by Michael Hollister
Published at GlobalBridge on July 05, 2026

4.349 words * 23 minutes readingtime

Part 1 read here:
The Neutral General – and Who Pays Him – Part 1

Military Expert or Defense Industry Insider?

Three Cases and What They Do Not Show

As this text was being written, a fourth general was already visible in the search results-without anyone having searched for him. Jörg Vollmer, a retired four-star general, served until June 2022 as commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum-the very same NATO headquarters that Hans-Lothar Domröse had led before him. Since leaving service, Vollmer has been Chief Advisor Military Affairs at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing, and Ergonomics (FKIE) in Wachtberg. The FKIE is the largest defense research facility within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, funded from public resources, with the Bundeswehr as one of its most important clients. The institute names Vollmer on its own website, in press releases, in conference programs. His name is not hidden. The role is there in black and white.

What is not there: any mention of it when Vollmer is quoted in the media. Then the Bundeswehr and NATO career appears-from 1978 to 2022, spanning more than four decades. What does not appear is the role at the FKIE, a publicly funded institute with a defense mandate, operating in the same institutional environment he is asked to comment on. This is not a claim about intentions. It is a finding about a presentational pattern that runs through the entire sector, regardless of outlet, format, or individual.

The three cases from Part 1 of this analysis-Domröse, Vad, von Sandrart-became visible because in each instance an external source disclosed the connection of its own accord: a government register, a personal confirmation by the individual, a corporate announcement. Vollmer is visible because the Fraunhofer FKIE lists him publicly. This is not a systemic difference-it is an accident of institutional transparency. The difference between a visible and an invisible case lies not in the tie. It lies in whether anyone communicates that tie to the public of their own volition.

This question does not lead to another individual case. It leads into a structure consisting of several layers-research institutes, consulting firms, associations, networks-that collectively ensure retired senior military officers transition seamlessly into a field that thrives on the same procurement decisions they discuss on television. Most of these layers produce no publicly accessible client lists. Some do not even produce a lobby register entry. What they produce is a sense of normality-and normality goes unnoticed.

The Architecture of Invisibility

Domröse is documented-that is his particular place in the overall picture. Not because he is the only one, but because the Bundestag Lobby Register represents the exception among disclosure mechanisms: it is mandatory for anyone who conducts paid advocacy directed at the Bundestag or the federal government. Whoever merely advises without lobbying; whoever works for research institutes; whoever sits on strategic advisory boards or markets their experience through private consulting firms without directly approaching legislative processes-none of these are subject to a registration requirement. The registration obligation captures precisely those cases in which someone actively exerts political pressure. The far more common constellation-the retiree as knowledge carrier, as door opener, as strategic adviser in the background-remains outside its scope. Domröse fell into the register because he conducted active advocacy in the narrowest sense and described it as such himself. Most of his peers do the same thing under different labels-and leave no trace in any publicly accessible document.

The Fraunhofer FKIE, where Vollmer serves as chief military adviser, is not a defense company in the narrow sense. It is a publicly funded research institute that develops technologies for communication, reconnaissance, sensors, and artificial intelligence in the defense domain. The Bundeswehr is a client, the defense industry is a cooperation partner, and the stated objective is to advance research results to operational readiness. Vollmer himself put it this way at a technology forum hosted by the institute: the armed forces needed the most advanced technologies to achieve the decisive advantage, and defense-oriented research that accompanied the user from the outset through to operational readiness was the key. This is not a neutral statement of position-it is the institutional mission of an institute he represents. What Vollmer contributes there is not primarily a network of contacts-it is operational knowledge: what the armed forces need, how procurement cycles work, which capability gaps are politically prioritized. This knowledge has a market value that rises with rank and slowly declines with distance from active service. Research institutes like the FKIE are attractive destinations for retired senior officers because the affiliation is open, the work is regarded as academic, and no lobby register entry is required.

Alongside the research institutes exists a second channel that produces even less transparency: private strategy consultancies. Vollmer is not only active at the FKIE-he is additionally listed as an Advisory Board Member on the platform of a consultancy specializing in geopolitical risk and the defense economy. What this consultancy does for whom, which companies count among its clients, what Vollmer specifically contributes there-none of these questions can be answered from publicly accessible sources. This is not a shortcoming of this particular firm. It is the structural nature of private strategy consulting: client lists are trade secrets, advisory board roles are rarely actively publicized, and the retiree who takes his network and his knowledge to market by this route leaves no trace in any public register. He does not have to. And this fact is part of the architecture.

A third channel connects both worlds: industry associations that bring the military and industry together within an institutional framework. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Wehrtechnik (DWT, the German Society for Defense Technology), the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer (FKH, the German Army Sponsors’ Circle), the Deutsche Atlantische Gesellschaft (the German Atlantic Association)-in these organizations, retired generals sit alongside board members from Rheinmetall, KNDS, Diehl, and Airbus Defence & Space. Membership is typically voluntary and publicly accessible. But it creates precisely the institutionalized contact between former operational experience and industrial interests that would otherwise have to be painstakingly arranged. Whoever sits in the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer does not encounter the defense industry by chance-they encounter it regularly, in a structured manner, within a shared institutional framework designed for the alignment of interests. The membership does not create a paid tie. It creates something more effective: shared frames of reference, personal acquaintances, and a common language about what the Bundeswehr needs and what industry can deliver.

How many retirees follow these paths can only be estimated approximately. A parliamentary inquiry by the BSW group in the Bundestag, answered by the federal government in January 2025, provides at least a floor for total personnel outflow: since the start of the coalition government, 411 Bundeswehr personnel-406 soldiers and 5 civil servants-have reported a move to a company or interest group in the defense industry. The three most popular destinations were Airbus with 58 individuals, ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH with 50, and Rheinmetall AG including its subsidiaries with 43. The federal government itself noted in its response that a reporting and approval obligation for professional activities after leaving service exists only under certain provisions of the Federal Civil Service Act and that professional activities beyond these are not systematically recorded in personnel management systems. Whoever moves to a research institute, whoever founds a consulting firm, whoever joins an association-none of this appears in these statistics. The 411 are a floor, not an inventory. The true number is structurally unknown.

What these figures show is not criminal energy-they show a structural matter of course. The experienced officer is an attractive hire for the defense industry because he brings knowledge, networks, and institutional credibility that cannot be recreated on the open market. That he deploys this capital after leaving service is his right. That he deploys it while appearing in the media as a neutral authority on the very questions in which his clients have commercial interests-that is the point where the equation no longer balances. And the burden of telling the public lies not with the retiree. It lies with the outlet that introduces him as an independent voice.

Network and Mandate-A Necessary Distinction

Anyone seeking to understand the structure behind the silence must cleanly separate what is easily confused: a formal, paid tie to a defense company is something different from membership in an association or a network. This distinction is not a legal footnote-it is the analytical foundation that protects this finding from overstatement. Whoever blurs it makes their own finding vulnerable. Whoever draws it clearly sharpens it.

Egon Ramms, a retired four-star general, served until 2020 as commander of the same NATO headquarters in Brunssum that Vollmer led after him and Domröse before him. Ramms sits on the executive board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Wehrtechnik. This is an association role-voluntary, publicly accessible, without a paid corporate mandate. Ramms appears regularly in German media as a military expert. Whether his DWT executive board role is mentioned follows the same pattern as in the cases from Part 1: the Bundeswehr career is named; the association in which the defense industry is institutionally represented and in which he holds a leadership position is not.

The difference from Domröse is structurally important and must be stated openly: to the best of current knowledge, Ramms does not hold a paid corporate mandate with a defense company. That makes him a different case-not a case without relevance, but one that occupies a different analytical category. The DWT is not an independent professional society-it is the institutional venue where defense corporations maintain regular contact with military officers and politicians. Whoever sits on its executive board is part of a network that the industry cultivates structurally. This is transparent. It is also not the same as independence.

Another example of the network level is Henning Otte. The CDU politician served from 2020 to October 2023 on the board of the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer and was vice president of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Wehrtechnik until May 2017-in both cases in a voluntary capacity, in both cases openly. The Förderkreis Deutsches Heer is a networking organization whose sponsoring members include a large share of the German defense industry; the DWT lists defense companies as full members. As a Bundestag member and defense policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Otte consistently voted during this period for higher defense budgets and spoke out against stricter arms export restrictions-positions that aligned with the interests of these associations. LobbyControl had already drawn attention in 2014 to his association memberships and the political positions he took in this combination. Since 23 May 2025, Otte has been the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces (Wehrbeauftragter) of the Bundestag. This office required him to relinquish his parliamentary seat; he is now a parliamentary oversight body for the armed forces, no longer a legislator. Three facts, no verdict-the reader has all the information needed to read the timeline.

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann is active in the DWT, the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer, and the Deutsche Atlantische Gesellschaft-openly, on the public record, with no hidden affiliation. She appears here not as a covert case but as a reference point for what is possible: her network memberships are regularly discussed in media coverage of her. This is the normal state of affairs that should apply to everyone. That it appears self-evident in her case but not in others is not an individual exception-it is a pattern of selective attention.

The association and network level is thus not the problem that the cases from Part 1 represent. It is the institutional backdrop against which paid mandates become invisible: because membership in the DWT or the FKH is regarded as normal industry engagement, it goes unnoticed when, beyond that, a compensated consulting mandate exists that appears nowhere. The network normalizes the proximity-and the normalized proximity lowers the threshold for even noticing the missing disclosure. For the outlet that invites a general into the studio, the association role is in any case not the first thing it researches. And when even the obvious goes uncommunicated, the non-obvious has no chance.

Added to this is a selection effect that follows from the logic of the media business. A retired general with a DWT executive board seat is attractive to a newsroom because he brings authority, a network, and availability. Whoever sits in the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer knows the industry, knows the procurement histories, knows the political decision-makers. He can make complex matters comprehensible because he has been exposed to them for decades. This knowledge advantage is real-and it is the reason these voices are in demand. The problem is not that they are in demand. The problem is that their invitation is simultaneously an invitation to their institutional ties, about which the public learns nothing. The network membership is the door opener to the studio-and at the same time the thing that goes unmentioned in the studio.

The Test: Ideology or Disclosure?

The strongest objection to this analysis runs: it is only about the hawks. Those who advocate rearmament get singled out; those who oppose it are spared. If that were true, what is being practiced here would itself be agenda journalism with reversed polarity. The objection deserves to be taken seriously-and it can be falsified.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU foreign policy figure, is one of the most prominent advocates of heavy weapons deliveries to Ukraine and military strength in the German debate. He discloses his secondary activities on a dedicated transparency page and states there that he receives no secondary income from the defense industry whatsoever. This self-declaration cannot be verified through a government register-no mechanism compels him to make it. But it exists, and it corresponds to what an outlet could communicate about him: that this hawk, who advocates for tanks and ammunition, has by his own account no paid connection to the industry that profits from his position. Kiesewetter is thus not a case-and that is the correct conclusion, precisely because of his political line, not despite it.

Harald Kujat stands on the other side of the opinion spectrum. The former Inspector General of the Bundeswehr and chairman of the NATO Military Committee has been among the most frequently cited skeptics in the German security debate since the outbreak of war: he warned against military escalation, advocated negotiated solutions, and criticized the strategy of long-range weapons deliveries. These positions earned him accusations of closeness to Russia from parts of the media. What was rarely named with precision in this debate is a formal institutional tie he held during that very period.

Since July 2016, Kujat had been a member of the supervisory board of the Berlin-based Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute (DOC). The DOC had been co-founded and funded by Vladimir Yakunin; Yakunin was regarded as a long-standing confidant of Vladimir Putin and was placed on Western sanctions lists. Kujat himself confirmed the role in October 2016 and explained that he had taken it on in order to observe the institute’s work up close and, if necessary, influence it. This is a formal organ-level function within an institutional body-not a conference contact, not a chance encounter.

On 09 October 2016, Kujat appeared on the ARD broadcast Anne Will. The topic was the Syria war, the American-Russian confrontation, and the question of Western options for action. The official ARD announcement listed him solely as “Harald Kujat, General (ret.)”; according to the NDR, he was also introduced on the show as a former NATO general. The DOC supervisory board role, which he had assumed a few months earlier, was absent from the guest introduction. It was-following media inquiries-added retroactively to Kujat’s online short biography only on the day of broadcast. The NDR furthermore confirmed that Kujat had been deliberately invited as a representative of a more Russia-friendly position.

A second documented case: in May 2017, ZDF announced Kujat for an episode of Precht in which Syria, Ukraine, and North Korea were expressly on the agenda. The official announcement introduced him exclusively as a former Inspector General and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee. The DOC role was absent-even though Deutschlandfunk Kultur had expressly reported on Kujat’s supervisory board seat as recently as February 2017. The temporal connection between a documented role and a media appearance without disclosure is thus close and documented for this case as well.

What these two cases demonstrate: Kujat appeared during his documented supervisory board tenure at the DOC institute-co-founded and funded by Vladimir Yakunin-as a security expert on high-reach public broadcasting formats. In the prominent guest introductions, he was legitimized through his former military offices; the concurrent DOC role went unmentioned in at least several official announcements. What is not demonstrated: that he was compensated by Yakunin or Russia for his DOC role; that he spoke on behalf of the institute; that his positions were steered by the institute; that he actively concealed anything from newsrooms; or that newsrooms deliberately covered up the connection.

The juxtaposition of Kiesewetter and Kujat thus delivers the cleanest test this analysis can offer: in the case of the hawk who advocates rearmament, there is no disclosure failure-no relevant tie that would need to be disclosed. In the case of the skeptic who warned against escalation, there is a documented disclosure failure-not because of his stance but because of an institutional tie that was absent from the guest introduction. The pattern of insufficient transparency stops at no political line. It is structural, not selective.

The Visible Revolving Door

There is a portion of the personnel flow between the Bundeswehr, politics, and the defense industry that is publicly visible-and that is useful as a contrast precisely because of this visibility. When legislators move to the defense sector after the end of their political careers, it generally happens neither covertly nor unknown. It happens openly, with a press release and a lobby register entry. And it is nonetheless rarely discussed in its structural significance.

Marcus Faber, an FDP lawmaker and chairman of the Bundestag Defense Committee until his party’s departure from parliament in February 2025, took up his position as Vice President Political Affairs at Elbit Systems Deutschland on 01 November 2025. Elbit Systems is an Israeli defense and technology corporation; the German subsidiary in Ulm produces, among other things, radio communication systems, night vision devices, and reconnaissance systems for the Bundeswehr. Faber stated publicly that he would serve as a link between political Berlin, Brussels, and the corporate management. The Lobby Register entry for Elbit Systems Deutschland lists Faber by name, with a reference to his former Bundestag tenure. LobbyControl called the move “highly problematic”; Abgeordnetenwatch described it as a “textbook case of the revolving door”. Transparency: complete. Debate: limited.

The list of similar moves is long and crosses party lines. Franz Josef Jung, CDU, defense minister from 2005 to 2009, moved to the supervisory board of Rheinmetall. Dirk Niebel, FDP, development minister until 2013, became a lobbyist for the same corporation. Eckhardt Rehberg, CDU, long-serving budgetary spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and thus significantly involved in the defense budgets of recent legislative periods, moved to General Dynamics. In all these cases: the tie is known, the move was carried out openly, the new role was published.

What this contrast accomplishes for the overall analysis is decisive. The revolving door between politics and the defense industry turns in public-and even that barely triggers a political response. If even the transparent moves-the documented, announced, registered ones-remain without significant societal consequences, then it becomes clear why the concealed ties lie entirely below the threshold of public awareness. The visible is tolerated; the invisible therefore exists all the more undisturbed.

To the mechanisms described in Part 1-convenience, economic calculation, regulatory gaps, convenient self-justification-a fifth is thereby added: societal habituation. When the move from the Defense Committee to a defense firm is regarded as a normal career path; when the former defense minister sits on the supervisory board of the corporation whose procurement contracts he once signed, and this is perceived as industry standard-then the social pressure that would enforce a disclosure norm is absent. Normality protects the system more effectively than secrecy. Whoever expresses surprise at the self-evident quickly looks naive.

Yet the normative question behind the revolving door is the same as behind the concealed expert mandate: how much institutional proximity is compatible with a claim to independence? For the legislator who moves from the Defense Committee to a defense corporation, the cooling-off period applies-18 months for former members of the federal government. For Faber, as a rank-and-file lawmaker, this period did not apply. For the retired general who builds his consulting firm while still in his final year of service, there is no cooling-off period. And for the newsroom that invites him, there is no disclosure obligation. The revolving door turns on all floors simultaneously-and only on a few of them is its direction visible to the public.

What Is Missing and What Should Be Demanded

This analysis has shown, through four cases, that retired senior military officers are regularly introduced in German media without any reference to their post-service ties-when those ties are even visible. Through a fifth case, it has shown that the same pattern affects public figures beyond the generals. And through two counter-cases, it has shown that the pattern does not depend on political stance but on disclosure-or its absence.

A disclosure norm for invited experts does not exist in Germany. It is found neither in any broadcasting statute nor in any paragraph of the Press Code nor in any legislative provision. The Press Code prescribes transparency regarding editorial conflicts of interest-not regarding the interests of guests who appear as experts without bearing editorial responsibility. The Interstate Broadcasting Treaties regulate much but not the question of whether an invited commentator must state their current employment. This gap is not an oversight-it is the product of a convention in which expert guests are treated as authorities of public life, not as parties with potential economic interests in the subject they are commenting on.

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Such a norm would be feasible, and its content would be simple: anyone who speaks in an editorial format on questions of defense policy, arms procurement, or military strategy discloses to the newsroom whether they currently perform compensated work for companies or organizations with an economic connection to the topics under discussion. The newsroom communicates this information as part of the guest introduction. Anyone with no relevant tie states this as well-just as Kiesewetter voluntarily does on his transparency page. The standard he has set for himself would then not be the exception of a particularly transparency-minded politician but the minimum for all invited commentators.

This is not an attack on retired generals who market their knowledge after decades of service. It is not an accusation against newsrooms that work under time pressure and fall back on proven voices. It is the simplest conceivable requirement for a journalism that treats the public as citizens capable of judgment-rather than as recipients of an authorized interpretation whose commercial foundations remain invisible.

The citizen who finances this rearmament debate with their taxes and bears it with the security of their country has a right to this one piece of information. Not as a verdict. As the basis for forming one of their own.

Published at GlobalBridge on July 05, 2026

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About the Author

Michael Hollister
is a geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist. He served six years in the German military, including peacekeeping deployments in the Balkans (SFOR, KFOR), followed by 14 years in IT security management. His analysis draws on primary sources to examine European militarization, Western intervention policy, and shifting power dynamics across Asia. A particular focus of his work lies in Southeast Asia, where he investigates strategic dependencies, spheres of influence, and security architectures. Hollister combines operational insider perspective with uncompromising systemic critique – beyond opinion journalism. His work appears on his bilingual website (German/English) www.michael-hollister.com and in investigative outlets across the German-speaking world and the Anglosphere.

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Sources

Fraunhofer FKIE, 07 May 2026 – 60 years of defense research: FKIE makes an essential contribution to the future readiness of the Bundeswehr (Vollmer as Chief Advisor Military Affairs, quote on Zeitenwende): https://www.fkie.fraunhofer.de/de/newsroom/Presseinformationen/60-jahre-wehrwissenschaftliche-forschung-in-wachtberg.html
EstMil.tech / conference program – Vollmer biography: “Chief Advisor Military Affairs for the Fraunhofer Institute FKIE,” last accessed June 2026: https://www.estmil.tech/speakers-2024
Bundeswehr-Journal, 06 February 2025 – When former soldiers join the defense industry (411 moves; Airbus 58 / ESG 50 / Rheinmetall 43; government response to BSW inquiry of 20 January 2025): https://www.bundeswehr-journal.de/2025/wenn-ehemalige-soldaten-bei-der-ruestungsindustrie-anheuern/
t-online, February 2025 – Bundeswehr: Hundreds of soldiers move to the defense industry (government response in full text, BSW criticism): https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik/id_100604476/bundeswehr-hunderte-soldaten-wechseln-zur-ruestungsindustrie.html
lobbypedia.de – Entry Henning Otte (FKH vice president until 2023, DWT vice president until 2017; LobbyControl assessment): https://lobbypedia.de/wiki/Henning_otte
Deutscher Bundeswehrverband (DBwV), 22 May 2025 – Bundestag elects Henning Otte as new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces (election, relinquishment of parliamentary seat, association background): https://www.dbwv.de/aktuelle-themen/blickpunkt/beitrag/der-bundestag-waehlt-henning-otte-zum-neuen-wehrbeauftragten
taz, 22 May 2025 – New Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces: An exceedingly well-connected reserve officer (FKH vice president until 2023, LobbyControl assessment on conflict of interest): https://taz.de/Neuer-Wehrbeauftragter-des-Bundestags/!6089461/
esut.de, 07 November 2025 – Marcus Faber is Vice President at Elbit Systems Deutschland (VP since 01 November 2025, career): https://esut.de/2025/11/meldungen/65110/marcus-faber-ist-vizepraesident-bei-elbit-systems-deutschland/
hartpunkt.de, November 2025 – Elbit Systems Deutschland: Marcus Faber new Vice President (VP Political Affairs, link between Berlin/Brussels, CEO reporting): https://www.hartpunkt.de/elbit-systems-deutschland-marcus-faber-neuer-vice-president/
taz, 04 November 2025 – FDP politician moves to defense firm: From defense politician to arms lobbyist (LobbyControl “highly problematic,” Abgeordnetenwatch “textbook case of the revolving door”): https://taz.de/FDPler-Marcus-Faber-wechselt-zu-Ruestungsfirma/!6126860/
Bundestag Lobby Register, entry Elbit Systems Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG (Dr. Marcus Faber, activity until 03/25: Member of Bundestag; association memberships): https://www.lobbyregister.bundestag.de/suche/R004255
Deutschlandfunk Kultur / NDR – Kujat DOC supervisory board membership since July 2016; Deutschlandfunk Kultur report February 2017; NDR statement on Anne Will broadcast of 09 October 2016 (DOC role added to online biography only on day of broadcast). No URL available.

© Michael Hollister – All rights reserved. Redistribution, publication or reuse of this text requires express written permission from the author. For licensing inquiries, please contact the author via www.michael-hollister.com.

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