Three reports commissioned by the Bundestag are unequivocal: the US attacks on Iran violate international law – and by tolerating Ramstein, Germany may be complicit.

Britain, France and Spain have banned the US, either partially or for extended periods, from flying military aircraft over their territory or making stopovers in connection with the Iran war. Italy is said to have temporarily restricted use of the Sigonella base in Sicily. A comparably equipped US air force base is located at Ramstein in the Westpfalz region – one of around 40 US facilities in Germany. The federal government in Berlin, however, refused to impose any restrictions on its Nato partner, despite the Iran war being widely regarded by experts as a clear violation of international law. Even after US President Donald Trump publicly threatened the complete annihilation of Iran this week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democratic Party) and his cabinet remained silent.

Ramstein Air Base, near the town of Ramstein-Miesenbach, lies on German sovereign territory. Adolf Hitler’s air force used the airfield before the US Army captured it shortly before the end of the war. Under the Nato Status of Forces Agreement of 1951 and a stationing and use treaty of 1954, Germany guaranteed Washington unrestricted use of the base and immunity from German jurisdiction. Federal and Rhineland-Palatinate authorities – as well as politicians – have no access unless they submit a formal request to the US Embassy.

Drone warfare in violation of international law via Ramstein

Since 1973, Ramstein has served as the headquarters of the US Air Force in Europe. Edward Snowden’s revelations from 2013 onwards also exposed the base’s key role in drone operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan that violated international law: like the Italian base at Sigonella, Ramstein hosts a relay station through which satellite signals used to control drones, along with their surveillance data, are fed into fibre-optic cables bound for the United States.

Former US combat drone operator Brandon Bryant confirmed this before the Bundestag’s NSA investigative committee: all data connections between the US military and the Middle East and Africa ran through secure dedicated lines whose hub was in the Westpfalz. “We wouldn’t have known where to fly without Ramstein,” said whistleblower Bryant. The analysis of surveillance data is also known to take place at the US air force base.

Constitutional court identifies German duty to protect

The federal government under Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Party) declined to put a stop to the extrajudicial killings by drone at the time, claiming it lacked the legal means to do so. The grand coalition ignored opposition calls to scrutinise US activities at Ramstein for several years. In the summer of 2016, the Foreign Office at least conceded in the Bundestag that “the global communications infrastructure of the United States in support of unmanned aerial vehicles includes telecommunications relay points in Germany as well” and that “signals are relayed” via Ramstein. The facility had even been upgraded at some point with the knowledge of the federal government in Berlin. Nevertheless, Merkel and her Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democratic Party) refused to inspect the base.

Relatives of victims had on several occasions taken the federal government to German courts over its tolerance of US drone strikes via Ramstein. The Federal Constitutional Court most recently dismissed a complaint brought by two Yemeni nationals in 2025, but emphasised that in individual cases a constitutional duty to protect people abroad may arise – provided there is a sufficient connection to German state authority and a serious risk of systematic violations of international law.

German government tunes out

Such an ongoing breach of international law would seem to have been established at the latest by Trump’s threat to Iran that “an entire civilisation will die tonight” – yet Germany continued to tune out on the subject of Ramstein. Public analyses had already shown, days before the start of the Israeli-American war of aggression, that the US base was being used as a hub for that purpose too. What exactly the many aircraft were transporting remains unknown. How many flights took place in total is something the federal government in Berlin cannot, or will not, say.

“The use of military bases in Germany is governed by legal agreements and treaties that are valid under international law and consistent with our legal order. We will therefore not restrict their use,” government spokesman Stefan Kornelius declared shortly after the start of the Iran war. “They let us land in certain areas, and we appreciate that, and they just make it very pleasant for us,” US President Trump said approvingly during the Chancellor’s visit in early March.

Three unambiguous reports on the Iran war

The Left Party’s parliamentary group refused to accept this and commissioned three reports from the Bundestag’s research services on the Iran war. Taken together, their findings on the attacks that began on 28 February are clear: the military operations conducted by the US and Israel against Iran violate the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force. Iran had not carried out an armed attack that would have triggered a right to self-defence, nor was there a UN Security Council mandate. The pre-emptive self-defence cited by Israel is not recognised under international law. The nuclear threat from Iran put forward by the US is considered by experts to be barely tenable – Trump himself had stated that Iranian nuclear facilities had already been completely destroyed in earlier operations.

Left Party politicians Lea Reisner and Ulrich Thoden, together with parliamentary group leader Sören Pellmann, had also asked whether making sovereign territory available for acts of aggression by another state could itself be considered an act of aggression. The reports identify grounds for concern regarding the US military bases in Germany: a state becomes complicit in an internationally wrongful act if the primary act is unlawful – which the reports affirm. The supporting state must, however, be aware of the circumstances of the breach of international law – something Germany can hardly deny.

Left Party calls for closure of all US military bases

How much responsibility Germany’s support adds to the primary wrongdoing of Israel and the US remains unclear for as long as the federal government in Berlin continues to refuse to inspect Ramstein and the other US sites in Germany. From the opposition benches, the Left Party therefore made its voice heard on Wednesday with sharp demands: faced with the unprecedented US threats against Iran, both party leader Ines Schwerdtner and parliamentary group leader Pellmann called on Wednesday for the closure of all US military bases in Germany.

“I expect Friedrich Merz to explain very quickly what his future relationship with the United States means for Germany,” Schwerdtner told the German Press Agency. Pellmann accused the US and Israel of trampling international law underfoot and of turning Iran’s civilian population into “a bargaining chip for deals.” The left-wing party and parliamentary group leaders made no demands directed at Israel – the aggressor state – or at the federal government in Berlin, such as summoning Jerusalem’s ambassador.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: The relay of drone control and surveillance data ran via Ramstein during the 2010s – and possibly still does today (US Air Force).