German Army Chief: Pentagon Has Severely Reduced Direct Communication

According to a report by The Atlantic, Freuding explained that German officials once had round-the-clock access to their American counterparts but now find those channels effectively “cut off.”

He noted that Berlin received no advance notice earlier this year when the Trump administration suddenly stopped weapons deliveries to Ukraine. As a result, Freuding says he now depends on German diplomats in Washington to track down Pentagon contacts just to obtain basic updates on US defense policy.

His comments come at a time when Washington is intentionally scaling back its involvement in the Ukraine conflict and in European security more broadly, pushing NATO allies to assume greater responsibility. Germany, meanwhile, is pursuing an extensive military build-up—boosting weapons production, speeding up procurement, and taking on long-term debt to strengthen its armed forces.

Berlin aims to make the Bundeswehr Europe’s strongest conventional military by 2029, citing warnings that Russia could threaten NATO in the near future.

Moscow has dismissed such warnings as baseless, accusing Western governments of exaggerating the threat of Russian aggression to justify surging defense budgets. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of trying to turn Germany into Europe’s dominant military power, characterizing the EU’s trajectory as drifting toward a “Fourth Reich.”

The Kremlin maintains that while Russia does not seek confrontation with NATO, it will respond as necessary to what it sees as the alliance’s increasingly aggressive posture.