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She says, for years, she's listened to Germany's allies urge it to step up and spend more on defense and provide more leadership, but she says Germany's government has traditionally dismissed the idea. SCHMITZ: Puglierin heads the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. JANA PUGLIERIN: It was mind-boggling for me to see this because for many of the things that he had basically decided overnight, I had fought for years and I was sure to never see them materialize. SCHMITZ: Defense expert Jana Puglierin watched on in disbelief. SCHMITZ: Germany's parliament erupted into a rare standing ovation - a roar that filled the main chamber of the Reichstag, a building whose destruction and rebirth were at the center of the horrors of the last World War and was now again witness to what Germans labeled a zeitenwende - an historical turning point. ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: The announcement came three days after Russian troops had entered Ukraine, and only a few people in parliament had been briefed about what Chancellor Olaf Scholz was about to announce - that Germany would infuse its beleaguered military with more than 100 billion euros, putting it on pace to be the third-largest military on the planet.ĬHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ: (Speaking German).

And as NPR's Rob Schmitz reports, the continent's largest economy is building what's expected to become Europe's largest military.

The country's reckoning with its own history has, for decades, prevented it from building a big military, but now there's a war on Europe's doorstep. German Chancellor Olaf Schulz's decision to more than double the funding for his country's military has caught not only Europeans, but also Germans by surprise.

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