In Germany, everyone is a defense manufacturer now

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. FRANKFURT—Across Germany, railcar factories are being retooled to build military vehicles, auto suppliers are joining with defense contractors, and former soldiers are suddenly hot commodities in the jobs market. After Berlin pledged to spend more than half a trillion dollars on defense in the next decade, manufacturers facing stubborn economic stagnation and falling exports to the U.S.

and China are scrambling to reinvent themselves as military vendors. Membership at the main trade body for the German defense sector has nearly doubled in the past year. Many new members come from civilian-oriented sectors, especially the automotive industry, said Peter Scheben, a spokesman for the association in Berlin.

The defense industry “is probably not the first use case when you think about food," said Hendrik Susemihl, the chief executive of goodBytz, a Hamburg-based manufacturer of automated kitchens. Susemihl started his business in 2021 in the wake of a Covid-19-induced craze for “ghost kitchens," but he is pivoting hard into defense. He recently supplied an autonomous robotic kitchen to the U.S.

Army in South Korea and is discussing deliveries to all major North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. He expects the defense sector to provide one-third of his revenue in the future. A shift toward defense offers critical advantages: plenty of government money and protection from low-cost Chinese competitors.

Amid mounting animosity from the U.S. and a growing threat from Russia, Germany plans to nearly triple its annual military spending over the coming years to around $180 billion in 2029. The splurge is starting to show up in economic data.