Germany and weapons of mass destruction Though Germany is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world , since World War II it has generally refrained from using this technology to outfit its own armed forces with weapons of mass destruction ( WMD ) , although it participates in the NATO nuclear weapons sharing arrangements and trains for delivering nuclear weapon s . Germany is among the powers which possess the ability to create nuclear weapons but has agreed not to do so ( under the terms of the Nuclear Non - Proliferation Treaty as reaffirmed by the Two Plus Four Treaty ) . Along with most other industrial nations , Germany produces components that can be used for creating deadly agents , chemical weapons , and other WMD . Alongside other companies from the United Kingdom , the Netherlands , India , the United States , Belgium , Spain , and Brazil , German companies provided Iraq with precursors of chemical agents used by Iraq to engage in chemical warfare during the Iran – Iraq War . History . World War I . As one of the major combatants in World War I , Germany used and developed what we would today describe as weapons of mass destruction . During World War I , Germany developed and used chemical weapons , for instance mustard gas . These kinds of weapon were subsequently also employed by the Allies . World War II . During World War II , Germany worked to develop nuclear weapons , though Allied scientists ultimately beat the Germans to this goal - the international team included many displaced émigré scientists from Germany itself ; see German nuclear energy project . German scientists also did research on other chemical weapons during the war , including human experimentation with mustard gas . The first nerve gas , tabun , was invented by the German researcher Gerhard Schrader in 1937 . During the war , Germany stockpiled tabun , sarin , and soman but refrained from their use on the battlefield . In total , Germany produced about 78 , 000 tons of chemical weapons . By 1945 the nation produced about 12 , 000 tons of tabun and of sarin . Delivery systems for the nerve agents included 105 mm and 150 mm artillery shells , a 250 kg bomb and a 150 mm rocket . Even when the Soviets neared Berlin , Adolf Hitler was persuaded not to use tabun as the final trump card . The use of tabun was opposed by Hitler ' s Minister of Armaments , Albert Speer , who , in 1943 , brought IG Farben ' s nerve agent expert Otto Ambros to report to Hitler . He informed Hitler that the Allies had stopped publication of research into organophosphates ( a type of organic compound that emcompasses nerve agents ) at the beginning of the war , that the essential nature of nerve gases had been published as early as the turn of the century , and that he believed that Allies could not have failed to produce agents like tabun . This was not in fact the case ( Allied research into organophosphates had been kept secret to protect DDT ) , but Hitler accepted Ambros ' s deduction , and Germany ' s tabun arsenal remained unused . Cold War and beyond . As part of the accession negotiations of West Germany to the Western European Union at the London and Paris Conferences , the country was forbidden ( by Protocol No III to the revised Treaty of Brussels of 23 October 1954 ) to possess Nuclear , Biological or Chemical weapons . This was reiterated in domestic law by the War Weapons Control Act ( Kriegswaffenkontrollgesetz ) . During the Cold War , nuclear weapons were deployed in Germany by both the United States ( in West Germany ) and the Soviet Union ( in East Germany ) . Despite not being among the nuclear powers during the Cold War , Germany had a political and military interest in the balance of nuclear capability . In 1977 , after the Soviet deployment of the new SS - 20 IRBM , West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt expressed concern over the capability of NATO ' s nuclear forces compared to those of the Soviets . Later in the Cold War under the chancellorship of Helmut Kohl , the West German government expressed concern about the progress of the nuclear arms race . Particularly , they addressed the eagerness of Germany ' s NATO allies , the United States and United Kingdom , to seek restrictions on long - range strategic weapons while modernizing their short - range and tactical nuclear systems . Germany wanted to see such short range systems eliminated , because their major use was not deterrence but battlefield employment . Germany itself , straddling the division of the Eastern and Western blocs in Europe , was a likely battlefield in any escalation of the Cold War and battlefield use of nuclear weapons would be devastating to German territory . In 1957 the European Atomic Energy Community ( Euratom ) was created to promote the use of nuclear energy in Europe . Under cover of the peaceful use of nuclear power , West Germany hoped to develop the basis of a nuclear weapons programme with France and Italy . The West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told his cabinet that he " wanted to achieve , through EURATOM , as quickly as possible , the chance of producing our own nuclear weapons " . The idea was short - lived . In 1958 Charles De Gaulle became President of France and Germany and Italy were excluded from the weapons project . Euratom continued as the European agency for the peaceful use of nuclear technology , becoming part of the structure of the European Economic Community in 1967 . Germany ratified the Geneva Protocol on 25 April 1929 , the Nuclear Non - Proliferation Treaty on 2 May 1975 , the Biological Weapons Convention on 7 April 1983 and the Chemical Weapons Convention on 12 August 1994 . These dates signify ratification by the Federal Republic of Germany ( West Germany ) , during the division of Germany the NPT and the BWC were ratified separately by the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ) ( on 31 October 1969 and 28 November 1972 , respectively ) . Before German reunification in 1990 , both West and East Germany ratified the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany . Germany reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture , possession , and control of nuclear , biological , and chemical weapons . In addition to banning a foreign military presence in the former East Germany , the treaty also banned nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon carriers to be stationed in the area , making it a permanent Nuclear - Weapon - Free Zone . The German military was allowed to possess conventional weapons systems with nonconventional capabilities , provided that they were outfitted for a purely conventional role . The United States provides about 60 tactical B61 nuclear bomb s for use by Germany under a NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreement . The bombs are stored at Büchel and Ramstein Air Bases , and in time of war would be delivered by Luftwaffe Panavia Tornado warplanes . As well as being a breach of the Protocols to the ( revised ) Treaty of Brussels , many countries believe this violates Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non - Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) , where Germany has committed : The U . S . insists its forces control the weapons and that no transfer of the nuclear bombs or control over them is intended " unless and until a decision were made to go to war , at which the [ NPT ] treaty would no longer be controlling " , so there is no breach of the NPT . However German pilots and other staff practice handling and delivering the U . S . nuclear bombs Even if the NATO argument is considered legally correct , such peacetime operations could arguably contravene both the objective and the spirit of the NPT . Like other countries of its size and wealth , Germany has the skills and resources to create its own nuclear weapons quite quickly if desired . The Zippe - type centrifuge was , indeed , invented by captured Germans working in the Soviet Union in the 1950s , and URENCO operates a centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in Germany . There are also several power reactors in Germany that could be used to produce bomb - grade plutonium if desired . Such a development is , of course , highly unlikely in the present benign security environment . In 2007 , former defence secretary Rupert Scholz stated that Germany should strive to become a nuclear power . In September 2007 the French president Sarkozy offered Germany to participate in the control over the French nuclear arsenal . Chancellor Merkel and foreign minister Steinmeier declined the offer however , stating that Germany " had no interest in possessing nuclear weapons " .