Totally Relaxed
Hendrik Wüst, the Fuchs and the art of meaning two things at once
Chancellor Merz demands that Europe buy weapons jointly. Hendrik Wüst says he is right. Shortly before, Wüst and four colleagues had protested against exactly that. Asked about it, he is “totally relaxed”.
I. The letter
On 21 October 2025 a letter became public that five German state premiers had written to Chancellor Merz: Boris Rhein of Hesse, Hendrik Wüst of North Rhine-Westphalia, Markus Söder of Bavaria, Winfried Kretschmann of Baden-Württemberg and Olaf Lies of Lower Saxony. It concerned the successor to the Fuchs armoured transport vehicle. The federal government was considering buying it abroad.
The five asked that “purely national solutions, from domestic production with domestic value added, also be considered”. The aim, they wrote, was “to combine a combat-readiness package for the Bundeswehr with an economic stimulus package for our country”. The additional costs of switching to another system had not been adequately taken into account.
In December 2025 the Bundeswehr nevertheless ordered up to 876 armoured transport vehicles from the Finnish manufacturer Patria, in a joint programme with six other countries. They are built with German partners, among them KNDS Deutschland.
II. The interview
The research team Investigate Europe asked all five about the letter. Only one answered, and that speaks for him: Hendrik Wüst.
Did he follow the Chancellor’s demand for joint procurement? “I think that’s true. I think he’s right about that.”
Why, then, had he protested against exactly such a joint procurement? “As premier of a strong industrial state I want to leave no opportunity unused for as much as possible to take place here. But that’s normal business, promoting your industry. And if it succeeds, we’re pleased. And if it doesn’t, then others sometimes sell to us.” And: “If it turns out differently, there’s no need to go over it again.”
To the objection that the Finnish vehicles would largely be built in Germany anyway: “Well, that’s how it usually is in the industry. When our manufacturers sell abroad, they produce there too. That’s why I’m totally relaxed about it.”
III. What the answers say
Read the sentences one after another. The Chancellor is right. The letter against what the Chancellor demands was normal business. Whether it succeeded does not matter. And that the vehicle whose purchase he wrote against is built here anyway does not trouble him. Each sentence on its own is unassailable. Together they amount to nothing.
This is what we call confetti: words that are colourful, light and cheap, that land everywhere and carry nothing. Confetti is not a lie. Wüst says nothing false. He merely tells each side what it wants to hear and relies on nobody laying the sentences side by side.
IV. What is wrong
Looked at mercilessly, three points do not hold.
First, a state premier is not a sales representative for his industry. The money he lobbies for is not North Rhine-Westphalia’s money but the money of all federal taxpayers. Whoever lobbies for it to be spent more expensively so that more of it arrives in his own state is not lobbying for his industry but against the taxpayers of the other states, and in the end against his own.
Second, the letter rests on an assumption that is false. We examined armaments as an “economic stimulus package” in “Münchhausen’s Heirs”: according to a Mannheim study, a euro spent on tanks brings at most fifty cents of additional output, a euro spent on day-care centres about three euros. Whoever wants stimulus should build day-care centres. What the letter demands we described in “Industrial Subsidy in Camouflage”, except that here the camouflage is missing: the five write openly that armaments are meant to prop up industry.
Third, the argument of “domestic value added” does not hold when the foreign vehicle is built at home. What the letter actually defends is not German work but the German contractor, that is, a particular company.
V. Why him in particular
Wüst was not alone. Four colleagues from the CDU, CSU, SPD and Greens signed the same letter and did not face the questions. That Wüst answered is to his credit. But his answer is exactly what shows the pattern that the political scientist Federico Santopinto describes in the same documentary: agree in Brussels, do the opposite at home. He calls it “schizophrenic”.
In 2024 Wüst was regarded as a possible chancellor candidate of the CDU/CSU. Of someone who wants to lead the country one may expect that he says what he wants. Whoever has two answers to every question has none. And whoever is “totally relaxed” about everything is responsible for nothing.
VI. What follows
A control engineer would say: one setpoint is announced and another is controlled. The announced one is called European cooperation, the controlled one is called orders for one’s own state. As long as nobody compares the two, nobody notices. The comparison is the task of the public. This time a research team did it, with a camera and two questions.
Further reading: The Technological Zoo · Industrial Subsidy in Camouflage · Münchhausen’s Heirs · The Bill Nobody Draws Up