Play in Munich | “Battle tested” brings Bavaria’s armaments location to the stage

“Battle tested” also raises the question of who actually takes responsibility when artificial intelligence intervenes in decision-making processes about war and peace, life and death. Photo: Verena Kathrein For the arms industry, “battle tested” is a selling point: weapons and equipment are therefore “battle tested” in war. That's the name of a play that premieres this Saturday at the Munich Center of Community Arts (MUCCA) in the Bavarian capital - at the epicenter of the latest German armament boom, so to speak. There were already two of these booms that once served to prepare for world wars, recalls the play by the German director, author, journalist and actress Christiane Mudra. It calls the profiteers then and now by name.

“Battle tested” also raises the question of who actually takes responsibility when artificial intelligence intervenes in decision-making processes about war and peace, life and death. Armament companies are investing billions in the greater Munich area: In the northwestern district of Allach, the tank manufacturer KNDS wants to expand its location; production areas and office buildings as well as rooms for research and development are to be built on a site measuring around 16.5 hectares. The Munich city council decided to draw up the development plan in July. While some residents are afraid of becoming targets in the event of war - or of losing valuable biotopes beforehand - the Green Mayor Dominik Krause has defended the project against criticism, including from his party.

Helsing GmbH also wants to build a “technology campus” for military AI and drone systems in Hallbergmoos in the Upper Bavarian district of Freising. Critical voices were unable to prevail: 59 percent voted in favor of the settlement in a referendum in July. Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) personally promoted the company, which was founded in 2021, and was thrilled when it was able to present the autonomous fighter aircraft “CA-1 Europa” from Helsing in Tussenhausen in 2025.

The gold rush mood of the industry and its political sponsors, but also the suffering and horror at the consequences of the war business model, are reflected in four actresses and a dancer in “Battle Tested”. Masculine and militaristically styled, they sometimes appear powerfully as winners of the “turning point”, sometimes as broken “war trembling people” and as dying people.

Steel thunderstorm avant-garde music and original quotes from women from the civilian population of various war zones can be heard off-screen - the director deliberately did not identify them by country of origin. Spontaneous empathy cannot depend on whether the victims are white and Christian - and whether it is the geopolitical friend or enemy of the West who has just attacked them.

The audience doesn't know exactly where the little girl lives, who was told that running into the bunker was just a game so she wouldn't be traumatized. Kyiv? Kherson? Tehran? Or maybe Tel Aviv? In any case, Mudra interviewed women from Ukraine, Iran, Gaza and Israel to reflect their perspective. However, there are no bunkers for civilians in Gaza.

“I would like to question the myth of the ethically flawless West,” said the director after the dress rehearsal on Friday evening. “We need an international legal order that applies to everyone, otherwise only the law of the strongest applies,” says Mudra “nd”.

Her piece is also repeatedly about the fact that money for Western arms companies doesn't stink and that several warring parties have been or are being supplied - and that some of the recipients are later dropped, demonized and overthrown militarily: "Saddam, we are coming!"

The Rheinmetall company even wanted 130 million euros in damages from the federal government when it canceled its deal with the Russian army for a state-of-the-art combat training center in 2014. The process dragged on for years. It was not until 2023 - the year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine - that Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger appeared "willing to compromise" for an out-of-court settlement, as an NDR report said. Nothing more has been known about what happened next.

“Don’t go too far, the federal government is our biggest customer,” is what they say realistically on stage in “Battle tested”. "Then we'll say Slava Ukraini now!" And: "Data and images from a real war region are worth their weight in gold." Any illusion that modern battlefields are anything other than showrooms for the arms industry is destroyed here.

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