Upon promulgation of a state of defense, command over the armed forces will automatically pass to the Federal Chancellor. He would then be the supreme military commander of all service personnel. The fact that the German Armed Forces is embedded in the constitutional order of the state and controlled within the executive in summary results in the following Within the framework of the executive function of the state, the Armed Forces is subordinate to political leadership which is responsible to parliament and which is part of the Federal Government as an organ of the state. Like any other executive function of the state, they are subject to parliamentary control Like any other function of the state, they are subject to judicial control. Like any other function of the state, they are subject to control by the Federal Audit Office that annually audits the accounts of the Armed Forces and determines whether its finances have been efficiently administered.
Parliamentary control is exercised by a variety of means and bodies.
The most important instrument, the right to pass the budget, gives the German Parliament, the authority to appropriate funds for the personnel and equipment of the Armed Forces in the annual budget. This general power of the parliament is especially reinforced by the constitutional rule that the numerical strength of the armed forces and the general organizational structure must be shown in the budget. This means that the parliament annually determines the actual strength of the Armed Forces and defines the framework for the employment of appropriate funds. Furthermore, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces exercises parliamentary control and is responsible for the safeguarding of the basic human rights of military personnel. When creating the military legislation, lawmakers provided an extensive set of legal rules and regulations governing the internal order of the armed forces.