No, Germany is not getting the Bomb. Why should it?

A quarter century ago, German political scientist Harald Müller observed that “the very basic question of whether … Germany should rethink its renunciation of nuclear weapons has a very odd circumstance [attached] to it, namely that it tends to be posed mostly outside Germany and almost never within the German debate.”

Germany hasn’t had an indigenous nuclear weapons program since 1945. In Berlin, nobody is asking for a German bomb. Not the government, not the public. Still, the idea of an independent German nuclear weapons program refuses to die in US policy circles. In recent months, scholars and analysts have warned that Germany was “now thinking about acquiring” nuclear weapons and that “states such as Germany and Finland” were discreetly debating the need for their own nuclear weapons. A common feature of this narrative is that countries like Japan, South Korea, and Germany are lumped in with a revisionist Iran. The total plausibility of Germany pursuing a domestic nuclear weapons program—no questions asked!—has made it into closed high-level policy workshops and was even recently advocated for in Foreign Affairs.

That some observers are talking about global proliferation cascades and include a German nuclear weapons program in the same breath is problematic. This discourse is disconnected from the debate now happening in Germany and is oblivious to German domestic politics, public opinion, and government statements. Not a single official in the German government has expressed their desire to acquire a domestic nuclear capability. To the contrary. Chancellor Friedrich Merz was adamant about his and his party’s opposition to acquiring a German bomb.

Public opinion and elite perceptions do not support the notion that Germany seeks to acquire its own nuclear weapons. The few German scholars and practitioners advocating for a bomb can be situated on the fringes of a much larger debate about extended US nuclear deterrence in Europe. German political discourse, public opinion, treaty obligations, and constitutional constraints have shaped a few deterrence options being proposed for Germany that are worth looking into. It shows the strong preference among the German government and population for either seeking a European solution or strengthening the extended deterrence within NATO.

“Germany gets the Bomb.” Following the 2016 US presidential election, Roderich Kiesewetter, the former Special Representative for Foreign Affairs in the German Bundestag, argued in favor of a new European nuclear capability financed by Germany—an opinion that was quickly dismissed by experts in the field. Wolfgang Ischinger, then head of the Munich Security Conference, pushed back against “Germany’s dangerous nuclear flirtations.”

The debate widened to include a German indigenous nuclear capability when, in 2017, Maximilian Terhalle, professor at the London School of Economics, penned a series of articles arguing that Germany “needed nuclear weapons,” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not to blame for this development, and that the German Navy should “acquire nuclear-equipped submarines” for operations in the Baltic Sea. More recently, Terhalle urged the Scholz government to withdraw from the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to “buy 1,000 non-active warheads and missiles” from the outgoing Biden administration. Notably, there aren’t any such “non-active” nuclear warheads and missiles available for purchase, and Germany has not signed on to the TPNW yet. Visibly, Terhalle must have mistaken the TPNW (also known as the nuclear ban treaty) for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—which aims to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons rather than banning them all—to which Germany is a party along with 190 other countries. Ultimately, such proposals have not been taken seriously by German experts and policymakers who judge such “phantom debates” to exhibit “somewhat panicky policy suggestions.”

Only a handful of German policymakers situated at the far right have argued for an indigenous weapons program. These fringe opinions stand in stark contrast to public opinion polling. Surveys from 2022 suggest that the German public has become more accepting of extended deterrence since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But more recent polling found that opposition against the stationing of US weapons in Germany and Italy had slightly risen again (59 percent and 63 percent, respectively) compared to a 2022 poll in which 52 percent of respondents expressed support. A YouGov poll from 2025 found that a majority of respondents opposed an indigenous nuclear weapons program in Germany (49 percent), with only 34 percent supporting a German weapons program. This is more than in many other European countries, such as Italy (47 percent), Spain (45 percent), and Denmark (39 percent).

In another poll, 44 percent of respondents aged 18 to 24 supported a German nuclear weapon, which suggests a stronger support among the youth. However, opposition to an independent German deterrent grew to 91 percent for respondents aged 45 to 54, and was polled at 72 percent across all age groups combined. Despite some possible discrepancies due to polling methodologies and the wording of surveys, nuclear experts Liviu Horovitz and Michal Onderco observe that “numerous surveys over the past two decades consistently showed that German citizens disliked nuclear deterrence and favored nuclear disarmament.” The authors further argue that a “shift in public attitudes likely reflects a momentary reaction [to the Russian invasion of Ukraine] rather than a new mindset” of embracing nuclear deterrence. Contrary to the debate surrounding South Korea’s nuclear options, public opinion data is nowhere to be found when US-based experts argue that Germany is thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons.

There are also substantial constitutional hurdles and international treaty obligations to any nuclear proliferation in Germany. Berlin renounced the right to produce atomic weapons through the Paris protocol to the 1954 Treaty of Brussels, although German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer believed it was a temporary measure until Germany was fully rehabilitated on the international stage. Germany is also a signatory of the 1957 Euratom Treaty, which ensures that “civil nuclear materials are not diverted to other uses, particularly military.” In 1974, Germany ratified the NPT and has since socialized itself as a responsible actor in the international system that uses its diplomatic and economic state power to counter nuclear proliferation in the world. Notably, Germany had to legally renounce the pursuit and acquisition of all weapons of mass destruction in the 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, more commonly known as the Two Plus Four Treaty on Unification.

However, with Germany’s military support for Ukraine, Russian disinformation campaigns have spread the false claim that Germany’s post-reunification sovereignty was conditional on its rejection of nuclear weapons and adherence to a strictly peaceful military posture. According to this narrative, the Allied powers could reassert their reserve rights and strip Germany of its sovereignty were Berlin to violate the unification treaty. Given that Russia is both a party to the treaty and Germany’s main security threat, a violation of the treaty may provide Putin with a pretext to reoccupy Eastern Germany, despite the four Allied powers having explicitly renounced their residual rights to fully restore Germany’s sovereignty.

Whether Russia using this pretext is a plausible scenario or not, it is one of the many ways through which a nuclear Germany would, as Ischinger aptly put it, “unwittingly checkmate itself.”

A decision by Germany to pursue nuclear weapons would fundamentally undermine the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture, damage alliance cohesion more broadly, and undercut the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. If a peaceful norms-exporter such as Germany went nuclear, what would stop Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Poland, or South Korea from doing the same?

Given its history, Germany probably more than any other Allied country would not want to let its domestic decision-making push the entire world toward a less stable state. But even if it did, a German weapons program would quickly run into domestic hurdles anyway.

First, as a free and open society, Germany would find it tremendously difficult to conceal a nuclear weaponization program from allies and adversaries alike. Like Israel was determined to kinetically attack Iran’s nuclear weapons program as Tehran moved closer to a nuclear bomb, Moscow would, no doubt, be determined to stop a German weapons program before it could threaten Russia itself.

Any nuclear weapons program would also require a change to the German Constitution. It is difficult to see how the German Greens (a party that has its origins in the anti-nuclear protests of the 1970s and 1980s) or the pacifist Die Linke could support an indigenous weapons program. The conservatives and social democrats currently forming a coalition government are also unlikely to contribute to the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution and launch a nuclear weapons program. This only leaves a few lawmakers of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) who may support the idea of a nuclear weapons program.

Lastly, as a parliamentary democracy with a proportional representation electoral system, coalition governments are the norm in Germany. This would complicate any clandestine attempts to pursue a nuclear weapons program. Plus, the decision-making authority to launch nuclear weapons would be vested in the majority coalition party, making coalition governments inherently less stable.

“Pursuing nuclear hedging.” Short of advocating for an indigenous weapons program, some US commentators propose a strategy of nuclear hedging in which Germany would expand its nuclear infrastructure and technological capabilities needed for achieving nuclear latency. Such nuclear threshold states stop short of actively pursuing a nuclear weapon while putting in place the necessary means to achieve breakout capability. Should a crisis emerge, nuclear latent states could potentially develop a bomb within months or even weeks.

Germany has key technological and scientific know-how already in place. From neutron research to metallurgical precision engineering, it can achieve nuclear latency more easily than many other countries. Scholars have argued that Germany has been a nuclear latent state in the past. However, with the phase-out of nuclear power completed in 2023, Germany has entered a decades-long process of dismantling its nuclear power plants. This means that Germany now lacks domestic plutonium production capacity, although the majority of previous reactor designs would not have been capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium either.

Germany could still leverage its participation in the Dutch-British-German Urenco Group, which designs modern uranium enrichment centrifuges and operates low-enriched uranium production facilities in Europe. This would allow the pursuit of a domestic enrichment facility used for civilian purposes, while maintaining the threshold to enrich weapons-grade uranium if needed. Even though this is a very unlikely proposition, some argue that this could happen under the guise of the FRM II neutron source reactor near Munich, which operates on weapons-grade uranium previously delivered by Russian suppliers. Like other research reactors in Belgium, France, and the United States, the 20-megawatt thermal FRM II reactor operates on 93-percent enriched uranium. In 2025, the Technical University of Munich announced that it will submit a license application to operate its reactor on low-enriched uranium, which is enriched at less than 20 percent uranium 235 and therefore is not weapon usable. The new design would operate on an innovative uranium-molybdenum alloy—a monolithic fuel allowing for the necessary uranium density for neutron production. Going forward, there is little reason to suggest that German research reactors would require highly enriched uranium.

Pursuit of a nuclear hedging strategy would be a stark departure from Germany’s identity as a status quo diplomatic and economic power. It would signal a clear intent to acquire a nuclear weapon if strategically prudent to do so. But nuclear latency considerations would bring inherent risks of international sanctions, loss of trust by the international community, and risk of provoking preemptive strikes.

Given these obvious challenges, one may ask whether the current strategic environment is really the main driver of the nuclear hedging debate or whether it is a last-ditch effort by civil nuclear power proponents to turn the tide on Germany’s nuclear phase-out.

Thorsten Benner, Director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, said as much when he argued that nuclear power “should be a no-brainer for other reasons in an age of energy-intensive artificial intelligence … A leading economy such as Germany simply needs to be at the forefront of civilian nuclear research.” While some observers regard Germany’s nuclear phase-out as a mistake, this decision needs to be analyzed within a domestic political context defined by anti-nuclear sentiments and the support for an expanding renewable energies sector. Today, Germany produces 58 percent of its electricity from renewables (including about 29 percent from wind, 15 percent from solar, 9 percent from biomass, and 4 percent from hydropower), with the remainder coming from fossil fuels (about 16 percent and 21 percent from natural gas and coal-fired power plants, respectively).

Deep-seated anti-nuclear sentiments have a long history in Germany, which goes back to at least the mass protests against the stationing of Pershing II intermediate missiles in the fall of 1983. Similarly, demonstrations against castor transports regularly made front-page news in Germany in the 1990s and 2000s. Castor container transports of depleted uranium rods to and from nuclear waste processing facilities in Sellafield in the United Kingdom and La Hague in France by ship and rail frequently led to mass protests organized by environmental groups and civil society, which at times turned violent.

Against this political backdrop, it is unlikely that nuclear fission reactors for carbon-neutral electricity generation will make a comeback in Germany any time soon. And this despite some international observers recently misperceiving Germany as reversing its policy on nuclear power. Far from a return to nuclear power, Germany reluctantly dropped its opposition to EU legislation, which labels nuclear power as green, in a move widely considered as appeasing the French government over the issue. In this context, some proponents of the nuclear hedging strategy seem to regard the debate in Germany over the pursuit of nuclear weapons production capacity as a way to justify a return to civilian nuclear power.

The nuclear “Eurodeterrent.” The establishment of a European deterrence architecture has been more widely discussed in recent months in Germany. Less practical proposals suggest a “suitcase with a red button” rotating between various EU member states and using French nuclear weapons. In 2023, this proposal prompted former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (a member of the German Greens) to kick off a public debate on the benefits of a so-called “Eurodeterrent.” More recently, Benner of the Global Public Policy Institute—and other commentators—advocated for the Europeanization of extended deterrence by recreating NATO’s nuclear planning group on the European level. The proposal leaves unaddressed why France, which has long refused to join NATO’s nuclear planning group to maintain what it calls “strategic independence,” would suddenly find a European-level nuclear policy body more attractive. Benner proposed that this new, European nuclear planning group be made up of “France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Italy, and perhaps Spain.” Conspicuously missing are other states currently participating in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement (Turkey, the Netherlands, and Belgium) and all current member states participating in NATO’s nuclear planning group.

Nevertheless, reexamining Europe’s deterrence architecture is important for assessing Germany’s strategic options at this critical juncture. In some regards, the current nuclear debate in Germany reflects the age-old friction between the “Europeanists”—who see all answers in Europe—and the “Atlanticists”—who seek the answer to all questions in deeper relations with the United States. This manageable tension is present in Berlin, where Chancellor Merz is regarded as a staunch Atlanticist, while Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul—who argued in 2020 that European security required the French deterrent to be extended—can be considered a Europeanist.

Extending the French and UK nuclear umbrella could take various forms. One such option is the forward-basing of France’s nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets on German, Polish, Swedish, or Finnish airbases in exchange for financial contributions to maintaining the French nuclear forces. Such basing agreements present themselves as cheaper, more readily available, and less revisionist alternatives to nuclear hedging strategies and indigenous weapons programs. They should not, however, replace NATO’s existing extended deterrence architecture as they would not provide Germany with decision power over nuclear deployment. While the more ambitious option of nuclear sharing arrangements with France would provide involvement in decision-making, expansion of the nuclear umbrella through nuclear sharing could take years. Integrating French nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missiles into the US-supplied German F-35s seems a politically and technically challenging task, whereas the French-German-Spanish 6th generation Future Combat Air System (FCAS) will not enter into service until the 2040s—and Germany may abandon the FCAS partnership with France by the end of 2025.

“Strengthening NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements.” While stronger European coordination on nuclear issues can strengthen nuclear deterrence, neither the UK nor French nuclear forces can be “a full substitute for those of the United States.” Berlin might instead seek a solution to Germany’s nuclear dilemma that remains within the status quo. After all, who is to guarantee that the same political forces fueling the German nuclear debate now won’t enter power in France in 2027? Seeking a solution outside of the NATO nuclear planning group and the extended deterrence architecture provided by the United States inherently risks undermining alliance cohesion and the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrence and force posture. Should Russia decide to wage war against a NATO member, a nuclear-capable France and Britain will be party to the conflict the moment Article 5 is invoked.

Historically, the United States extending its nuclear deterrent to Europe has been the most effective non-proliferation tool, and it should not casually be abandoned. For years, the United States has displayed patience with Germany, which was free-riding on security and negligent when it came to investing in maintaining its nuclear and security infrastructure and skill base. Now it is time for Germany to show patience with the United States, especially as operationally the US nuclear umbrella is very much still in place, and work within its own means to strengthen extended deterrence in Europe. To this end, Berlin can already focus on maturing and growing Germany’s conventional military capabilities.

A strategy that continues and advances training and certification of the German Air Force for the forthcoming dual-capable F-35 fighter squadrons would more immediately strengthen Germany’s security. Despite fissures in the transatlantic relationship, there is a strong case to be made that Germany should purchase additional F-35s—the only 5th generation stealth fighter aircraft with off-the-shelf availability in the West—for its conventional strike missions. The existing deterrence architecture would also benefit from significant investments in electronic warfare capabilities, airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, and much-needed strategic enablers for NATO’s conventional and nuclear missions, such as additional aircraft for strategic lift capabilities and air-to-air refueling. Other options to make NATO’s nuclear sharing mission more survivable include effective dispersal concepts for dual-capable aircraft, including the recently announced British F-35As joining NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement.

“Atombombe? Nein danke.” The current debate appears as if the script is being written for the Germans, but not by the Germans. Little regard is given to Germany’s domestic politics, public opinion, actual statements by decision-makers, and historical context.

As political scientist Müller put it: “After a perilous and extremely bloody century-long quest for stability as a [geostrategic] median state, the renunciation of nuclear weapons is, paradoxically, a crucial precondition of Germany’s security and well-being, and thus at the very core of German national interest.”

There are many reasons why Germany is not—and will not be—pursuing the bomb. Nevertheless, the academic and policy discourse on strengthening NATO and Europe’s deterrence architecture as a whole is an important debate to be had, and it offers various pathways ahead. Crucially, neither an extension of the French and UK nuclear umbrella nor a strengthening of US extended deterrence is outside of norms of non-proliferation.

Scholars in the nuclear field—particularly in the United States—should not confuse the German discourse surrounding nuclear assurance and the strengthening of extended deterrence in the European theater with a Germany that may seek an indigenous nuclear weapons capability.