On Tuesday, June 29, the last soldiers of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) left the military camp in Mazar-i-Sharif, DW reports.
“A whole chapter in history is coming to an end, an intense mission that challenged the Bundeswehr and significantly influenced its formation, including in battles. The mission, during which the souls and bodies of our soldiers were injured, during which we lost people and mourned the dead”, – said German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
Until May 2021, there were about 1,100 German troops in Afghanistan. Germany possessed the second largest military contingent in the Central Asian countries, second only to the United States.
According to tagesschau.de, the Bundeswehr’s mission in Afghanistan lasted about twenty years with the participation of 150 thousand German soldiers and officers, of whom 59 were killed.
“To date, this is the most ambitious experience of participation in an armed conflict for the Bundeswehr. Even now, the military leadership of the FRG says that the Afghan experience has become decisive for the formation of the Bundeswehr as a modern military organization”, – the newspaper notes.