The Wall Street Journal reported the information.A dozen senior German military officers gathered at Berlin's Julius Leber Barracks roughly two and a half years ago with an urgent mission: draft a secret plan for war with Russia. Today, they're racing against time to make it a reality.Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine shattered decades of European stability, triggering the continent's fastest military buildup since World War II. But German planners believe the outcome of any future conflict won't be determined solely by troop numbers or weapons stockpiles. Victory will hinge on something far more complex: logistics.At the heart of this effort lies Operation Plan Germany—known in military circles as OPLAN DEU—a classified 1,200-page document that details how up to 800,000 German, U.S., and NATO troops would be transported eastward toward the front lines. The blueprint maps out ports, rivers, railways, and roads, outlining how forces would be supplied and protected during transit."Look at the map," said Tim Stuchtey, head of the Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security. With the Alps forming a natural barrier, NATO troops would have to cross Germany in any clash with Russia, "regardless of where it might start."The plan represents what its architects call an "all-of-society" approach to warfare—a blurring of civilian and military spheres reminiscent of Cold War thinking, but updated for modern threats including drones, cyberattacks, and crumbling infrastructure.German officials estimate Russia will be ready and willing to attack NATO by 2029. However, a series of spying incidents, sabotage attacks, and airspace violations across Europe—many attributed to Moscow by Western intelligence—suggest the threat could materialize sooner. Analysts also warn that any armistice in Ukraine could free up Russian resources for operations against NATO members."The goal is to prevent war by making it clear to our enemies that if they attack us, they won't be successful," said a senior military officer who helped author the plan.From theory to practiceThe scale of Germany's transformation was on display this autumn in the eastern German countryside, where defense contractor Rheinmetall constructed a field camp for 500 soldiers in just 14 days. The temporary installation included dormitories, 48 shower cabins, five gas stations, a field kitchen, drone surveillance, and armed guards vetted for foreign influence."Picture building a small town from nothing and dismantling it in just a few days," said Marc Lemmermann, head of sales at Rheinmetall's logistics division.Rheinmetall recently signed a €260 million contract to resupply German and NATO forces, part of the military's push to integrate the private sector into war planning. But the exercise also exposed critical flaws: insufficient land for vehicles and noncontiguous plots that forced troops to be bused between locations.Such lessons are continuously incorporated into OPLAN, now in its second iteration and stored on the military's secure "red network."The infrastructure challengePerhaps nowhere is Germany's unpreparedness more evident than along a 3.5-mile stretch of the A44 autobahn between Steinhausen and Brenken. Unlike typical highway sections, this one features a solid tarmac median strip and unusually large rest areas—remnants of Cold War-era design when it served as an emergency aircraft landing strip.During the Cold War, dual-use infrastructure was standard across Germany. Highways, bridges, train stations, and ports were built to serve military purposes if needed. But after the Cold War ended, that changed. Tunnels and bridges constructed since often can't accommodate military convoys. In 2009, Berlin even dropped requirements for signs indicating what weight military vehicles roads could support.Today, Berlin estimates 20% of highways and over a quarter of highway bridges need repairs due to chronic underinvestment. Germany's North Sea and Baltic Sea harbors require €15 billion in upgrades, including €3 billion for dual-use improvements.A little-publicized incident in February 2024 illustrated the vulnerability. The Dutch cargo ship Rapida rammed a railway bridge over the Hunte River in northwestern Germany, shutting down the sole rail link to Nordenham port—at the time, Northern Europe's only terminal licensed to handle all munitions shipments to Ukraine. Though investigators found no evidence of foul play, ammunition supplies were choked for weeks, forcing the top U.S. military command in Europe to reroute shipments to Poland."Many ports only have one rail route to the hinterland," said Holger Banik, CEO of Niedersachsen Ports. "This is a weakness."Relearning forgotten skillsThe effort to make Germany war-ready began days after Russia's 2022 invasion, when Chancellor Olaf Scholz unveiled a €100 billion rearmament fund, calling it a "zeitenwende"—an epochal change. The German military, or Bundeswehr, created a Territorial Command and tasked Lieutenant General André Bodemann with drafting OPLAN."We must relearn what we unlearnt," said Nils Schmid, deputy defense minister. "We have to drag people back from retirement to tell us how we did it back then."By March of last year, Bodemann's team completed the plan's first iteration. While the new Merz government announced a €500 billion defense spending plan and a return to conscription, the Bundeswehr worked quietly, briefing hospitals, police, and disaster relief agencies, and mapping transit routes for military convoys.In late September, an exercise called Red Storm Bravo tested the plan in Hamburg. The scenario: 500 NATO troops would land at the port and form a 65-vehicle convoy headed east, while fending off attempts to block the port, drone attacks, and protests.Things quickly went off-script. Long gaps appeared between convoy vehicles. A black drone overhead caused confusion before being confirmed as friendly. Mock protesters glued themselves to the road, and police lacked the solvents to remove them. It took two hours to restart the convoy, which had traveled just six miles by early morning.The sabotage threatInadequate peacetime legislation has made it harder for Germany to protect against sabotage—one of OPLAN's biggest threats. Scores of attacks have targeted the railway system in recent years. In October, a Munich court jailed a man for planning to sabotage military installations and railways on behalf of Russia. This week, Poland blamed Russia for an explosion that damaged railway tracks.Germany's domestic intelligence agencies conducted almost 10,000 employee background checks for critical infrastructure operators last year alone."If Germany is going to be NATO's hub, then as the enemy, I'd want to target that: block the ports, take down the power, disrupt the railways," said Paul Strobel of Quantum Systems, a drone manufacturer in talks with the Bundeswehr about providing convoy and infrastructure protection.Outdated laws hamper even basic security measures. Drones sold to the German military can't be flown over populated areas and must have position lights—"which makes sense in civilian use but defeats the purpose in a military setting," Strobel said.The Bundeswehr remains optimistic. "Considering that we started with a blank page in early 2023, we are very happy with where we are today," said the officer and OPLAN co-author. "This is a very sophisticated product."Yet recent stress tests show significant work remains. The biggest uncertainty is time. Given the surge in sabotage, cyberattacks, and airspace intrusions, the line between peace and war is increasingly blurred."The threats are real," Chancellor Friedrich Merz told business leaders in September. "We're not at war, but we no longer live in peacetime."