And this true for basically all of Europe, with the exception of parts of Scandinavia and Russia. Nearly every forest here was planted by hand and is maintained.

Well, it would be a funny meme :)

But really, it is a name that isn't too uncommon and it isn't as if "heil" is a completely taboo word in German. And he seems the most competent out of all candidates and is the one where we can have the most certainty that he will do it well, which is the most important qualification currently IMO. Even if e.g. Högl could do the job very well, we don't know how well she performs as a full minister and the last thing I want is another incompetent defence minister. With Heil you just have a safe pick.

Another option would be to either move Wolfgang Schmidt (unlikely) or Hubertus Heil (somewhat likely) to the defence ministry and replace them with a woman. Heil esp. showed that he can run a ministry quite competently.

That I don't understand, as creating gun cotton is basically just a nitration which is one of the more basic chemical reactions out there.