In the center of Berlin, around 3000 young people, according to the police, gathered in the bright sunshine and calm, holding placards like “Friedrich Merz at the front.” Several thousand teenagers skipped school on Thursday and demonstrated across Germany to protest against the military service, which is currently optional as long as the number of recruits is sufficient.
Since January 1st, German youth aged 18 receive a questionnaire from the Bundeswehr to assess their availability and interest in military service. It is mandatory for boys to respond, but optional for girls. If they wish, young people can do a minimum of six months of military service.
This new legislation, passed by parliament last December, was initiated by the government of conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, aiming to strengthen the conventional army as the “most powerful in Europe” to counter the Russian threat and compensate for the disengagement of the American shield.
For now, legislators have rejected a return to mandatory military service, abolished in Germany in 2011. But some politicians doubt the Bundeswehr recruitment goals can be met without resorting to conscription. Plans are to increase the army’s active duty personnel from around 185,000 soldiers to 260,000 by 2030, while roughly quadrupling the size of reserves to reach 200,000 soldiers.
In Berlin, 19-year-old Tillmann, who did not receive a form because he was born in 2007 and not 2008, stated to AFP that he is “against military service and against war propaganda.”
“School strike against military service”
“Children as young as eleven tell me they want to join the German army because it will allow them to get their driver’s license at a lower cost,” the young man said. However, according to him, they can “end up in the trenches and, in the worst case, they die or kill other people.”
Speaking to German TV NTV in Koblenz, a co-organizer of the “school strike against military service,” Leo Reinemann, urged policymakers to “allocate more funds to education rather than the military.” He also called on the German army to “stay out of schools,” protesting against the increasingly frequent information days organized by the Bundeswehr.
