ABSTRACT
With the end of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF ) on December 31, 2014, the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) close a defining and challenging chapter. It was with the shoulder patch of ISAF that German troops for the first time since 1945 fought, killed, and died in ground combat. Though Europe as a continent has enjoyed decades of unprecedented peace and stability after the Second World War, some European armies became used to fighting small and large wars overseas. Not so the Bundeswehr; and not so the German public. From the beginning, Germany contributed significantly to the ISAF mission, thereby accepting lead responsibility for Kabul in 2003 and later for the vast but relatively quiet north of Afghanistan. Over the years, however, Germany’s ISAF mission changed its character in pace with increasing occurrences of violent incidents: “war fighting” became the term of choice when the Bundeswehr’s engagement in Afghanistan was discussed in the media and on the streets. Against the backdrop of the drastically altered realities on the ground, German politicians needed to change the strategic narrative too in order to explain the mission in Afghanistan to the public – not an easy task by any measure.
