Talk:Conscription in Germany

Germans Who Live Abroad Are Exempt From Service

This was exactly what a consular official at my city's German consulate in the USA told me. I am a German national through my parents and a dual citizen. Germany's "algemeine Wehrpflicht" had a big impact on when and where I decided to apply for a German passport. It was my understanding that serving in a foreign military was historically a way that a person could lose his/her US citizenship. When I went to the German consulate in my city, the official who helped me told me that the German draft is only for residents of Germany. In other words, Germans who live in other countries are exempt from service. I would be interested to hear comments on the legality of this and especially whether or not we can include this clarification about foreign residency in this article. Cyclopean typewriter 16:12, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

According to the website of the Auswaertige Amt (German Foreign Office): 'Auch Deutsche im Ausland sind grundsätzlich wehrpflichtig.[...]Die Wehrpflicht ruht auch bei Auslandsdeutschen, die ihren ständigen Aufenthalt und ihre Lebensgrundlage bereits im Ausland haben, sofern Tatsachen die Annahme rechtfertigen, dass sie beabsichtigen, ihren ständigen Aufenthalt im Ausland beizubehalten. Das gilt insbesondere für Deutsche, die zugleich die Staatsangehörigkeit eines anderen Staates besitzen.'.

Someone else translate this into legal english, the gist is, that while germans living abroad can in principle be drafted, they will not be drafted if their live is not centered on Germany. This will be assumed for Germans abroad holding dual citizenship. So while you cannot evade the draft by moving abroad, you will not be drafted if your center of life is the US. Even moving to Germany temporarily (i.e. to go to university) will not change this.195.128.251.216 22:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Germans who are residents of Germany and have not yet fulfilled their draft requirements, though, cannot evade the draft by moving abroad, as they are legally obliged to apply for permission to leave Germany for more than three months. 141.20.53.108 17:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I came to this article looking exactly for this information. Why isn't it on the article? Is it for lack of sources? I have tried last night to find somewhere an article discussing this, but couldn't find much, and the few things I did find were posts by people in forums narrating personal experiences (which of course is not a valid source). But so far all stories point to what Cyclopean said being correct. I have yet to find any story of a dual-citizen abroad being drafted. Does anyone know of an official or otherwise credible source than can definitely confirm this? --Scuac (talk) 16:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It's been a long time since these questions were raised, but the thing to note here that the English word conscription is loosely used as translation for all sorts of things. (Its literal translation into German, like that of "draft") would be something like Einziehung.) Wehrpflicht, per se, means "duty to defend [one's country]", and it applies, and still applies, for all Germans between 18 and 45, and for all that have already become NCOs or officers in some way up to 60. Now this is the Wehrpflicht we are talking about that holds, in principle, for German expatriates, though even this is apparently described as "dormant" (ruhend; sie ruht) for them, what ever that means.

Something different is the duty to fulfill one's Wehrpflicht by actually doing service, and this never existed for expatriates to my knowledge, unless perhaps in the state-of-defence. (Of course, Germans too talk about Wehrpflicht and mean this, rather than what the law actually calls Wehrpflicht.) Actually being drafted for such a service is not called Wehrpflicht but Wehrdienst or Grundwehrdienst.

(E. g. for Catholic clergy, the Wehrpflicht strictly so-called ceases if I am rightly informed upon their becoming a subdeacon; seminarians on the other hand still fall under it, but they get a draft exemption. Noone said German law couldn't be complicated.)--2001:A61:20B3:5701:3535:8A20:F76C:A375 (talk) 09:38, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Article history notes

Cut and paste job from conscription page. This section was getting too long. cleanup required. Zeimusu 14:29, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)

Questions

Introducing mandatory military service in BRD must have been a very controversial program at the time. But there doesn't seem to be much information out there about why it came about (or was allowed to), or even addressing any public discussion that might have occurred. knoodelhed 19:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

At first, there has been a very strong opposition against remilitarising West Germany at all. As conscription had been the normal military system in the past it was clear that remilitarisation also meant conscription. Also, given the constellation of powers in Europe and the perceived Soviet threat German remilitarisation had to be more than a political token. It was seen as a meaningful military contribution of the most populated country in Western Europe. That, however, meant that the German armed forces had to be of considerable size (initial plans foresaw between 400,000 and 500,000 man) that only could be reached through the draft. Conscription was introduced about one year after the first military units of Western Germany had been established.

The anti-military protesters of the 1950s were numerous and from all political groups. Their slogan was "Ohne mich" ("Without me") and indicated that most of the protesters were not willing to join any military force. Both, remilitarisation and conscription had to be agreed upon, however, by a great majority of the parliament as the necessary change of the constitution required a two-thirds vote. Chancellor Adenauer had succeeded to convince the oppositional Social Democrats to accept the change after long discussions and under the impression of the Soviet interventions in Eastern Germany 1953 and Hungary 1956.

Interestingly, the West German constitution of 1949 already knew the right to object military service at a time when Germany was strictly forbidden to have own military forces. This article of the constitution was to protect German citizens against being drafted into the service of Allied forces against there will (something that never happened).--KuK 18:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Draft dodgers

What happens if a man refuses to serve in the military or do any alternative service? (Alphaboi867 06:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC))

This man will be subject to legal prosecution and may be sentenced to confinement in prison. Such cases do occur, in fact, but are not very frequent.--KuK 18:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a native speaker so plz excuse my mistakes. sebastian 80.171.10.176 (talk) 19:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I've heard that the judiciary has "found some way out" as it were, in sentencing such people to prison once, but not sentencing them if they are again drafted once they've come out and again refuse.--2001:A61:20B3:5701:3535:8A20:F76C:A375 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:41, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

"Mine sraper"

It is my understanding the 'civillian service' alternative to conscription in Germany had a number of choices available in 2005-2007 at least. Our school in Western Australia had a wonderful young volunteer who came to Australia on this scheme. The deal, I think, was that he would volunteer his services to one of a number of options approved by the German authorities, his being volunteering as a school assistant in another country. The school's obligation was to provide board, lodgings and transport. His duties were to help out in the classroom or the yard - i.e. support children in their work, organise equipment for teachers, or help out with the gardening and maintenance. He was a wonderful young man and we were all in tears when he left.

(Moonfire 5 July 2013)

This phrase appears in the section detailing the 'first alternative' to active military duty, namely 'civilian service.' Being not personally familiar with the German language or current military forces, I am unsure as to whether this is a technical term, a poor translation, or a typographical error. I suspect that the desired term is 'mine sweeper', but I hesitate to make the correction as this seems a highly 'combat-oriented' duty to assign to those who are objecting to active service. I will check in a few weeks and if it has not been addressed by someone with first-hand knowledge, I will make the edit.

(Supasheep 09:34, 8 October 2005 (UTC))

You are probably right that this was a typographical error and poor translation at the same time. I think that the author meant something like "explosive ordnance disposal" i.e. disposal of unexploded bombs etc. However, I doubt that such a mission can be assigned to these untrained people so I deleted it. May be someone has more information and can fill the gap.--KuK 10:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

In Finland, where we have conscription, too, the fantasy of some militaristically-minded persons is that the persons who have refused conscription during the peace-time, would be used in military duties during war. (Finnish law does not recognize the right to civil service during war.) As the Wehrdienstverweiger have no military training, they could be used to clear mines by walking into mine field. Naturally, this is just a fantasy born in the minds of militarist crazies. I suspect the case was the same here, too. --MPorciusCato 07:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The thing described above is by-the-way not actually "civilian service" (Zivildienst) strictly so-called, but an "other service in a foreign country" (anderer Dienst im Ausland or ADiA), with the basic difference that while civilian servants, like conscript soldiers, may be drafted (though most looked for a post themselves and were then drafted for it, this was not technically necessary), ADiA servants must volunteer, and that civilian service was (for my year) 9 months, whereas ADiA was 14 months.--2001:A61:20B3:5701:3535:8A20:F76C:A375 (talk) 09:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

No references or external links

Please add your sources to the page. Skinnyweed 21:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup - Garbled sentences

This article contains many garbled sentences and questionable English.

Conscripts get paid about 9 EUR per day of basic pay plus several other perks such as distance-from-home pay, additional food pay etc. An Obergefreiter (month 6-9) would receive up etc., but he has to agree to go on an International Mission, e.g. ISAF, if needed. Normal conscripts will not" is only one component of conscription.

As a result Germany changed its laws to allow this, though not for conscription.

The conscientious objection is normally accepted without any problem, it is no longer required to state the request before a board. One just has to "write a letter", outlining ones moral objections to military service.

"civilian service" ("Zivildienst")

Another provision allows the third son of a family to be completely exonerated from military service, if his older brothers participated.

For medical students it is possible to delay their military duty

The ongoing political debate over whether the German Federal Defense Force should be converted into a purely volunteer-based, professional army raises questions about the military draft policy. Since the current process selects an ever-decreasing number of men from each succeeding generation, conflicting views abound regarding the effect of the selection, both in terms of the overall quality of the force and the general fairness of the system. The final decision will most likely be influenced by the enhanced or even reduced roles that such a new "army" would be expected to play in German society in the years to come.

Furthermore would by making the Bundeswehr fully voluntary-based the amount of people working in care of children and elder people drop considerably. Due to the pay modalities those care facilities would lose personnel payed essentially nothing.

8/13/2006 edit

I stumbled across this article and found it in a pretty mediocre shape. Therefore I structured it and added some information.

• Since my native language is not english, my prose may be a bit rough in some places. (However, it was already not very good to begin with.) Since I assume that facutal correctness trumps language, I edited it anyways. I'll be grateful to any native speaker who goes over it and smoothes the language.
• I did not add my sources, as all of them were German, and therefore of little use to the average reader of an english encyclopedia. If the majority thinks that German sources are better than no sources, I may add them later.

An English language source would be preferred but any source is fine. In fact what would be even better are both original German language sources and English language sources as well. There are a considerable number of Wikipedia users who can read German (if not some German), such as my self, so these sources are useful. Kyle sb 11:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Factual errors

Sorry to inform you all, but this article is full of factual errors concerning the alternative service.

• disaster relief service has been shortened to 6 years, after military and civil service have been shortened to 9 months.
• disaster relief service does not require conscenious objection. I served myself in a medical disaster control unit, after first

 applying for (but not entering) extended armed forces service.

The legal base of the disaster relief service stems from the law concerning military service, not the law concerning civil service. §13a Wehrpflichtgesetz [1]. There is an additional clause in §14 of the law concerning civil service(Zivildienstgesetz), which grants a comparable entry into the disaster relief service (also 6 years) to conscentious objectors.

Since entering these facts would require a major restruction of the entry, I must unfortunately ask someone else to work on this. 141.26.70.165 20:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

This is correct: just changed the 7 to 6 and additionally changed the "state-driven" to NIL (it may be a NGO) as well as the "part-time" to "volunteer" service (you're treated completely like all of the other volunteers). I also would like to restructure the article: the disaster relief service is the third alternative in the duty of military and civil service (see §13a Wehrpflichtgesetz and §14 Zivildienstgesetz). Hmmm...I'll see, what I can do. --Bnow 16:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Done, added "Alternatives" and rewrote "Conscientious Objection" plus "Exemption from Service" to meet this (including development service, which as well is not necessarily based on a formal Conscientious Objection). By the way, there are some more exceptions, but maybe this could get into too much detail (see §12 Wehrpflichtgesetz which relays to the delay of service with alone six sections and several subsections). A nice addition would be, when the required time of service in disaster response changed from 10 over 7 to nowadays 6 years. I myself subscribed to 10 years (in a medical unit, too) and took advantage by the change to 7 years (theoretically - I'm still there...). --Bnow 17:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

More detailled information about objection

I've added a sentence about what kind of objection will be accepted. The draftee must assure that he is morraly unable to accept military service in any case (even not to defend a country under attack). The wording that you had suggested that any reason was sufficient. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.52.146.182 (talk) 14:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

Conscription for Women

The statement that "Women are not included in the draft" is not correct per se. Women (from 18 to 55) can be called up "for duty in civilian and military hospitals" if there are not enough volunteers available for such duty. GG Art. 12a, Abs. 4:

(4) Kann im Verteidigungsfalle der Bedarf an zivilen Dienstleistungen im zivilen Sanitäts- und Heilwesen sowie in der ortsfesten militärischen Lazarettorganisation nicht auf freiwilliger Grundlage gedeckt werden, so können Frauen vom vollendeten achtzehnten bis zum vollendeten fünfundfünfzigsten Lebensjahr durch Gesetz oder auf Grund eines Gesetzes zu derartigen Dienstleistungen herangezogen werden.

Kato2k6 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes ... but they are not put before draft committees, and afaik there is no law that establishes such duties even for the State of Defence - the Basic Law only makes such laws possible, doesn't establish these duties itself. --77.4.78.80 (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Wartime

(from the text, blanked out)

unverified: After completing his nine months, the CO will remain as a kind of "civilian reservist", because he may be drafted in case of defence to serve in a hospital, fire dept. etc. | added: this may be a misunderstanding of §14 Zivildienstgesetz, which states, that a civil servicer don't has to fulfill military duty even in wartime, but may be drafted for civil services again. Since all german man can be drafted to (military) service in wartime, this is just an additional exception to respect the former given objection, not a "civilian reservist" thing.

This needs to be cleared up imo.

§79 ZDG details applicable sections of the law for Civilian Service in wartime. In particular, §4 Abs.1, 6 WPflG (re-drafting people who have served for continuous military service during wartime) "is applied accordingly"; §43 ZDG, Abs.1,1 (regulating dismissal of people in Civilian Service after their regular time) is suspended.

§53 ZDG explicitly states a duty to attend Civilian Service in wartime (not doing so is punishable the same way as fleeing regular service).

This clearly means that during wartime, the government can legally draft any conscientious objectors who have served their full time before to perform Civilian Service, making them equal to Bundeswehr reservists. The German Red Cross in this German-language guide to Civilian Service also states their legal opinion of this: Im Verteidigungsfall kann eine Dienstleistung bis zum 60. Lebensjahr angeordnet werden. Dies gilt auch für ehemalige ZDL. Die Einberufung kann nur durch das BAZ erfolgen. Der Charakter des Zivildienstes als soziale Dienstleistung wird auch im Verteidigungsfall nicht aufgehoben.

Similarly, there should be at least some mention in the article that any conscript, after completed service, will be on reserve duty (until the age of 60) and can be called up both for military exercises in peacetime (not for Conscientious Objectors), or for indefinite service during wartime.

Kato2k6 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No, a Zivi is not a Bw reservist. In the State of Defence he can, yes, be drafted for a Dienstleistung. But while some legal forms of redrafting reservists are also called Dienstleistung, the character of the Civilian Service as a soziale Dienstleistung is not suspended (translating cour last German sentence). In this context sozial includes the meaning non-military. Article 12a says that any law which regulates the Civilian service must include the possibility for any consc. obj. to a service without any connection to the Armed Forces.--91.34.239.227 (talk) 10:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

HTML comments and "Political Debate" section

The article contains a number of HTML comments (e.g.: <!-- comment --> ). I think this is a poor way of conducting discussions about the article — that's what the discussion page is for. Please make your comments here, where other editors can review and respond to them.

The "Political Debate" section consumes probably more than a third of the article. I have a few remarks about it:

• Firstly, the article should above all give a correct description of the status quo. The debate about how the status quo should be changed is IMHO of far lesser importance, especially because it doesn't seem like anything is going to change anytime soon, one way or another.
• A political debate, especially one still in progress, is notoriously hard to present in a NPOV and up-to-date manner. Therefore I think a brief description (that shows in broad strokes what people are generally talking about) is better than a finely detailed description of each and every fringe branch of the debate. The latter usually just invites someone to write an even more finely detailed description of the counterpoint to that particular argument, and is a b*tch to keep up-to-date as new arguments and counter-arguments are made.
• If you absolutely must add to the debate section, then please try to present all sides of the debate. The Brevity I ask for is no excuse for POV. Anyway, Wikipedia is not the place where is debate is going to be resolved, therefore favoring one side over another really serves no purpose, except for detracting from the impartiality and therefore the quality of the article.

84.138.170.1 11:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Women volunteers

What percentage of German women volunteer for service equivalent to that performed by men? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.197.19 (talk) 20:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC) And for comparison what percentage of German men are excused because of one of the various exemptions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.197.19 (talk) 21:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC) Oh, one more question, does being part of a civil union give men the same right to avoid conscription as heterosexual marriage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.197.19 (talk) 21:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Historical Arguments

I took out Weimar Republic as it couldn't be described as anti-deomcratic (it was a democracy) or particularly elitist. Even the Nazi regeime couldn't really be regarded as elitist. If the the section means to suggest that the professional army in these periods was anti-democratic and elitist, there may be more truth in it but that doesn't seem to be what its suggesting. Perhaps it just needs rewriting as it doesn't read particularly well anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clomb (talk • contribs) 18:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

twice as many as what?

the opening states: Although the conscription is of a military nature, nowadays twice as many draftees refuse military service and serve in alternative services. What does that mean? twice as many people refuse military service as accept it? that needs cited I'd think, and I highly doubt that. I think what is meant is "nowadays twice as many people refuse service as was formerly the case in the insert decade " anyways, it needs clarified and cited.

--Jadger (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

You are right the formulation is ambiguous and needs to be rephrased. As I am very familiar with the actual conditions, I can clarify the meaning for you. Your first suggestion is what is meant. The number of people performing the social service is recently about twice as high as the number of people opting for the military service. What you suggested would actually be very far off, since virtually nobody went into civil service during the insert decade. So compared to that time, the number of people to refuse military service might be 100 or 1000 times higher today.

Personally, I will not put a fact-tag, since the ratio 1 to 2 is, according to me, the recent practice and I have no reason to doubt it. However, you are free to do so and it should not be a problem to provide a source and thus improve the article. Tomeasy (talk) 09:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not that they are all refusing military service though, the Bundeswehr does not have a need for many of the people that could be conscripted, so they are not drafted. instead they go into the civil services.

--Jadger (talk) 18:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

One important thing to add: If a person is not drafted, he is not obliged to do the civil service. By the way, this group of people has grown rapidly in the past ten years. Is there something you would like to change with the article? Tomeasy_talk 23:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

What the original statement - rather unmistakably - said, and what seems to be the case (I don't have done the statistics myself but it does feel that way) is that, yes, in the end twice as many people filed their conscientious objection (considered not much more than a formality in a supposed neutral decision "army or civil service?", other than by some few such as myself who would have probably preferred civil service but couldn't object falsely) compared with the number of those actually drafted. I guess they didn't count those judged unfit medically, those having exemptions for their engagement in a volunteer fire brigade and the like (who didn't need to object conscientiously and could just opt out).--2001:A61:20B3:5701:5598:6B85:176:D444 (talk) 15:07, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Article needs to be expanded (or reduced)

This article only deals with conscription today. It needs to be expanded to include the history of conscription in Germany as least since the Unification of Germany. Urban XII (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The article soon may have to be revised completely, as the present government (2010), is about to change the conscription laws drastically, to the effect, that Germany will have an army consisting of volunteers solely.

Why is there no discussion of conscription as a human rights violation?

Are human rights not a consideration in Germany? Conscription is the weapon of mass destruction responsible for far more deaths in the last two centuries than all other WMD combined.--Africangenesis (talk) 02:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Conscription was the weapon that enabled the Allies to overcome Hitler, and the West to overcome (standing on the guard) the USSR in peace... After all, the evil thing you've been talking about is called war. Besides, conscription is, and is avowedly, an exception to human rights (as protected by the State). While contrary to popular opinion Article 12a did just as little make conscription a law as it does now; conscription was introduced by the Conscription Law; what Article 12a did was precisely to hinder it from being unconstitutional, since personal freedom would otherwise have left no ground for conscription. (Of course, soldiers did have human rights; but not, for example, desertion.)--77.4.86.137 (talk) 07:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Conscription made Hitler possible. That should be discussed in the article. --Africangenesis (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

But only in the sense that Hitler's own personality was, indeed, much shaped by his experience as a conscript lance-corporal. Germany in 1933, and 1932 when the important parliamentary elections were, did not have conscription.--2001:A61:20B3:5701:3535:8A20:F76C:A375 (talk) 09:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I have to correct myself a bit (that was me); Hitler was not a conscript, but when he was conscripted he dodged and, when called responsible for it, weasled himself out with some excuses (made possible, no doubt, by an early show of rhetorical talent and not shying away from lies on the one, and the loveable laxity of the Austrian offices on the other side). What he was in 1914 and onwards was a volunteer, not a conscript.--2001:A61:260C:C01:404B:5F0D:8EB1:33AC (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

End of conscription in Germany ends on July 1, 2011

• FAZ:Wehrpflicht soll zum 1. Juli 2011 ausgesetzt werden

Conscription ends in Germany on July 1, 2011. 92.252.121.8 (talk) 22:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I am reading that conscription is "suspended". Suspended, the English word used by Der Spiegel, should be differentiated from a word such as abolished. For instance, the draft in the United States could be considered to have been suspended since 1973 (un-suspended circa 1960), but not abolished, although it could be described as "ended". While they both may be construed as an "end" to the constant draft in Germany, I think the use of this term is misleading. I think the temporary nature of the "end" should be noted and such use of the word qualified by such a statement. I think "suspended" instead of "ended" is appropriate. Int21h (talk) 06:59, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Conscription

• remains in the constitution as a possible thing the simple-lawgiver can enact,
• is abolished in general (see Conscription Law § 2),
• is automatically reestablished in a State of Defence or State of Tension.

For some reason I cannot understand, it is No. 1 (and not No. 3) which the German public takes as reason to speak of suspension, in stead of abolishment. However, the previous law which had common conscription is, as such, abolished and not suspended (abolished in peace, you could say); Art. 12a GG never was in itself anything else than a possibility for the simple-lawgiver. I personally would call it suspension if the Minister of Defense could reenact conscription by his own decison, according to the need of the Bundeswehr. I personally would say that the USA have abolished conscription. Do whatever you like:-) --91.34.249.236 (talk) 15:39, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

WWI and WWII?

What about a few facts about German conscription for and during WWI and WWII?