In a hangar that blends into the German port of Kiel’s industrial wharf, Thyssenkrupp engineers are testing the steel hull of a submarine to ensure it can withstand more than 50 bars of water pressure. But the vessels built in the country’s largest shipyard will not be delivered to Germany’s navy.
Instead, they will go to the likes of Israel and Singapore, which placed orders with the group even as the German government shunned its homegrown manufacturer by awarding a €4.6bn contract for MKS 180 frigates to a Dutch company. The 2020 snubbing of Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), which had been haemorrhaging cash, came to encapsulate the parlous state of Germany’s defence sector.
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the German government’s subsequent commitment to vastly increase military spending has suddenly turned TKMS into an asset.