The weather is not kind to Boris Pistorius this Monday afternoon. It's thundering, it's raining and a violent gust of wind is sweeping across the desolate barracks courtyard near Potsdam when the defense minister appears before the press. He has just spoken to the soldiers in Lebanon, Mali and Kosovo via video telephony. "Once again I am very impressed by the professionalism, calmness and competence that the comrades radiate," he says while the wind tousles his hair. He later jokes about a journalist who asked three questions instead of one. The bad weather hardly seems to bother him.

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