![]() Merkel insists on secrecy and doesn't want the details of the deal to be made public. Chancellor Angela Merkel fears the kind of public debate that German Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass recently reignited with a poem critical of Israel. In Germany, the government's military assistance for Israel's submarine program has been controversial for about 25 years, a topic of discussion for the media and the parliament. And decks 2 and 3, where the weapons are kept, remained off-limits to the visitors. Questions about Israel's nuclear capability, whether on land or on water, were taboo. Quotes by Israelis, as well as the photographer's pictures, had to be submitted to the military. On the other hand, any research that did take place in Israel was subject to censorship. The Germans can be proud of the fact that they have secured the existence of the State of Israel for many years to come." "Germany is helping to defend Israel's security. "In the end, it's very simple," says Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. In an unaccustomed display of openness, senior politicians and military officials with the Jewish state were, however, now willing to talk about the importance of German-Israeli military cooperation and Germany's role, albeit usually under the condition of anonymity. Research SPIEGEL has conducted in Germany, Israel and the United States, among current and past government ministers, military officials, defense engineers and intelligence agents, no longer leaves any room for doubt: With the help of German maritime technology, Israel has managed to create for itself a floating nuclear weapon arsenal: submarines equipped with nuclear capability.įoreign journalists have never boarded one of the combat vessels before. Anyone who speaks openly about it in Israel runs the risk of being sentenced to a lengthy prison term. This secret is considered one of the best kept in modern military history. To be more precise, it is a piece of precision engineering made in Germany that is suitable for equipping with nuclear weapons.ĭeep in their interiors, on decks 2 and 3, the submarines contain a secret that even in Israel is only known to a few insiders: nuclear warheads, small enough to be mounted on a cruise missile, but explosive enough to execute a nuclear strike that would cause devastating results. "This was all built in Germany, according to Israeli specifications," the navy officer says,"and so were the weapons systems." The Tekumah, 57 meters long and 7 meters wide, is a showpiece of precision engineering, painted in blue and made in Germany. A display lit up in red shows that the vessel's keel is currently located 7.15 meters (23.45 feet) below sea level. It looks as if it could be in the cockpit of a small aircraft. The ship is controlled from two leather chairs. The "Combat Information Center," as the Israelis call the command center, is the heart of the submarine, the place where all information comes together and all the operations are led. The officer stands still and points to a row of monitors, with signs bearing the names of German electronics giant Siemens and Atlas, a Bremen-based electronics company, screwed to the wall next to them. At the middle of the ship, the corridor widens and merges into a command center, with work stations grouped around a periscope. The air smells stale, not unlike the air in the living room of an apartment occupied solely by men. The navy officer, whose name the military censorship office wants to keep secret, leads the visitors past a pair of bunks and along a steel frame. The Tekumah has just returned from a secret mission in the early morning hours. He pushes back a bolt and opens the refrigerator, revealing zucchini, a pallet of yoghurt cups and a two-liter bottle of low-calorie cola. When he reaches the lower deck, he turns around and says: "Welcome on board the Tekumah. The navy officer in charge of visitors, a brawny man in his 40s with his eyes hidden behind a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, bounces down the steps. To reach the Tekumah, you have to walk across a wooden jetty at the pier in the port of Haifa, and then climb into a tunnel shaft leading to the submarine's interior. The pride of the Israeli navy is rocking gently in the swells of the Mediterranean, with the silhouette of the Carmel mountain range reflected on the water's surface. SPIEGEL Media Menü SPIEGEL Media aufklappen.Alle Magazine Menü Alle Magazine aufklappen.SPIEGEL-Heft Menü SPIEGEL-Heft aufklappen. ![]() Gutscheine Anzeige Menü Gutscheine aufklappen.Marktplatz Anzeige Menü Marktplatz aufklappen.Wissenschaft Menü Wissenschaft aufklappen.
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