a world power? Of course, this could come back to bite Germany. That would be war.”
Edited by: Rina Goldenberg
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