Is this the same army that invented the Blitzkrieg?

Well, this is what happens to an army--possibly only a brigade of a few thousand soldiers--that consumed some 1,700,000 pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine in 2007, and consumed over 800,000 pints of beer in the first six months of 2008.

German forces have come under intense scrutiny after several reports had indicated that they largely failed to train the Afghan police as they were originally intended to. Wonder if this has anything to do with it:

The physical condition of [German] soldiers [in Afghanistan] was already in question after a German armed forces report found that 40 per cent of its soldiers aged 18-29 were overweight, compared to 35 per cent of the civilian population of the same age.

The report, published in March, concluded that the Bundeswehr lived on beer and sausages while shunning fruit and vegetables. It said that an overdeveloped bureaucracy was also contributing to a “passive lifestyle” on the part of the soldiers.

Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the German armed forces, concluded: “Plainly put, the soldiers are too fat, exercise too little and take little care of their diet.”

So, for once, there's an article pointing to a significant portion of the population being overweight that doesn't involve us Americans. Globalization at work, my friends!