Germany 'needs a nuclear arsenal of its own'By Kate Connolly in Berlin
(Filed: 27/01/2006)
A former defence minister has provoked outrage and broken a major taboo by suggesting that Germany should have its own nuclear arsenal.
Rupert Scholz argued that Berlin needed to embrace the idea of a nuclear deterrent in the light of threats from terrorists and the Middle East.
"We need to ask ourselves how we could react in an appropriate manner to a nuclear threat from a terror state, and if needs be, even by using our own nuclear weapons," he said.
Mr Scholz, 68, who was the defence minister in Helmut Kohl's government in 1988 and 1989, said he doubted whether other nations' guarantees, made during the Cold War, to keep Germany safe in the face of a nuclear threat, could still be trusted.
"Without the appropriate guarantees of protection by our partners, the question of our own nuclear deterrent needs to be discussed openly," he said.
"I am aware that I am addressing a taboo. But in the light of the dangers that weapons of mass destruction could end up in the hands of terrorists, this is a question which deserves serious debate."
Germany agreed not to develop nuclear weapons after the Second World War in return for protection from the United States and Nato.
Mr Scholz's comments came under attack yesterday.
The security spokesman for the opposition Free Democrats, Rainer Stinner, accused him of "throwing oil on the fire" of the tension between Iran and the West.
Rainer Arnold, the defence spokesman for the Social Democrats, part of the governing coalition, said Mr Scholz's remarks would not be taken seriously.
