What is essential for the functioning of society? And under what circumstances? This question is not exactly new. Because resilience, i.e. the ability to withstand the maintenance of a kind of regulated operation, played a special role historically, especially given the assumption of imminent wars. What used to be confusing is now politically charged and even more complicated.
It all started almost simply: The origins of a somewhat broader concept of civil protection in the Federal Republic lie in a discussion in the 1950s: After the Second World War, the Allies deliberately downgraded resilience – air raid protection measures, as the main keyword was, were like military buildings of the Federal Republic prohibited for the time being. However, that changed under the impression of the Korean War – and in long and tough discussions between Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Minister of Finance and the federal states, it was decided on the one hand to set up an air raid protection administration, on the other hand it was determined which competences the federal states should have and then must also be borne at least partially financially by them. And of course it was about that bitter dispute, including threats of resignation and a long process – the discussion dragged on for seven years from 1950 until the Federal Office for Civil Protection began its work on December 5, 1958. This is now responsible for everything for which the federal states are not responsible under the Basic Law.
Gradual dismantling
The pace in Germany during the years of the economic boom was remarkably similar to that of the 21st century. And the disputes over responsibilities and financing have hardly changed. The most visible part of the authority’s work: the government bunker in the Ahr Valley, in which the emergency government of the Federal Republic should have been quartered in the event of a defense. But from the air protection measures, a broader civil protection concept developed in the Federal Republic – disaster control was added as a task, in reflection of the debates of the time, in which nuclear accidents, the ozone hole, dying forests and other topics were becoming increasingly relevant in addition to the nuclear war. But the focus remained on the possible armed conflicts with the Warsaw Pact. It was not until after 1990 that this area was considered less relevant – accordingly, it was scaled back at federal and state level. To the dismantling of the sirens.
Only under the impression of possible terrorist attacks from 9/11 onwards did greater attention be paid to dangers to the functioning of society as a whole from 2001 onwards. At that point, a new actor had already formed in 1991 with the BND spin-off BSI – which turned to the digital threat. The emerging digitization and networking was ignored as an aspect of civil and civil protection: analogue, physical civil protection and the digital world were managed in parallel. But the closer the two areas have to be thought of together, the greater the conflicts over responsibilities.
Who is critical here?
A problem: what is critical for a society to function? The corona pandemic has provided many practical tips here – paramedics, nurses, firefighters and data center technicians cannot work full time without daycare and schools running. The idea behind the currently pursued concept: Sub-areas of a company or the administration are a critical infrastructure – and in these there are activities that are essential for their operation. But where does it start and where does it end?
The official German definition is coming from the Federal Ministry of the Interior: Critical infrastructures are those areas that are “of great importance for the functionality of modern societies and their failure or impairment results in lasting disruptions in the overall system. An important criterion for this is criticality.” And then things get colorful: What is actually critical? Even psychological aspects are considered critical for the BMI – as well as socio-ecological factors. Because criticality is defined as “a relative measure of the importance of an infrastructure in relation to the consequences that a disruption or a functional failure has for the security of supply to society with important goods and services”. Understood?
