Reception with military honors
The reception with military honors as a military ceremony is on a long tradition of the foot part of these diplomatic protocol for state visits . Two historical lines of development play a role: On the one hand, the host of a state visit is obliged to ensure its safety during the stay, which in earlier times was usually done by placing a military guard , which is also inspected by the guest at the beginning of the visit has been. On the other hand, the demonstration of one's own troops to the guest was considered a special vote of confidence, as it gave an insight into the armament, level of training and deployment order of the armed forces, which would have meant disadvantages compared to potential opponents. Conversely, they could also be deterred from aggressive actions by such a demonstration.
Today, according to international protocol agreements, every state that maintains armed forces is obliged to pay a certain amount of military honor when welcoming and saying goodbye to state guests. Deviating from this obligation is considered a serious affront to the guest and can lead to diplomatic complications. Apart from these agreements, every state is free to show military honors in the form appropriate to its national tradition.
The symbolic intentions of a reception with military honors are above all:
- Representation of state sovereignty towards the guest (demonstration of state freedom and ability to act),
- Presenting the weapons while pacing the front as a mixture of demonstration (I am armed) and bringing the weapon to the test for ammunition (I have not loaded).
- Achieving a good impression of the guest's discipline and level of training in one's own armed forces ( protocol units are therefore usually subjected to special drill and hard drill training)
Military honors in Germany
A reception with military honors takes place according to precisely defined regulations. Depending on the protocol rank of the host and the guest, honorary formations of different strengths and possibly other smaller protocol operations are part of the welcoming and visiting ritual. A distinction is also made between working visits and major official state visits . The protocol conventions of a major state visit are:
- The guest aircraft is picked up by an honorary escort made up of two fighters who accompany the guest's aircraft to the destination airport.
- After landing and opening the car door (front door for the state the guest and the spouse, rear doors for wake), an effort battery of artillery 21 shot Salut , at the same time the fighter planes make the escort overflight, the guest is waiting to 21 shot at the Platform of the gangway and goes down the gangway after the last shot.
- There is a guard of honor made up of 26 soldiers and an officer (or sergeant with portepee ) who is reported to the guest before he walks through it. At the end of the trellis of honor stands the host's representative to greet the guest, behind them the motorcade with a police escort on motorcycles.
- The motorcade drives with a motorcycle escort to the host's office, where an honorary formation is waiting. A distinction must be made between the following variants:
- Reception by the Federal President : Honorary Battalion . An honor battalion includes around 350 soldiers including the music corps ( music corps with marching band , troop flag , 3 companies of 94 men each in the uniforms of all three branches of the armed forces ). If this scope is too large for the planned deployment location, the size of the honor battalion can be adapted to this or can be reduced in stages to up to around 220 soldiers.
- Reception by the Federal Chancellor : company of honor
- Reception of a head of state : music corps with marching band, troop flag, 1 company of 3 platoons (31 men each) in the uniforms of all three branches of the armed forces.
- Reception of a head of government : music corps with marching band, troop flag, 1 company of 3 platoons (31 men each) in the uniform of a part of the armed forces. Which part of the armed forces takes part in this case depends on any wishes of the host country or the military service options of the Bundeswehr.
- After leaving the car, host and guest present their respective entourage in the so-called receiving line (trellis), after which they go to the podium opposite the troop flag.
- The honorary formation is reported to the guest with the rifle presented , after which the national anthem of the host country and the German national anthem are played. Afterwards, to the sounds of the presentation march Friedrich Wilhelm III. paced the front over a red carpet, where the guest should hold the flag and greet it by pausing or tilting the head. At the end of the red carpet, the commanding officer signs off the formation. If an honorary company in naval uniform arrives at the reception by the Chancellor, the naval presentation march, also known as the Dutch march of honor, is usually played instead of the presentation march; If the reception takes place in the federal state of Bavaria , the Bavarian presentation march is usually played.
- From there, the guest and host go to the host's office, at whose entrance there are honorary posts.
This ends the reception. Other protocol honors such as the position of an honor guard at the guest's accommodation, wreath-laying, etc. no longer belong to the reception. In Germany, the military honors are almost exclusively given by the guard battalion at the Federal Ministry of Defense . An exception to this rule was e.g. B. the reception of the outgoing French President Jacques Chirac by Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 3, 2007 in Berlin . The honor company - for the first time in the history of the Bundeswehr and as a sign of the close military ties between the two countries - was not provided by the guard battalion, but by the Franco-German brigade .
Web links
- Swiss Army, Military Protocol: Military Ceremony of the Swiss Army , online .