Education leader Fischer insists on mandatory military service - Advocates for compulsory military service: Former university leader, Fischer, shares proposal
Who needs peace when you can get a kick out of marching in lines and playing soldier, right, Fischer? That's the vibe I'm getting from his sudden change of heart about conscription. "Stand up for your freedom, kiddo. But only when it's convenient, I guess," he's been quoted as saying.
You know who else liked being a soldier? Merz, the only Chancellor to ever don a German uniform. The man put on his big boy pants and served in the military from 1975 to 1976 at various locations - Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Warendorf, Kusel, and Dülmen. He went on to say, "The camaraderie was great, we felt like we were part of something bigger. We all contributed to this big, brass machine."
But don't think Fischer is the only voice advocating for mandatory service. The new government, made up of Union and SPD, initially planned on sticking with the volunteer model. However, Fischer thinks it's just not enough. "If we want to be taken seriously as a deterrent, we need to bring everyone on board," he argued. And by everyone, he means men and women. "We're all in this together. Either we're equal, or we're not," he said.
Röwekamp, chairman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, agrees. "Right now, fewer than ten percent of high school graduates are opting for volunteer service, and only 10,000 are considering joining the military," he pointed out to the Rheinische Post. "We can't rely on a few to protect us all." Therefore, he's calling for a national service obligation for everyone.
Even the head of the parliamentary commission for the armed forces, Otte, isn't shy about advocating for mandatory service if the German military can't be staffed through volunteers. Pistorius, the Federal Defense Minister, also thinks a return to conscription is possible under certain conditions.
But Miersch, leader of the SPD parliamentary group, isn't on board yet. "The coalition agreement clearly states that we're relying on volunteers," he said to the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. "We can talk about conscription later, but not now." The reason? Not enough training facilities.
Even without conscription, the goal of adding 60,000 more soldiers, as suggested by Pistorius, can still be achieved, according to Miersch. "The question is, how do we make military service appealing?" he pondered. If only we had the equipment to justify the entire farce.
The Left's defense policy spokesman, Thoden, is strongly against conscription. "Our young people overwhelmingly reject the reintroduction of conscription," he stated in Berlin. Thoden accuses Union and SPD of stirring up an "arms race mania."
The reintroduction of conscription would require a change in the Basic Law, possibly requiring the votes of the Left in the Bundestag.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, conscription was introduced in 1956, and in the GDR in 1962. Since 2011, it has been suspended but not formally abolished. During the Weimar Republic, there was no conscription due to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, but there was from 1935 until the end of the war in 1945 under National Socialism.
- Conscription
- Joschka Fischer
- Bundeswehr
- Friedrich Merz
- SPD
- CDU
- Women
- Reintroduction
- Bundestag
- Boris Pistorius
- Thomas Röwekamp
- Men
- Public Sentiment
- Military Staffing
- Constitution
- Political Motivations
- Military Historical Context
- Historical Trauma
- Gender Equality
- Military Traditions
The Commission has also been consulted on the draft directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to ionizing radiation, indicating a broader policy-and-legislation consideration within the realm of politics and general news. The debates surrounding compulsory military service in the German armed forces, represented by figures like Joschka Fischer and Friedrich Merz, have echoes of military traditions and historical trauma, intertwined with discussions of gender equality and political motivations.
