In 2006, the Federal Administrative Court justified the absence of compulsory military service for women in a ruling, citing, among other reasons, that women face greater burdens in the domestic sphere than men and that this alone would justify their exemption from military service obligations.
So military service is seen as a service like healthcare and care services where women already do most of the work, mostly privately and unpaid.
Kurds* yes and Sweden as well. I agree, it's not like people are running around swinging broadswords, maces and war axes anymore. Anyone without a disability can run and pull a trigger or do all those technical jobs.
> Anyone without a disability can run and pull a trigger
This is very much untrue in terms of being a soldier in a high-functioning military.
Technically, you’re not wrong (at least for lighter weapons). That said, there are many more physically demanding things that are involved in doing infantry things (which is what you’re describing) other than running and pulling a trigger (and ideally hitting the target).
> or do all those technical jobs.
Depends on the job, but much more likely.
The vast majority of the jobs in the military are not infantry or infantry-type jobs, so I can see a lot more scope for drafted women who aren’t cut out for infantry doing these things.
> While the law requires men to request the permit, the spokesperson clarified, it also obliges the military career center to issue it, if "no specific military service is expected during the period in question.”
> "Since military service under current law is based exclusively on voluntary participation, such permissions must generally be granted,” the official added.
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”
It seems like the purpose is to have the law and all the paperwork set up as a precaution for the future. Sure, right now it’s all voluntary and just rubber stamping, but if in the future they need to do something like Ukraine and lock down travel for military aged men, it’s much easier to flip a switch and start denying travel permits rather than having to set up and fund an entirely new system for requiring travel permits.
If it were to get closer to war (i.e., Spannungsfall, let alone the Verteidigungsfall) a set of laws would unlock that allow control of various areas of life and the economy anyway.
Not true. Back then, limitations on "Spannungsfall" and "Verteidigungsfall" were in place which have been removed last year. The real news, though, is that the public (media, opposition parties) didn't noticed until a couple of days ago.
Ah, invasive extra paperwork (enforced by criminal penalties, at least in theory) for something they say on the surface they won’t actually need. So very german (hah)
In the United States, adult males have to sign up for the Selective Service for the same reason even though we haven't had conscription since the Vietnam War in the late 1970s(?).
I don't know how it worked for anyone else, but I remember the selective service PSA ads when I was growing up -- (that's a manual emdash) If you don't sign up for selective service when you turn 18, you'll be celebrating your birthday at pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison. Or maybe you couldn't get a welfare check, college loan, or federal job. The details are a bit fuzzy.
Then a month or two before my 18th birthday, I got a postcard saying I had been auto-registered. It was a rather disappointing denouement.
Under U.S. federal law, men ages 18–25 must register with the Selective Service System to be eligible for most federal jobs. Federal agencies enforce this under hiring rules in 5 U.S.C. § 3328.
The wording is a bit strange - technically all men (18-25) must register. When I tried to register, I was told I couldn't because I was already registered.
The Selective Service auto-registers people from various data sources.
But this puts me in a weird spot: I've never actually registered. I am registered. But I did not register - which is the requirement.
There are Kafka-esque parts of the US government where this distinction could matter.
Nobody wants to be the guy who got the nation caught with its pants down if conscription needs to come back in a hurry. The same reason the military budget always ratchets upwards.
Measured as a percentage of GDP (which I'd say is the most sensible way to measure it) the US's current military budget is lower than at any point since WWII aside from a few years between the end of the Cold War and 9/11.
Informally, it's put forward as one of the most successful government programs in history: it succeeds at all it's objective, comes in at or under budget, employs few people, and avoids the scope creep that kills other successful programs.
It's only shortcoming: it doesn't actually do anything.
It is not like they had a choice. The article is about
1939, the events were well progressed then. Only very few were able to hide themselves and stay hidden for years.
I thought it was those pesky Poles refusing to provide a German land corridor to enable intra-territorial transit between Germany and Germany’s exclave East Prussia. That and ethnic Germans allegedly being harassed in Poland.
First one is definitely true and isn’t emphasized much and tbh I feel like that demand wasn’t unreasonable. Shipping people and things and providing defense would be a lot harder to an exclave than to contiguous territory. They did seriously overreact by invading, of course, and it seems like Mr H had some serious temperamental issues.
Second one I’ve never researched enough to know if it’s true or German propaganda.
I don’t recall the Germans ever claiming that Poland was about to invade them? Maybe I missed it.
Previously it was conditional, only in effect “in the event of tension or defense” (machine translation), but they are very exceptional circumstances -- AFAIK not ever invoked since unification.
The change this year was to make it applicable regardless of those conditions: “Outside the tension or defense case, §§ 3 [...]” shall apply.
This is a significant change from the previous Cold War policy. I have talked about the definition of these terms in another comment, with another news article as source.
It's a meaningless, feel-good rule. Every country has countless carve-outs. To give you a trivial example: in the US, you can't get a passport if you owe more than $2,500 in child support.
Whilst I agree, to be fair, a passport is usually only needed when entering a country, not leaving one, right? Under the cited rule, the US needs to allow you to leave, not help you in entering some other country.
That's mostly because transport companies have to pay to ship you back if you get turned away at the border, so they will want to see your permission to enter your destination country before you leave. I've traveled internationally a fair bit and I've never had to show my passport to government officials when leaving the US.
Ok, fair enough, but if I were German - I don't really think I would asylum anywhere on the basis of Germany maybe intending to conscript me in the future.
And "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person." Military service also serves the purpose to defend that right when the country is attacked. Rights aren't absolute, they have to be traded off against each other.
Defense doesn't mean not to start a war. Think about how Vietnam justified their invasion of Cambodia in 1978, or how China started the war with Vietnam the following year, or how Turkey entered Syria, how Pakistan fought the Taliban recently, and of course what Russia did in Ukraine, 2014 and 2022.
Wars are messy and have always been. Military actions are to be decided by the governments. Those who have resources are more willingly to use it, west or east.
It's about time to finally grok that all world's military is only there to wage wars at the whim of the 0.001% under the guise of being defence-only, and that constitutions worth less than toilet paper these days.
That is basically redefining the word defense, though.
I can’t be like “it was self defense” if I beat somebody up because they are getting too big at the gym and they could beat me up later if I don’t beat them up first.
That doesn’t mean such a thing is never ever justified, in international relations, it just ain’t “defense”.
So while many of the reasons are questionable (understatement of the year), let’s focus on the last one. After America lost the war in Vietnam, what happened to those neighboring nations? Did they suffer from Vietnamese communists? The only Vietnamese intervention was in Cambodia, and hardly anyone thinks that wasn’t the right thing to do.
The OP probably thought of defense in the narrow sense as "the action of defending against or resisting an attack", and not in the broader sense defined as "we’re going to travel halfway around the world to kill a million people because that’s who we are". A common mistake.
That depends greatly on which interests you allow to be defined as "American". The vast majority of American people would have preferred not to be involved in most of our foreign adventures. The rich and powerful thought differently. Is our citizenship determined by the size of our bank accounts?
Rather: the "victorious" countries of the Second World war were afraid of a re-militarization of Germany. On the other hand, they wanted to re-militarize the Western part of Germany just a little bit so that West Germany could become part of the NATO.
Quite the contrary; up until the end of the Cold War both German states were highly militarized. They were quite happy to be able to roll back a lot of it after the reunification though.
Germany participated in the NATO military campaign/occupation of Afghanistan, including ground forces, naval activities and special operations units. Its seems a total of 150,000 German soldiers (and police officers?) were deployed overall (not at the same time of course); of them, 62 were killed and 249 wounded:
Rights are morally absolute, and the cynical insistence that they must be traded off is both fallacious and intellectually hypocritical. You want certain weaker rights, then just admit it, don't be disingenuous about it.
The constitution made it impossible to make a less sexist law, because it says that women cannot be forced to military service. It is an old document, and it is based on old role models. Modernizing the constitution would require 2/3 majority, and the government was already struggling with making a law at all.
Only if you ignore free will. Feels unlikely that women will suddenly abandon monogamy and forced procreation à la the draft is probably very unpopular especially given that women would be a majority. Not that they’re wrong to disagree, but there are more conditions here than the biology of procreation.
The modern answer would be immigration, and that’s gender-agnostic.
Hard to feel the same sympathy for Russian men to be honest, I've seen many gallivanting abroad, whilst majority of Ukrainian men are stuck either in hiding in their own country or have been sent to the front lines. Only a few got out early or by paying bribes.
honestly i am happy for the russian and ukranian young men and women i meet here in NL each day. Glad for them they can dodge the draft. most simply drove out, some had more hastle than others.
war is shit on all sides and thinking one or the other suffers less because you dont like their colours is very short sighted.... i think we had enough time by now to realise it.
and dont call it cowardice if someone doesnt want to fight for a bunch of 'rich pricks' playin with their money while normal people get to die in the streets. It has never been good or normal and should never be.
It's objectively worse on the Ukrainian side. Imagine you haven't been able to leave your house in 4 years for fear you'll be grabbed by a draft officer. Russians do not know this fear.
To boot, many Russian men have been paid handsomely for their participation in the SMO and get to live nice lives abroad.
Did you just forget about the mobilization drive Russia had in 2022, where they grabbed young men off streets and from their houses?
It was very unpopular, lead to people fleeing the country, and was pushed out of the public eye as soon as they figured out how to forcefully volunteer people instead.
Nobody grabbed anyone. It was an unusual, but otherwise a normal bureaucratic process. Got handed a paper, signed, have to appear. Many probably didn't have plans to go voluntarily, but felt it unmanly to dodge. I was at one of such sites and saw a man who got there too drunk and was handed over to the police; he was very disappointed he is not allowed go with the fellas.
It wasn't hard to dodge; you could just refuse to take the papers pretending it's not you or get sick the very day or something like that. The system had a number and once it was reached (very quickly) no further action was necessary. The only change so far us that the employers started to follow their military tracking procedure to the letter; before that it was required but not really enforced, but now all the paperwork gets done by the book.
Some people indeed left the country but those are the kind you don't want to have your back anyway.
Forceful volunteering is pure imagination. At most it's intensive persuasion or a new way to get out of jail, but if you don't want to go, nobody will force you.
The men I know try not to go unless it's absolutely necessary. The women generally prance to Russia and back all the time. (Exceptions exist, of course.)
But the UN DHR doesn’t seem to have been written as law. It was written as a declaration, in line with our own Declaration of Independence. It lists our ideals that need to be spelled into law. That lets it be airy and vague in a way laws cannot.
It isn’t “every law.” It’s not written to be directly operationalised. You’re comparing a declaration of values to operational law; they’re words in different ways and contexts.
Almost everything about societies except cities is just pretty words. Countries and most borders are just an abstraction. We fight for them because someone convinces us with words to do so. We could do the same for the UN and it would be a much nobler cause in most cases.
That doesn't turn it into a physical reality like a stone or a stream of water that exists regardless of what animals think about it. Territories exist because they are defended. They are not obvious unless one deals with the means employed to defend it.
The need to defend might be a necessity for survival, but the desire to defend additional territory and resources has existed ever since humans have acquired the power to achieve more than the means of mere survival. Similar to food preferences, which become peculiar if there is plentitude, basic if tight, and sub-par in emergencies: during famines, sometimes people resort to eat grass to sate their feeling of hunger even though digesting it is an energetic net negative.
First of all you don't need it. Secondly, the regulation even states that the right is granted automatically anyway. Technically, the rule had been in place for the past 45+ years anyway - even when there was mandatory military service! - so it doesn't make any practical difference.
> Apparently it is bureaucracy without purpose after all?
No it's not without purpose at all. The purpose is to know who could be drafted in a timely manner should the need arise. There's currently 2 major wars - sorry "special military operations" - happening, one of which in Europe.
A certain government involved in one of these simultaneously calls for allies to assist while at the same time openly questioning half a century of military alliances. So maybe this helps to understand why regulations like this make sense - even for people who never lived through a time when there was mandatory military service and take their own security for granted.
At the moment, the law has no teeth since they cannot stop anyone from just leaving without return ticket, and nothing happens when you return. Of course it would be very easy to change that, and that's the reason why it exists.
I have been living in Germany for 11 years and qualify for citizenship. This is exactly the kind of thing that has stopped me. If this country goes to war, I'm out. My presence here has always been transactional when it benefited Germany. It will stay transactional when it benefits me.
So it's a cold war law which is still in place but not being enforced.
Same for conscription laws in the Netherlands, which are also still active. They just don't ask anyone to report for conscription. It was even expanded a couple of years before the Ukraine war to also include women.
> The new military service law requires all men under 45 to seek approval from the Bundeswehr to leave the country for longer than three months. It also obliges the military career center to issue it.
The main point was that they changed it so instead of being activated during crisis now it applies anytime, including in peacetime. Making it similar to the cold war provisions doesn't make it sounds better.
It's an important distinction because it prevents the defence of "oh it's just an old law, there are lots of old laws on the books that everyone knows aren't relevant, they can't be tidied up for political reasons".
It was suspended for the last 15 years! Surely it was easier to leave it suspended and unsuspending it is a conscious choice.
Previously it was conditional, only in effect “in the event of tension or defense” (machine translation) which I will define below, but they are very exceptional circumstances -- AFAIK not ever invoked since unification.
The change this year was to make it applicable regardless of those conditions: “Outside the tension or defense case, §§ 3 [...]” shall apply.
"Tension" is defined by an imminent threat (e.g., invasion) and must be explicitly invoked by leadership. "Defense" is actual ongoing attack of territory, and must be explicitly invoked by the Bundestag.
Singapore has a similar requirement called an Exit Permit. It may have changed, I don’t really know or care anymore. But the conscription was a huge driver for me to emigrate as soon as I could. I left the country 2 weeks after finishing my military service.
I'm surprised this news is stalling at 24 points. Everybody has to understand that even if this law isn't impacting you; this is a signal in the noise. Germany is a major part of the industrial military complex together with the US and still the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China. This is meaningful as it sets course for war in Europe. And for Germans it means soon to be enforced limitations of civil rights. That fits right in with the surveillance crap that is being attempted to roll out in EU (which is effectively headed and controlled by Germany).
I don't think there is any moat here, most European countries have these kind of "deprecated" laws, that are not enforced and just stay there because it's too much of a hassle to remove. In France, I think there are still laws forbidding women to wear jeans, and requiring permission of the husband to work. Still in the text of law, but obviously non enforceable.
US has just as many if not even more. Every state has their own collection of weird laws, like donkeys are not allowed to sleep in bathtubs or dandelions are illegal to grow over a certain height.
its a question of degree. going to the barracks when you get called up by mail vs getting grabbed off the street, punched in the face and shoved into a bus headed for the training center.
They will probably go to prison instead, like some of my friends did. Giving military training to people who definitely don't want it can be a bad idea for many reasons.
Unmotivated draftees are mostly used as a workforce. Especially in modern warfare, soldiers without significant training are worse than useless, as the wrong action at the wrong time can compromise the stealth and mission of their unit.
If you ever wonder what is the role of professional army in case of any serious invasion or war. Their role is to hunt for conscripts, kidnap them, and transport them to the army recruitment centers.
Thats not how most of the manpower gets there, without even knowing the Ukraine example, I venture to guess based on the superior morale of Ukrainian forces, that most are drafted willingly.
This still does not prove the very general statement GP made, which doesn't align with draft reality in historical wars
Millions of people enjoy great lives today because at least one of their ancestors were smart enough to not go to the meat grinder. While millions of young men became genetic dead ends dead in a ditch for no reason at all. Even their names forgotten forever.
Millions of people were not burned to death due to not living under Nazi rule you mean.
Most of our ancestors did join a draft, as it was universal, be it the Napoleon wars, WW1 or WW2. This interpretation of history is highly creative I will give you that
Name 10 common soldiers who liberated a concentration camp , from the top of your head. If you care so much about that as you give the impression of doing.
Are you implying that the fact there are no common soldiers famous for liberating concentration camps, means that saving further millions that would be killed by the eventual Nazi occupation of Europe, is in vain?
Silicon valley privileged mindset in Europe, what are you talking about?! You mean Piotr, Ivan, and Andrei working remotely for American company for equivalent of 60k USD annually?
Most armies in Europe, especially in post-Communist part of it, are nepotist corrupted structures. People go there for tax and housing benefits and early retirement. They are not even particularly fit, skilled, or trained to fight with an invader. Especially in these countries men aged 18-45 have absolutely nothing to fight for.
A tangent, but I’m interested (as an American) what is the German attitude towards laws that have no enforcement or penalty? Do most people feel an obligation to observe them? Is there any social cost for disregarding them?
I think it varies. I suspect in most common cases the lack of enforcement results from the rest of society not having an appetite to punish it. No harm done, no need to punish.
I believe jaywalking (or crossing a red light as a pedestrian) is prohibited, but you would have to do it in front of a really motivated cop (or cause an accident) to actually get a ticket for it. It is common and no one really cares - but if you were to do it in front of children or a school you will probably get disapproving looks or a somewhat stern talking to from others around you.
I think the image of the "order-loving german" is a bit of a stereotype. Some people overdo it (Calling the police for noise harassment if you still mow your lawn at 20:01), but they are generally not popular with their neighbors (or the police...)
Jaywalking is illegal is many jurisdictions, partly for pedestrians own safety, but also partly to shift the blame if a pedestrian is involved in an accident. So it’s mostly seen as a crime where people only hurt themselves.
legal jaywalking is by definition not possible. what is however possible and legal is crossing the street away from a marked crossing. at least in europe and in most places in the world except the united states.
They changed the law in CA, it's still technically illegal, but police are directed to not cite anyone unless:
"... a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power"
Turns out the police were mostly stopping non-white people for it
The population is very diverse about this I would say. Some people would stand at a red light as pedestrians until they starve to death while others don't give a fuck about anything.
IIRC there is actually a practice of nullifying laws that cannot be enforced (Vollzugsdefizit). One example I remember is that the enforcement of minor drug possession charges was declared unconstitutional because that law was only selectively enforced.
Drafts seem like an outdated pre-globalist concept. Die for the borders nobody respects anyway. You need to be nationalistic when it’s useful to your leaders that hate you. Of course just the natives need to die, all the immigrants won’t be doing that.
Number of characters for the title is limited. And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my country; it in deed comes as a shock. And it is also shocking that I just randomly stumbled over this news article when this law is in effect already for 3 months. How is it possible that our news talk about all sorts of nonsense but not about something as fundamentally relevant as this ... this is the real shock.
> And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my country
The ends don't justify the means. Conscription has no place in the free world. It's slavery, plain and simple. Going into the military should be an appealing career choice. Our soldiers are supposed to be highly skilled professionals, not cannon fodder in large quantities.
So, if some other country with different value system attacks your homeland with intention to effectively colonize it then you'd be okay with just letting it happen?
I believe it is up to the free individual to make that decision. I'm not saving the slave ship when I'm treated like one.
ps: There are 8 billion people on this planet, and I've never had any serious issues with any of them, much less a reason to start a war. Governments are always the cause of everyone's misery. Beware of yours!
Any country that contains millionaires while using military slaves ("conscripts") is evil. If there is clear existential risk then the state should implement wealth taxes to pay volunteer troops instead of enslaving people. And if literally everybody outside the military has been taxed down to the poverty line, and there are still not enough volunteers, it's time to surrender.
The regime spent the past 50 years teaching everyone that their nation is just a source of shame and at best just a meaningless social construct, and that their culture and people's history is trash, that really nothing about it is worth saving.
And now the regime wants them to voluntarily sacrifice their lives for it.
I am also surprised that I haven't read about this in German news before. I am following the news. If Trump would have signed an executive order with a similar content affecting US citizen, German media would probably report about this multiple days long with many articles.
I was looking in Google news for other reports about this, but only found an article from Berliner Zeitung published 5 hours after this article from Frankfurter Rundschau.
I am worried about what other information which could be important to me, the news did not report on.
I agree in general. One reason we haven't heard anything about it might be that the administration already admitted that this legislation needs correction or at least clarification, as mentioned in the article.
No, that is not mentioned in the article. The correction and clarification is regarding how exactly this is being implemented. The law is there ... don't think this is a mistake. And there should be serious discussions in a society before something like that is made a law.
Men are biologically disposable. If a nation lost 90% or better of its adult male population, it could still bounce back within a generation or two.
Women have no incentive to change that, and the small fraction of men powerful enough to change it can already exempt themselves from the meat grinder. The remaining men's opinions don't matter.
So this definitely works for hunter gatherers and that’s definitely how humans are architected, I agree.
However, if I think through what this process would look like under modern living arrangements, what would happen? Intensified serial polygamy with a massive increase in single motherhood? Full on polygamy?
Our social structures aren’t really set up to handle that. It seems like it would be so bad for society that I wouldn’t really say men are “disposable” under the current arrangement. More like they are the roof and women are the foundation, maybe.
It’s better to lose your roof than your foundation, sure, but losing your roof is still really bad. It does not really compare to, say, throwing out a paper coffee cup.
> If a nation lost 90% or better of its adult male population, it could still bounce back within a generation or two.
Yes in theory, no in practice for Europe.
Europe population and society collapsed 2 generations after WWII. We are literally discussing the consequences of the collapse here and now.
People also forget European societies were already starting to collapse after WWI as the consequence of a large proportion of the men population being killed or wounded.
Women's lives are valuable, men's are not. This has been the case across basically all societies in human history. Losing a ton of men really doesn't matter too much - especially young, family-less men.
Losing a lot of women, though, is really really bad.
At the moment, the German state is reneging on its obligations. The current workforce is expected to work harder and harder while retirement is pushed back and social benefits are threatened. A third or a fifth of the population is considering emigration already. Why would they fight for a country that is giving up on them?
over and over again, we see that governments are pretty bad at doing their job.
over and over again, they prove to us that they cant handle money, that they are corrupt, that they put the interest of their political class above that of the people.
so are you surprised?
id rather be left alone as much as possible in my pursuit of happiness. On my own terms!
"Fuck you got mine" is the attitude of the boomers expecting young people to die for a country that the boomers left economically and demographically ruined. Young Germans have the worst life prospects of any generation in the past fifty years.
But if you look at serious polls then not many young people will actually fight for this. I remember reading a number of around 15%...
And those probably don't have a high IQ.
That's a generation of people who had to never suffer the prospect of invasion and occupation of German soil by hostile armed forces. Even so, this number of willing recruits would already be much more than the Bundeswehr can possibly arm, and are unneeded as long as there is no military altercation actively involving Germany.
Unsurprisingly when people here engage in serious politics beyond a desire to enrich themselves, those politics tend to take on a distinctly libertarian bent. I’m not sure what else people expect though, this is a very sheltered group with relatively limited skills outside of specific technical areas.
Why does it exclude women? War is not just physical strength, but also logistics, operating vehicles, operating drones, nursing, and so on. All tasks that women are well capable of.
Because it would take a change to the constitution to do that while reinstating the old draft laws only takes a regular majority in parliament. The draft is a severe limitation of personal freedom, so you can't just do that by law. The draft for men is already enabled in the constitution, the draft for woman isn't.
At this moment, changing the constitution is not possible, there is no majority for this. So that pretty much took the option to change the broader parameters out of the discussion entirely.
If there were one. The closest thing is the Treaty of Lisbon, which in turn was an update on the Treaties of Maastricht and Rome.
However, the matter has been heard in the European Court of Justice in 2002, and the short version is "Community law does not preclude compulsory military service being reserved to men."
It probably could be challenged under the German constitution, but nobody knows if that would be successful. The draft for men is set up in the constitution, but there is also an explicit equality for men and women in there. In the past any challenge would almost certainly have been denied, but it's a different time now.
In practice, this draft is not a real draft yet. Nobody is actually drafted, so there are almost no practical consequences. If there was an actual draft, I'd expect to see a challenge to this.
Some countries in the EU, like mine, have funny discrimination laws that say a positive discrimination is not considered a discrimination under the law, so it cannot be challenged. It is used as the basis for all women-favoring regulations.
I wouldn't trust the European Union to be the one that will challenge that German mobilization register at all.
COVID-19 has proven that if anything, the European Union tends to spread national initiatives among other countries (and Germany is often a leader in EU).
In this specific case, the EU is more likely to be the type of organization that would think about how to create a unified permit
-> as they did with the EU Digital COVID certificate; some sort of "I am in the register of mobilization" / "have a temporary travel authorization".
So, EU might be an enemy that pretends to be your friend there.
Humbug. Defence policy, especially how the EU member states choose to organize their military forces, is very much in the hands of the individual countries. A majority of the member states don't even have conscription anymore.
Yes, there is the common security and defence policy, and the Article 42 of Lisbon and all that, but it all still relies on national systems.
That's interesting because on the face of it this none of the EU's business... but also typical of the EU and EU governments to expand what is thr EU's business little by little.
The whole existence of the EU has its background in the end of WWII.
> 18 April 1951 – European Coal and Steel Community
> Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past. The six are Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The European Coal and Steel Community comes into being in 1952.
Absolutely not. What you quote is beside the point and irrelevant.
Defence and the military is a sovereign matter that has nothing to do with the EU... except we are seeing that this is changing without democratic national mandates.
I can only repeat that defence is a sovereign matter in which the EU has no power, but there is a trend of changing this by making it happen as "fait accompli", especially since the war in Ukraine, which is used as pretext.
Theoretically yes, practically no. The ECJ can order the revision of national laws, but the country in question is responsible for implementation, and can send plaintiffs on a multi-decade merry chase. Several countries have also taken the view that they can refuse changes to their constitutions. This stands on shaky ground legally, but there is no real enforcement mechanism anyway.
Yeah, the law is unjust but spare even this part of the population this unnecessary risk. It's not like they can't join if they want to but why put force on it? So everybody feels miserable? What's the point?
A lot of draft laws haven't been touched in a long time and aren't updated for modern gender politics. Though I do wonder if they'll actually get updated ever - no politician wants to touch it and it's not like anyone is screaming for the right to be forced to go die in war.
It's always weird to me how surprised women are that every single man they know has had to specifically, actually physically ink paper to sign up for the draft. It definitely feels weird/spooky when you do it, given the implications and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.
> and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.
I though it was weird that the United States had a requirement for people to physically sign a paper to do it. It looks like only this year they made it automated.
> Beginning on December 18, 2026, the Selective Service System will be required to identify, locate, and register all male (as assigned at birth) U.S. residents 18 to 26 years old on the basis of other existing federal databases. Men will no longer be required to register themselves or be subject to penalties for failing to do so. This was noted to be the most significant change to Selective Service since the self-registration system began in 1980.
To clarify: every young person regardless of gender is legally obliged to go through fitness testing for conscription and if deemed suitable must go through it if selected. I imagine it’s roughly similar in Denmark?
Up until the fall of the USSR ~all men did go through conscription/basic military training. After the fall only the ones that wanted to and were selected did. Now it’s ramping up massively.
both are already tied to residence registration (which is mandatory in germany, because it defines where you pay taxes). there is no need to register for the draft. it is automatic, once you turn 18 you get the letter to get tested if you qualify.
If, during a state of defence, the need for civilian services in the civilian health system or in stationary military hospitals cannot be met on a voluntary basis, women between the age of eighteen and fifty-five may be called upon to render such services by or pursuant to a law. Under no circumstances may they be required to render service involving the use of arms.
This is false, overwhelmingly MALES. For a time, males couldn't leave Ukraine, while females could. Those who go to die on the front in all wars are mostly males. Doesn't mean that females aren't casualties as well, they are.
The intersection of parties wanting to reinstate compulsory military service and parties supporting gender equality doesn't currently have the necessary supermajority to change the constitution. So we get a wishy-washy compromise, as is so often the case in democracies.
Starting 2026, Ukraine at least has restrictions on women leaving the country as well.
Women in the civil service, law enforcement agencies, or those registered in the military and serving under contract may face restrictions on traveling abroad, particularly for non-official purposes.
Right, a lot of the draft law being male-only reflects a combination of the reality that, relatively speaking, not much war has been waged since the end of WW2, and that much of contemporary gender equality is still somewhat new on a historical basis. So they're really just out of date laws with not much of an impetus to update, at least until recently. The worldwide trend is pretty clearly in the direction of making service and conscription, where needed, more gender agnostic. There are still some realities that don't really change here, such as men being most useful for direct combat, so even if women are conscripted it's likely they'll still avoid much of the worst of warfare simply by virtue of not qualifying for stringent standards.
You mean "some women in specific situations", not women in general. 2 weeks ago my cousin's wife and her 2 daughters got in an out for my aunt's funeral, in Ukraine. She is 50 years old, former teacher, no restrictions, the daughters are in the early 20, no restrictions either.
Most roles in the military require ad hoc applications of brute strength to do the job competently even if it isn't per se part of the job description. This includes things like operating vehicles, desk jobs, etc.
In the military context, almost every job must be performed in the field or in the absence of (working) machinery. You still must be capable of carrying the equipment load-out for your role on your back. The inability of women as a class to do this effectively has been a longstanding issue. Everyone is at risk of being thrust into combat situations due to circumstances beyond anyone's control. The "rear echelon" can suddenly find themselves no longer in the rear.
All of which is separate from the question of the use of conscription generally.
In the US there is a separate gender-agnostic authority that allows the US to impress someone into non-military service for (IIRC) 6 months.
None of this disqualifies women from service. Of course, special forces and frontline troops will face these challenges day-to-day, but women who can't handle this will simply wash out from those. Which is not a big problem; only a tiny percentage of the military comprises these.
Going to assume this phrasing is an awkward translation, but we can see how this works out in tolerant nations with conscription like Thailand. Typically, trans women who are already on a medical pathway are medically excluded from military service. This is less an affirmation of who they are by the military and more of a frank admission that their current state could never be made combat-ready. It's likely that even if SHTF, this would remain the status quo, because it's difficult to imagine draft resisters taking estrogen simply to avoid service. Even if treatment is largely done via informed consent, medical exclusion would likely require blood levels be in a certain range, or certain surgeries performed.
As far as I know as long as the change was made outside of an ongoing conflict and it's reasonable to assume it wasn't done to evade a potential one, it would actually protect you from being sent to your death
IDK about legal situation, but I know people who transitioned in both directions and they tell me that the hormones they take do make a big difference to strength and resiliance.
Women have been treated similarly to children. Fewer rights, but also fewer responsibilities. Feminists are very vocal about the rights but not too bothered about the responsibility.
In addition to the legal point regarding the constitution: A lot less people in those roles you listed, die. The compulsion is necessary for the state to get enough people to go die - or at least, seriously risk their lives - for it on the battlefield.
There is an actual answer to this, don’t listen to the random people replying saying stuff like “because the CDU is in power” or whatever.
The actual answer is because the constitutional instrument that allows conscription (Artikel 12a Grundgesetz) is explicitly limited to men. Therefore women are not subject to conscription in Germany, unless the constitution is changed.
Perhaps if the constitution were written today instead of in 1949 it would include women too.
You are misinformed and it is pretty much because of the CDU/CSU. There was a chance to change it with the help of the CDU just after the election but before the last government got dissolved the CDU objected...
It doesn't even exclude just biological women but everyone who has either "female" or "diverse" in their passport, which, according to current law, can both be biologically male.
Honestly, I don't think the problem with war is that not enough women die in it. It makes more sense to argue against forcing anyone against their will to fight in a war.
How so? Why isn't the question 'Why is anyone being forced at all?' Their question assumes that someone has to be forced, which I fundamentally disagree with, so they should justify that assumption first.
> And the answer is that women are equal to men in all things, except when things get serious, and then all of a sudden biology matters again
Correct. They are equal, so I don't think either men or women should be forced.
Well women are the rate limiting factor in having more men produced for war fodder.
It probably makes more sense to ban birth control at the same time men are required to die for the war machine as both would then be playing out their slavery-induced biological role in ensuring survival of the nation. That is if you're down with the whole slavery for war thing.
That’s essentially what the commenter is proposing when talking about banning birth control. This would be equivalent to compelling women to reproduce (or forego sexual relations, which in reality most people won’t do).
Most actively wars are over long before the replacement rate starts to matter, and women that get pregnant or raise children will in all likelihood get an excemption from frontline duty.
Not only violence. There are plenty of concerning situations in which you all of a sudden stop putting middle-manager women in email jobs or HR/DEI finger-wagging jobs.
When things get existential, the jobs favored by men multiply and the jobs favored by women decrease. And nowhere more than in countries and societies which are highly feminist and supportive of women, which seems counterintuitive but isn't.
Figures I’ve seen say over 700,000 casualties in the British Army alone.
3.7 million served in the Army, which is a fairly high proportion when compared to the age range suitable for military service. Add in the Navy and RAF and you get to nearly six million. Those that didn’t serve were generally needed at home - roles like doctors, miners, police, or were too young or too old to fight.
The British, unlike many European countries, had time to mobilise those forces. Had they lost the Battle of Britain and had Germany commenced a land invasion of Britain then it’s likely the numbers would have been a lot lower.
That was also true of much of the feudal or monarchist European wars in the centuries before WWI. In the near term before the "democratic" era around WWI wars war largely seen as wars of the aristocracy and armed forces. Merchants could usually ~freely come and go between countries at war and you could generally pass to a country you were at war with without common people seeing you as an enemy. Wars also tended to be less "all or nothing" where the other side was evil and had to be destroyed and were seen more as property and rights disputes of the elite where armed force was a negotiating tactic or strategic use to assert some particular right.
It wasn't until the scam of 'democracy' fooled people into thinking war was against the actual people of the other country that they not only scammed everyone into having such buy-in and stakes for the war but also to view the other countrymen themselves as the enemy. People started viewing the nation of themselves because their laughable miniscule influence of their vote somehow means the government is of them. (Note this was a resurface of course, there were times in history where war was seen as against a peoples rather than of the elite).
Stop reading Curtis Yarvin's pseudo-history. Like 8 million people died in the Thirty Years War before modern democratic states, and there's plenty of other examples.
In the case of a typical war of conquest, fighting pretty much stops as soon as one nation surrenders. However, no nation state in the world asks, 'How can we save the most lives?', instead asking, 'Do we have enough people to send to their deaths to potentially preserve our monopoly of power?'
Of course, at the beginning of every war, some people genuinely believe that joining and defending the nation they live in is in their best interests, but these numbers quickly drop over time. As history and current events show, states start to use forced conscription in every prolonged war at some point.
I agree but in countries with larger populations, there are two reasons:
1) Women can have children, and after a major war a large section of the population may be killed, and its better to have more women than men, since you can repopulate faster.
2) Women take over a large share of industrial labor during wartime. This was a mistake the Germans made in WW2, because they were so mystified by Nazism. But in the US, women basically took over all the manufacturing jobs that men left when they went to war, and it helped shore up the industrial base and, in the end, helped lead to an allied victory.
In a place like Israel, there are so few people that it doesn't make a massive difference. If half the men get taken out, its not like the 2-3 million remaining women are going to be able or even want to "repopulate" so rapidly (not to mention that Israel has an interesting setup where a small section of the women make up the majority of the births--the ultra-orthodox--and the majority probably aren't having kids anyway).
I'm in a country ~5mil population (less than israel's) where men are conscripted and there is a fair amount of angst regarding their sacrifice. IMO, the cause is a mix of patriarchy and voteshare.
Factor #2 is no longer true, nowadays more and more stuff is being produced by machines. Moreover women can pick up guns. Drones can be piloted. Lethality is only going to go up.
No one sane would want to go fight in a war where lethality is high. Nor train for something that requires looming, recurring obligations for a good 10-20 years of their life. This is real sacrifce. If you want respect, at some point you have to put skin in the game.
Easier to repopulate... at the expense of men being considered essentially disposable by the society. I should have as much right to not being forcefully sent to my death to wage billionaires' wars as the other half of population.
Well, you see, if men stay alive, but women are killed, society collapses eventually as not enough new people are born. It sucks being a man in this scenario, but it is what it is.
And if you include women (well, all genders) directly in the war efforts you double the amount of soldiers you have, which would increase your chance of winning and not needing to repopulate.
The key here is to refuse fighting. Nobody becomes a hero by becoming a murderer whose goal is to defend the political power of Stalin, Napoleon, Bush, or whoever.
I suspect one tool governments across the world will resort to when they get desperate about sub-replacement fertility is changing mandatory conscription from males to the childless. Quite strong incentive, not be sent to the meatgrinder.
Modern Germany will collapse in the face of any war that would justify conscription, so it's all a moot point anyway.
The country is already in a slow burning crisis due to the political and economic results of its demography, and a war coming to its own soil will send the walls tumbling down.
Yes, my guess is most of western Europe would collapse after one or two weeks without electricity.
I have seen people acting really erratically just after a few hours without electrity and internet.
Most people are so clueless they would quickly put their home on fire because they do not know how to safely use candles.
Also, just looking at what would happen to a large part of the population once they would run out of meds is terrifying. Heart medications, SSRI, anti psychotics. etc.
There is not gonna be a war in Europe like how WWI and II was described to us. It is gonna be far less heroic.
How does feminism survive if this becomes the norm? If young men feel like they're expected to give more to their society it's natural to expect renumeration financial, socially or politically. Nordic countries don't seem to have this problem, but their conscription laws are quite relaxed compared to what the future will likely hold. A declining youth population almost certainly means greater youth repression (higher taxes for pensions, conscription, etc.)
Norways conscription law was much stricter until very recently. Military police was looking for me to hand deliver my draft notice up until I moved abroad because doing so allows them to charge you and imprison you if you don't show. At the time women were not called in at all. It didn't stop a rapid move towards more equality. And that eventually moved towards more women in the military. Couple that with a reduced need for recruits, and it was relaxed significantly for men.
EDIT: I moved in 2000. I finally took a call from the military police the day I landed in London, to gleefully tell them I'd left - the practice was that draft notices would not be delivered abroad, so moving effectively put an end to the matter. Norwegian law also required notifying the military if you left for more than 6 months, and provide evidence. I sent them a letter; they sent me one back demanding evidence. I told them the fact I'd received the letter was evidence and to stop bothering me. They did.
Basically, for the Americans who find this weird: In the countries in Europe where this is still a thing, this is a cold war holdover most places. When I was growing up air raid sirens were being tested monthly, and my primary schools' basement was a bomb shelter. It took a lot of time before things were relaxed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decades. The people who are trying to make young men only doing the killing the norm are the same people trying to end feminism. Therefore, there is some logic in your question.
When I was in Asia two years ago, as an American, every time I met a young Russian man escaping conscription, drinks were on me as appreciation to their commitment to world peace. I'm in South America now and it is being inundated with young Israeli men running like the Russians were. Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.
I need to revise what I wrote. The protests and stance have all been against selective service for both men and woman. However, on the flip side, the stance for enlisting and volunteering are opposite. I'll let you Google that one to see if you think if "citation needed".
Do you agree that women and men should serve equally in front line combat?
> Nordic countries don't seem to have this problem, but their conscription laws are quite relaxed compared to what the future will likely hold.
This seems very misinformed at least when it comes to Sweden. Upon war, everyone is obliged to defend the country. Nobody can leave unless you have a good reason.
I think it's misleading to credit what is happening in germany to feminism. It's a very toxic ideology and the best thing is to leave if you are discriminated by this (e.g. as young white heterosexual male).
How does the concept of the global citizen survive?
You have a group of citizens who are expected to perform military service, and another group who aren't really invested in the country and don't have to serve.
How does a government express "anti-feminism". Surely you're not suggesting a reduction in voting power for women. So what else would make it seem "fair" to men in your mind?
> Surely you're not suggesting a reduction in voting power for women.
Why not? If the male side has "getting droned your legs off and people watching it in 4k", surely everything less than that has to be on the table for the female side. Not being able to vote physically yourself (you can still influence public opinion, eg through social media, imo a far more effective action than casting 1 vote)
It won’t and it never has. It’s not like society post-1945 developed the phenomenon for the first time in human history. Even in this country, New Jersey was the last state to ban women voting in 1807 iirc.
How can a state survive if this weren't the norm? Why would men fight and die for a government that views their own wives and daughters as cannon fodder? If the government is conscripting men's wives to war, is it really in the interest of men to risk their own lives to protect that government? If the government took my wife and sent her to war, I'd sooner firebomb a government office than join up to fight for the government.
If a woman wants to fight, that's another story entirely. But conscripting women? That's poison.
There is a birth crisis. Modern, liberal women are not actually reproducing, they are not keeping their end of the evolutionary bargain (men protecting, sacrificing and dying, while women giving birth). Therefore, there is no need to maintain the old-fashioned, patriarchal system with women as a more protected group. Everyone should contribute equally, pull their own weight. Equal rights, equal lefts (responsibilities).
Western women are already only producing ~1.5 kids (many with none!), you could send 50% of young women to die in war, then have the other half have a fertility rate of 6, like what their great great grandmothers had, and we would be far far ahead already.
Chill, they will soon send robots because everybody else is going to give'em the finger or they're too slow and hard to replace. Look at Russia/Ukraine. Russia is sending minorities and North Koreans to war and they get blown up by drones assembled and flown by Ukrainians. I would totally assemble drones rather than dig trenches or crawl through mud infested with mines. Guess what the North Koreans are now doing in Kursk? De-mining.
We're not having this conversation in a cultural vacuum; men figure out at a young age that if things go to shit, their lives become expendable for the sake of the community. I view conscription as a form of slavery; something that I hope never happens to me or anybody, but could conceivably happen. That's the way the world has worked for thousands of years, and the Bayesian meme asks me to therefore bet on it continuing to be this way. But it doesn't have to be this way for women too. Why should it be, misery loves company? If men are going to be dying, we should draft women to die too? That's not feminism, that's insanity.
Why should men sacrifice and die for nothing, by not getting anything in return, not even a simple appreciation? Why should only men die when things get tough? I also would much rather see other unknown women die, than to send myself or my son to die for them.
Women need to pull their weight. And since they aren't doing that from the evolutional POV, neither in practice (birth crisis) nor in theory (not like giving birth is a legal duty, unlike a draft), then they can at least be useful for a society as a cannon fodder. The more women start pulling their weight and contribute, the less weight there will be for men to pull. What not to love about this equality!
The right reaction about bad things happening to a percentage of the population is to get rid of it if at all possible, not making everybody suffer from it.
If you don't expect males to voluntarily sacrifice and die for the country, why would you expect women to suffer nine months of body horror (provocatively stated) and expend multiple years of full-time care to raise children?
> And since they aren't doing that from the evolutional POV, neither in practice (birth crisis) nor in theory (not like giving birth is a legal duty, unlike a draft), then they can at least be useful for a society as a cannon fodder.
Women already contribute to society by being in the work force. If you think that's not enough, then you should probably think about rewarding them for doing something else.
Taken to its logical conclusion, you cannot have gender equality without either making the draft cover everyone or abolishing it entirely.
The fact that women losing their lives is so much larger a risk for the nation only serves to test the resolve of those people claiming to want gender equality, but this is not the only time you'll find a conflict between idealism and reality, even within the scope of gender equality.
It would be equality if there were a law forcing women to have children during a war. Which is insane and no one would support it.
But young men maybe dying after being forced to fight against their will? Completely fine.
It's honestly just very telling how in modern Western egalitarianism, gender essentialism is factually wrong and evil unless we're explaining why men need to die for their country.
Most young men don't have wives or daughters. It's not 1850 anymore.
I would rather both genders get drafted than be in a Ukraine situation where millions of women leave for richer countries while I am pulled off the street to go eat FPV drones. What's even the point? Why not surrender? What am I protecting or preserving?
This goes missed a lot in debates about conscription. The Iran war in the US and the Ukraine war in Russia enjoy very little popular support among military aged men. This is in stark contrast to WW2, and even in Vietnam there was still a strain of thinking of draft resisters as cowards. But wars in this day and age enjoy a shockingly tiny public mandate, and it's entirely possible that governments can only do a draft on paper. Putin is practically unable to push further mobilisation because the first round provoked such stiff violence and resistance.
Any ruler wants active units of production (humans extracting money or gold or food), and for that it has to bring some sort of stable life environment and not be too greedy so people don't try to revolt.
Whether you get such through political negotiation before or after a war, or through a vote, or through a revolution, is the same as the end.
How does a state survive if refugees/immigrants are imported en masse and then the state becomes so dysfunctional to such a degree that its male citizens must be conscripted to fight and die for it? Surely this is a recipe for disaster.
I would sooner die for my family and my country but I wouldn't lift a finger to save the lives of refugees/immigrants.
You die for your country and the refugees make the state survive. Germany becomes Deutschstan, Köln Dom is converted to a minaret and Hildegard is required to wear a hijab in public at all times, that's how. At least that's probably how Michel Houellebecq would imagine it.
Why would this affect feminism? If they want to fight for equal rights to conscription nobody is stopping them, and if they don't nobody is going to force them to. These gotchas don't really have any reflection on reality.
I am wondering if the affected men will demand preferential treatment as a consequence of service. Women currently benefit from disproportionate employment in the social safety net, affirmative action in German government hiring, etc. I would imagine that this would be essentially offensive to the men who are required to stay in the country, or face (potential future) conscription. I suspect the demands of European governments will increase as countries continue to age.
I would define feminism as the belief that on balance and in aggregate, there is a difference in the fairness that society accords to the genders and it's in favor of men.
The risk to feminism would be that this becomes so blatantly and obviously not true that no one can take it seriously. I don't think the continued draft of men would impact this because it's not a change to the status quo, and it isn't changing opinion in Ukraine.
No, it literally says the law says you must seek permission if you wanna leave for more than 3 months and the govt must always grant you this if not in a war. And if you fail to seek permission nothing happens. You can ignore it without consequence.
A lot of laws head this way. Sweeping chances but not enforced so people ignore it, then later there's nothing stopping the government going back 7 years after select individuals. Just because it wasn't ever enforced doesn't mean it isn't illegal. An example is disguised employment laws for contractors in the UK (IR35)
I think it's like they want to have it on the books now so they can use it later. If they try to emergency legislate during wartime people will protest and/or flee the country the day before it starts applying.
All nation states are like that. They monopolise power and violence, and will defend that monopoly by sacrificing their citizens' lives if another state tries to infringe upon it.
I think it's clear that the interests of citizens and their state typically do not align. Unfortunately, most states have cultivated and propagated a different idea for decades, which is why so many people have a different perception of their state than the reality.
Yes you are: the article says that the permission must be granted in general by authorities (I guess no war and not active military) and no penalties for breaching it.
You are, but it's a shit law and surprising to still exist in Germany. Per the article it's not a new law, has been in effect since the 80s, and there have been no repercussions for violating this law.
Instead, my 2c, should have changed it to a notice you have to send the military, at most.
The older I get the more I can't stand "countries" as a concept. Especially this notion that somehow countries own their citizens. It's quite gross to me...
Countries do not own their citizens, citizens own their countries. Countries are a technology - albeit an old and sometimes useful technology, but a technology. This is like an iPhone requiring your permission to leave it on the counter for a day.
This idea that you're not allowed to travel without a permit is a perverse inversion of reality. People are not property and the idea that a "country" can feed human beings into one meat-grinder or another at will in order to preserve itself is the very thing that the AI safety people are panicked about. It's the paperclip maximizer, but instead of making paperclips it tries to grow and expand it's influence into all aspects of the human experience. Increasingly this disgusts me at a cellular level.
Quite shocking to see the downvotes I'm getting - and you're right, I have been fighting for them, but I am only one person. But it definitely seems like most people would much rather do what they were told than risk anything.
If the U.S. implements a draft, will women be required to register? Right now, only men are required to register with the Selected Service when they turn 18. Would Congress amend the Military Selective Service Act?
Question for German friends: What do you think about the production level of military equipment? If Russia does move (which I think is unlikely in the near future), how many days does the ammo last?
NATO has days/weeks of ammunition, so it's woefully under-resourced.
NATO doctrine is basically air superiority against any invading force, with the ability to wreak destruction far behind the front lines.
Conveniently the Iran war has depleted stockpiles of almost everything.
The reality is NATO is vulnerable on two fronts.
The first is that NATO has no defences against the kind of drone and missile waves Russia has been using against Ukraine. A surprise attack could easily take out a large part of NATO's air superiority and do significant damage to arms factories.
The second is more serious - capture of the independent nuclear deterrent. The US is clearly giving up on defending Europe, the UK's deterrent is barely functional, and only France has a truly independent deterrent.
Russia has spent a lot of time and money trying to get a puppet government elected on France, along the lines of the governments in Hungary, Slovakia, and the US.
If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender.
The question is really whether Russia can hold on until the French elections next year.
This reads like Russian propaganda.
NATO's EU forces have not used any ammo in the Iran war as they are not a belligerant.
Russia's nuclear deterrent has to prove to be still in working condition.
There is no guarantee Le Pen would win in 2027 and the chain of command would allow that to happen
> If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender.
Ukraine isn’t under anyone’s nuclear umbrella, but Russia hasn’t done more than threaten to use nuclear weapons in that war. Probably because it’s not at all clear that it would actually force a surrender.
Russia likely also still remember the aftermath of Chernobyl; a nuclear strike so close to their home would hopefully be seen as something to avoid at all costs. On a similar note, Ukraine also still has a few bandages it could take off in the event of a nuclear strike, like an all-out strike on Russian nuclear power plants. Those are undoubtedly well-defended, but there are a lot of them and they only need to succeed in causing fallback to leak from one.
The crazy thing to me is also that they slipped it into the law on January 1st, and our quality journalism (such as OP DW), for which we are forced to pay monthly fees, only reports about it now - and I'm fairly sure they didn't break the story, they caught onto it pretty late.
Almost like by design.
Oh yeah and the obvious discrimination. If you change your gender on paper now you probably won't be affected, but you will be affected if you change it short-term.
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”
The famed German rule-following in action. This kind of routine violation of regulation is what led to Dieselgate. Social norms in places like this rarely support rule of law. There's a reason the EPA was the one which blew this wide open. Local regulators follow these norms because that's what German cultural norms are.
The EPA was able to do this because they made up some new numbers and set an arbitrary deadline. The same cars the year before were fine. The EPA altered the deal and then exacted punishment.
Article 21
1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic
features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority,
property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
It is wonderful to see this much-needed discussion on HN. There is a strong argument to be made for that we need to recalibrate rights and responsibilities of men and women. Especially since women have largely abandoned their traditional duties and still kinda expect men to hold their end of the bargain. All while constantly degrading, offending, and calling men's nature toxic. Men essentially get nothing in return for doing these deadly jobs. So let's make it truely equal as everybody wanted and conscript everyone. No sugarcoating either, equality starts from the front line.
> Especially since women have largely abandoned their traditional duties and still kinda expect men to hold their end of the bargain.
As far as I see, women still birth and raise children and take care of most of the household; they just also work in the addition. Don't know what you're talking about.
How about we just don’t fight stupid wars? There hasn’t been a real need for a draft in America since the civil war (in the sense that America was not plausibly threatened by the world wars, Korea, Vietnam, etc).
I'm pretty sure it's politics. The reason is a potential draft, but it is also very potential for now and may never happen. So this message signalizes to the older and/or richer population two messages - "you will be protected by the mobilized army in the worst case" and "you personally will be exempt from the need to sit in a freezing trench for multiple years" (which is not true in reality, if the draft will be needed, higher age will be increased to 60 most likely). So the older and conservative population is appeased this way.
CDU are losing popularity if we are to believe press, so that is one of the populist ways to boost some numbers for elections.
diminishing returns. people over 40 heal less quickly, start to run into chronic health issues, and are more likely to have suffered permanent injuries. it's easier to set a global cutoff at an age where the probability that any given person will be unable to do the job safely than it is to assess each person individually.
Let's see ... On December 5, 2025 the German parliament passed a law requiring all men between 18 and 45 years to register "for military service", which everyone should fully understand to mean to register for conscription.
Oh and they've added a very political clause: the government can activate conscription WITHOUT a parliament vote. So most political parties who have voted in favor of conscription want to be able to claim "it wasn't us, it was Merz" (ie. CDU). In reality CSU and SPD have voted to effectively conscript German men between 18 and 45.
In other words, Germany expects to be in open war in a matter of months to years. Like every country before them they've decided young men are cheaper than actually investing in military equipment (they're investing in military equipment, but they just won't have it in that time period)
This probably means that if you can get out, get out, because it's not like being 46 years old will protect you from the impact of that, and yes it's not clear what the timing is going to be, and they're not being very forward about what the reason is for conscription.
So that's why 45. Because the existing conscription law (1954 + 2025) allows for conscripting every German male between 18 and 45.
But the US, for all its militarism, and all its military adventures, has not used the draft since Vietnam.
So I would say that Germany sees the need to be in a position where it can respond quickly if they need it. Well, given current events in their neighborhood, I can see their point. In fact, I would say that they are probably at least three years late in doing this.
I mean, short term it's obvious what will happen. Europe's peace at all costs (or should I say: at NO cost) will fail and Russia will attack in a matter of years. Some states will be forced to defend and a number of European countries will respond as a coalition. Many other European states will refuse to help, a few very publicly. And obviously this coalition will either beat Russia back or at the very least stop Russia advancing much at all. So far the obvious part of the next few years.
Let's start with an easy one: Will Germany be ready (war is more than cheap bodies, after all, equipment, plans, ...)? No, they won't. They've never been ready before.
Will the US help? That was a given even just 1 year ago, but now is strongly in doubt.
What will Germany's reaction be to the European states that just don't help?
What will happen to world trade? The question is who will save it, because the historical answer was of course US.
I am a US citizen and I try to see the world as it is.
>Will the US help? That was a given even just 1 year ago, but now is strongly in doubt. With the current commander in chief, the US will do nothing except talk a lot of nonsense contradicting itself daily.
>What will happen to world trade?. World trade as we know it is done. National security interests will force strategic industries to be on-shored. New trade deals will only be made with a short list of trustworthy allies.
If Russia does attack, the US will take 1+ years to ramp up and we will take a long time before we reach Europe in large numbers. The rapid reaction forces we have are not prepared for the new way of fighting we see in Ukraine.
does citizen and German not mean the same thing?
Are EU citizens living permanently in germany even considered to have a duty to either militarily or in civil service serve in war times?
So that article can in theory be used to conscript any man, citizen or not, living in Germany or not.
The Wehrpflichtgesetz, which is a simple law and requires just the 50% Bundestag majority to have it changed, refines this very wide constitutional power in article 1, to require men who hold German citizenship above 18.
Article 3 refines it even further to folks below 45 or 60, depending on the severity of the situation.
But yes, in theory it can be changed to include any non-German citizen man, people aged 80, living inside of Germany since a while or never having been to Germany ever, or just random men who happen to change flights at FRA.
That doesn’t mean it’s unenforceable. You don’t need a permit to leave Germany to any country as long as your planned stay is shorter than 3 month. The only way this could be enforced is by checking if people are in country, that is in case of drafting them. The paragraph essentially ensures that any person that gets drafted needs to present themselves in person within 3 month of the draft notice.
EU law overrides and breaks German law. Germany is d'accord with that.
So if german consitution sayed, starting in cold war era, what this law states, then the newer joining into EU made a new law, bringing freizügigkeit ("feedom of movement") to superseed even our Grundgesetz.
anyway, if you refused to be drafted and did not want to go to jail, you had to more-or-less stop using any government services, rent with roommates, avoid using a credit card etc. until you've reached some age, and then you could emerge again because the duty to serve expires at that certain (not very high) age. It was cuh-razy.
As you said, you can only object if it goes against your conscience, but if you are against it for political reasons (e.g. you don't think its worth it to die for Germany), that's not a valid reason and your objection will be denied. They were also incredibly strict during the Cold War, only easing off a bit afterwards when they wanted a smaller military.
What's a reason that is politically and not against one's conscience? I assumed that one's political beliefs would also manifest in conscience.
The cold war has been over for a very long time. The whole process was reformed in 1984 by removing the mandatory oral hearing. Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995. That's not good enough (should be 100%), but not terrible either.
> What's a reason that is politically and not against one's conscience? I assumed that one's political beliefs would also manifest in conscience.
For example, I don't think it's in my interest to defend or die for the German state. However, I would use violence to protect my life if someone tried to kill me or threatened my life directly. The German state would interpret this as a political objection rather than a conscientious one, since I am willing to use violence in principle. If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.
> Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995.
Yes, as I said, after the Cold War, Germany no longer wanted to maintain such a large army, so they started accepting any reasonably well-written argument. But in any war, you can see that nation states will start struggling to recruit new soldiers as it becomes obvious to the population that it's a rather pointless endeavour to die for their state. So, they start forcing people. We've seen that in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, USA, etc.
Thanks for clarifying! I did some own research and apparaently in those oral hearings, objectors were often tricked into contradicting themselves with quite absurd scenarios.
>If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.
That is a complete fantasy of yours. Political convictions are explicitly stated as a valid type of justification for conscientious objection by the Act on Conscientious Objection to Military Service. It even states the reasons do not have to be logical or objectively comprehensible, which easily covers your "I'm not opposed to all violence in all theoretically cases, but I fundamentally reject service for the German state".
On the contrary, it says that even if you object, they can force you into "alternative service" without the use of arms. So they make you a soldier without a gun, or rather - a state slave.
I had to go to the draft office in that time and behaved so badly that they didn't want to take me.
Also at that time only some people had to go to the draft, because they had not the capacity to take everyone. That made it likely easy for them to let go of suboptimal candidates.
Welcome to Dubai, German habibis, you can join all the Russians fleeing their draft here. Still a lot less likely to get hit by a drone here than to die when fighting on the frontlines in Europe.
Why would someone go to a place in an actual conflict zone that is under attack by actual drones right now to flee from hypothetical drones in a hypothetical conflict?
I don't know. A lot of countries in East Asia seem to struggle demographically just as much as Western countries do, if not more.
But at least it seems they didn't go for the easy solutions that is mass immigration, so hopefully their children's "seats" won't be taken when they finally wake up.
On the other hand, as someone living in Central Europe, it's obvious our society is heading towards a radical change. I don't know what will happen, but I don't recall ever reading about a indigenous population becoming a minority being a good thing for them.
I think its more about a rotten ideology and mass migration is only a symptom. Also it could make sense if you would actually care about taking people that are educated and willing to work.
It is very likely this was done intentionally. Maybe not all people involved in making this law noticed it, but the person working on article 2 did this intentionally. They explicitly list that this article is always active now:
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
Highly doubt it. This is a very new addition. Their fuck up was to pretend for ideological reasons that a country doesn't need an army. And that the concept of considering a country home and its culture as something worth preserving is just right wing bs. Now they are surprised that only very few men deliberately registered for armed service ...
The quotes very much read to me like someone realizing what the change of Paragraph 2 means to Paragraph 3 means in real time and having to figure out what to answer to journalists.
I’m curious how that would work administratively though - would they require you to have that when trying to do Ausmeldung? And what about those who moved out before this law got changed?
Technically, do I need to go Bundeswehr office when I come back next time, to get the permission?
I _want_ to believe if this was a deliberate change that someone cared about; we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now because there would be clear answers to the very obvious questions here, but maybe my hope is misplaced.
I'm not sure you understand how laws are made. It's not like "ooops a new law, who did that?" It's going through all sorts of processes with lots of people involved. And even if this is just an "innocent mistake", well, that would mean our government is run by a bunch of incompetent morons ...
Even NATO generals aren`t talking about Russia invading Germany anytime soon. It`s all about securing NATO territory in the Baltics. Confusing this with "considering a country home and its culture as something worth preserving" when there is no threat to German soil is misleading.
Note that this law still exists because it requires a constitutional change to include women (well, or to be abandoned). A constitutional change of the Grundgesetzbuch requires a 2/3rd majority in the parliament. That almost never happens these days, especially with green/left/social party being not really united anymore in their votes and the conservatives allying themselves with the far right.
The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.
> The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.
This is not true. After the last election the old parliament made a deal to change the grundgesetz with 2/3rd majority to allow the new parliament to take more debt.
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes says this:
> (2) Männliche Personen haben nach Vollendung des 17. Lebensjahres eine Genehmigung des zuständigen Karrierecenters der Bundeswehr einzuholen, wenn sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland länger als drei Monate verlassen wollen, ohne dass die Voraussetzungen des § 1 Absatz 2 bereits vorliegen. Das Gleiche gilt, wenn sie über einen genehmigten Zeitraum hinaus außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verbleiben wollen oder einen nicht genehmigungspflichtigen Aufenthalt außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland über drei Monate ausdehnen wollen. Die Genehmigung ist für den Zeitraum zu erteilen, in dem die männliche Person für eine Einberufung zum Wehrdienst nicht heransteht. Über diesen Zeitraum hinaus ist sie zu erteilen, soweit die Versagung für die männliche Person eine besondere – im Bereitschafts-, Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall eine unzumutbare – Härte bedeuten würde; § 12 Absatz 6 ist entsprechend anzuwenden. Das Bundesministerium der Verteidigung kann Ausnahmen von der Genehmigungspflicht zulassen.
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes was previously only active in a war or close to war situation (Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall). Article 2 said this before:
> § 2 Geltung der folgenden Vorschriften
> Die §§ 3 bis 53 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
> (1) Die nachfolgenden Vorschriften gelten nach Maßgabe der folgenden Absätze.
> (2) Die §§ 3 bis 52 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
> (4) Die §§ 15a und 16 sind nur auf Betroffene anzuwenden, die nach dem 31. Dezember 2007 geboren sind. Satz 1 gilt nicht im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
Also: Our law only knowns in this regard only knows either peace and wartime, but no in-between state of state financed propaganda or partisan/guerilla warfare that could already be our current status quo.
Propaganda of course is very legitimate in peace times. Digital attacks might always be criminal action or plausibly deniable.
Recruiting civilians happens by both e.g. Russian Federation for sabotage and Ukraine for printing missile, drone or mine parts, see drukarmy.
But when one group of allies and another state behave the current way, "Spannungsfall" might be reached easily when policy makers declare that has now happened once again after the fall of the eastern block wall.
First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.
And to be completely honest, if more people made use of registering for the damn ELEFAND emergency contact list, this rule wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.
So, men are kind of responsible for this themselves by being lazy.
I had to help exfil Germans in Kabul when the US decided to pull out without telling all of their partners in time.
Everyone wanted to be rescued, but you have no idea how many German idiots travel to foreign countries, not even taking five minutes to let their own government know how to reach them and where they went in case of an emergency.
It’s super fun to drive around Kabul and pick up 55 years old complaining male Germans yelling at me because I told them I transport people, not their fucking luggage. Two even sued me afterwards for leaving their expensive camera equipment behind. A dozen complaints about my behavior.
Sometimes it’s really annoying to protect the average citizen. Luckily, I understand that it is an extreme situation for them. Just like some people sue nurses after they broke their ribs reviving their dead ass.
It’s a good thing all these idiots now have to ask for permission in the future and likely need to leave the data necessary so it’s known where they are, for how long and how to reach them.
just want to point out you started at this headline is misleading and meandered to agreeing with this being a law now and it was made for a reason and it will be enforced sooner or later. and that's effectively the headline + you think it's a good thing.
Thank you, I suspect the _de in your username means you are German or German-speaking?
A friend from the US sent the link to this thread to me, asking about it.
The source website has no ability to be switched to English language, so all information my friend got was from the headline, which without context was misleading for him. If it was clear people wouldn’t ask German-speaking friends to explain this to them, don’t you think?
And if we are really precise, right now German men don’t need to request permission, because there is neither a process nor any paperwork in place to request permission.
Without being able to see and understand the context, the headline on its own is misleading in my opinion.
Just do an experiment for yourself.
Take the original transcript from any trump speech during the Iran war and put it in a German translator. You will understand it’s about the Iran war but you will be surprised how insane those speeches sound if you are not able to understand English and rely on Google Translate to understand the context.
That’s fine. I don’t want to get into a discussion about how important the accuracy of translation is with topics like law, civil rights, military, etc.
I trust humans. I don’t trust machines. You do you.
Thank you for the exchange and pointing out my inaccuracy.
I will try to do better next time.
Have a good day and enjoy your Easter holidays if you’re Christian.
> First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.
Previously this article 3 was only active in the "Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall" which the Parliament has to declare. The law was extended with: "Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45." so this article is always active now.
For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.
Think about it, Trump approval rating fell sharply but is still at about 40%. Merz is at 15% and most of those 15% are probably boomers in a nursing home. He is probably closer to 0% within the demographic he is trying to conscript.
The only war you're gonna get in Europe is a civil war.
> For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.
In particular concerning the military conscription (laws), there exists a cross-generational opposition to these.
I just post two famous songs concerning this topic (if you know German):
Franz Josef Degenhardt - Befragung eines Kriegsdienstverweigerers [40
Interrogation of a conscientious objector] (1972)
Yes the US has a more insidious "hidden" law that I'm amazed Trump has not used to his advantage. It's a felony for the younger illegal immigrants males who are eligible to not register for the draft (most visa and legally visa exempt tourists are exempt, but the exemption falls off if you fall out of status). Almost none of them do, meaning almost all undocumented military-age-males are actively committing a serious crime.
Because citizenship is a commitment, not merely a set of privileges. If you obtain a citizenship (or have it imposed on you upon birth), it comes with a set of duties other residents and visitors do not have. The duty to defend your country is a traditional one.
Some countries may conscript non-citizens or allow them to serve voluntarily. Often because they are more likely to use the military as an extension of foreign policy rather than for defense. Others may see it a waste of effort, as those people are probably not sufficiently committed to the continued existence of the country.
The philosophical justifications sound nice and all.
The thing is that when you have a huge non-citizen percentage of the population that is actively drawing taxpayer money out of the state to the point where the social welfare system is beginning to break down, and you have the working citizens of the country being taxed at 50% or more to support that during an escalating global cost of living crisis, you have effectively destroyed the social contract around citizenship that permits this system to function. For the massive aged population that's drawing retiree benefits, there's at least the justification that they paid into the system during their lifetime, even if the equation that makes the retirement system work increasingly doesn't work anymore.
Now the young people are being told to go die to keep that system alive. I wouldn't be surprised if most don't.
Because not only that the immigrants have no allegiance to Germany, most have different culture and sometimes incompatible values.
I grew up in the Middle East and I can tell that cultural differences and values were more smooth and compatible than what I saw in Germany. Conscription requires a degree of trust in the people you give guns to and expect to fight on your side in case it is needed, that is mostly not true with immigrants in all times and all countries.
There are a lot of non-white citizens of Canada (and Germany) whereas the comment you’re replying to is about non-citizens. Also Canada hasn’t had conscription for a long time as far as I know, the friends you refer to were volunteers.
Not even close. Territorial disputes are incredibly common in nature. Humans are relatively rare in that we're capable of understanding that depriving competitors of resources will eventually lead to their deaths, but that is the ultimate result of winning a territory dispute in nature too.
I still cannot understand why and what we are fighting for. Setting aside the wars of the previous decades, Russia was a long term ally with Ukraine, much like the USA and Canada and then out of nowhere they are in a "soft war". Also, after 50 years of the Islamic regime in Iran, we should engage in another soft war, again because of ill defined reasons. The soft is in contrast to regular war which locks down the whole society and has innumerous deaths and pain. I still cannot.
> Russia was a long term ally with Ukraine, much like the USA and Canada and then out of nowhere they are in a "soft war"
First off the history between Ukraine and Russia is nothing like between USA and Canada. Russia killed millions of Ukrainians in 30's by starvation, known as "Holodomor".
Secondly Ukraine voted for independence immediately after Soviet Union collapsed.
Most egregious claim is the "soft war" one. Russia attacked to Ukraine in 2014 and started full scale war in 2022 that has led to close to two million casualties. What the f*ck is "hard war" if this is "soft war"?
where did you get this information? after the collapse of the ussr and before putin there was no tension at all. yeah, there's some history, like between any (almost) neighboring countries. there are no real reason to fight between russia and ukraine. these conflict was absolutely hand-made by russian propaganda
Russia, and especially Putin (over the last 26 years), never considered Ukraine an ally but rather a puppet and something that must be in their direct influence/control. Their relationship can’t be compared to the one the US and Canada had.
Nothing that is an actual serious threat. Overall, my (cynical) interpretation is that the aim is to handle military matters at EU level (nail in the coffin of national sovereignty in Europe) and to become more of a credible military power. Both of which require a narrative to get public consent and a foreign threat is a proven, effective narrative.
Nobody's going to bring up the sexism? I thought feminism was for equality. Why then no complains of not having equal responsibility here?
Just like when Ukraine did this, nobody cared. No complaints in the media at all.
They always want more women in the offices too, never in the coal mines.
In 2006, the Federal Administrative Court justified the absence of compulsory military service for women in a ruling, citing, among other reasons, that women face greater burdens in the domestic sphere than men and that this alone would justify their exemption from military service obligations. So military service is seen as a service like healthcare and care services where women already do most of the work, mostly privately and unpaid.
> unpaid
Right, completely unpaid, which is why most women are homeless and starving on the street.
Also Curds and Israelis prove that women can very well be full on soldiers.
Kurds* yes and Sweden as well. I agree, it's not like people are running around swinging broadswords, maces and war axes anymore. Anyone without a disability can run and pull a trigger or do all those technical jobs.
> Anyone without a disability can run and pull a trigger
This is very much untrue in terms of being a soldier in a high-functioning military.
Technically, you’re not wrong (at least for lighter weapons). That said, there are many more physically demanding things that are involved in doing infantry things (which is what you’re describing) other than running and pulling a trigger (and ideally hitting the target).
> or do all those technical jobs.
Depends on the job, but much more likely.
The vast majority of the jobs in the military are not infantry or infantry-type jobs, so I can see a lot more scope for drafted women who aren’t cut out for infantry doing these things.
> While the law requires men to request the permit, the spokesperson clarified, it also obliges the military career center to issue it, if "no specific military service is expected during the period in question.”
> "Since military service under current law is based exclusively on voluntary participation, such permissions must generally be granted,” the official added.
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”
It seems like the purpose is to have the law and all the paperwork set up as a precaution for the future. Sure, right now it’s all voluntary and just rubber stamping, but if in the future they need to do something like Ukraine and lock down travel for military aged men, it’s much easier to flip a switch and start denying travel permits rather than having to set up and fund an entirely new system for requiring travel permits.
If it were to get closer to war (i.e., Spannungsfall, let alone the Verteidigungsfall) a set of laws would unlock that allow control of various areas of life and the economy anyway.
Interestingly, the travel permit requirement already existed in law before, but it was tied to the Spannungsfall/Verteidigungsfall conditions.
This new law removed this condition and preemptively "activated" the requirement even before the Spannungsfall was declared.
Also, in that case, they know where all the men currently are, which is probably the main reason to implement it now. m
Well that’s the thing, they won’t know because nobody will do the registration until it’s actually enforced.
Writing prompt: On June 1, the ministry for defense stops issuing these permits. No one knows why, but wild speculation ensues.
It was already a thing back when I was doing compulsory service (end of the nineties), but no one cared and no one was ever asked for it.
Not true. Back then, limitations on "Spannungsfall" and "Verteidigungsfall" were in place which have been removed last year. The real news, though, is that the public (media, opposition parties) didn't noticed until a couple of days ago.
Ah, invasive extra paperwork (enforced by criminal penalties, at least in theory) for something they say on the surface they won’t actually need. So very german (hah)
In the United States, adult males have to sign up for the Selective Service for the same reason even though we haven't had conscription since the Vietnam War in the late 1970s(?).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System
I don't know how it worked for anyone else, but I remember the selective service PSA ads when I was growing up -- (that's a manual emdash) If you don't sign up for selective service when you turn 18, you'll be celebrating your birthday at pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison. Or maybe you couldn't get a welfare check, college loan, or federal job. The details are a bit fuzzy.
Then a month or two before my 18th birthday, I got a postcard saying I had been auto-registered. It was a rather disappointing denouement.
> Annual budget $31.3 million (FY 2024)
If it hasn’t been used in 50 years, is there some other use for the registry or the organization or why hasn’t this been cut yet?
Keeping it around just in case the US encounters an existential threat. You never know when it may happen.
Probably July by this rate
Under U.S. federal law, men ages 18–25 must register with the Selective Service System to be eligible for most federal jobs. Federal agencies enforce this under hiring rules in 5 U.S.C. § 3328.
The wording is a bit strange - technically all men (18-25) must register. When I tried to register, I was told I couldn't because I was already registered.
The Selective Service auto-registers people from various data sources.
But this puts me in a weird spot: I've never actually registered. I am registered. But I did not register - which is the requirement.
There are Kafka-esque parts of the US government where this distinction could matter.
The Army of the United States has also not been used in over 50 years,but does that mean it couldn't be used again?
Can I move to whichever dimension it is you live in?
? The United States Army is something different...
Nobody wants to be the guy who got the nation caught with its pants down if conscription needs to come back in a hurry. The same reason the military budget always ratchets upwards.
Measured as a percentage of GDP (which I'd say is the most sensible way to measure it) the US's current military budget is lower than at any point since WWII aside from a few years between the end of the Cold War and 9/11.
No other use for the registry.
Informally, it's put forward as one of the most successful government programs in history: it succeeds at all it's objective, comes in at or under budget, employs few people, and avoids the scope creep that kills other successful programs.
It's only shortcoming: it doesn't actually do anything.
I suppose it's only a boring piece of extra paperwork until at some moment the permit stops being automatically issued.
You’ve never been to Germany, have you?
Guess what, many jews self-reported themselves to the authorities just to follow the process and that led directly to their death.
https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/source_view.php?SourceId=42...
Of course, this is old times now, but here is the same, there is no benefit to register, and you increase your risk to die.
Don't do it.
When your own country is invaded, it changes the calculus.
It is not like they had a choice. The article is about 1939, the events were well progressed then. Only very few were able to hide themselves and stay hidden for years.
They dont need now. Germany is getting ready for being invaded by Russia, basically. They are also building mandatory military service.
Yes, the previous time they were getting ready it was because those pesky Poles being an inch away from invading the Third Reich.
I thought it was those pesky Poles refusing to provide a German land corridor to enable intra-territorial transit between Germany and Germany’s exclave East Prussia. That and ethnic Germans allegedly being harassed in Poland.
First one is definitely true and isn’t emphasized much and tbh I feel like that demand wasn’t unreasonable. Shipping people and things and providing defense would be a lot harder to an exclave than to contiguous territory. They did seriously overreact by invading, of course, and it seems like Mr H had some serious temperamental issues.
Second one I’ve never researched enough to know if it’s true or German propaganda.
I don’t recall the Germans ever claiming that Poland was about to invade them? Maybe I missed it.
Are you implying that this is Germany getting ready to invade Poland?
I’m implying they aren’t getting ready because they think Russians are going to march on Berlin.
They're getting ready to ensure the Russians aren't.
Let's turn this into an affirmation, not a negation. What are you affirming?
Cold war didn't happen (yes, USSR, not Russia)?
Previously it was conditional, only in effect “in the event of tension or defense” (machine translation), but they are very exceptional circumstances -- AFAIK not ever invoked since unification.
The change this year was to make it applicable regardless of those conditions: “Outside the tension or defense case, §§ 3 [...]” shall apply.
This is a significant change from the previous Cold War policy. I have talked about the definition of these terms in another comment, with another news article as source.
“ Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/...
It's a meaningless, feel-good rule. Every country has countless carve-outs. To give you a trivial example: in the US, you can't get a passport if you owe more than $2,500 in child support.
Whilst I agree, to be fair, a passport is usually only needed when entering a country, not leaving one, right? Under the cited rule, the US needs to allow you to leave, not help you in entering some other country.
I have yet to leave a country (well, a state technically) without having to show a passport - with the exception of the Schengen area.
That's mostly because transport companies have to pay to ship you back if you get turned away at the border, so they will want to see your permission to enter your destination country before you leave. I've traveled internationally a fair bit and I've never had to show my passport to government officials when leaving the US.
I mean, really not trying to frame this in any way, but asylum seekers do it all the time.
Ok, fair enough, but if I were German - I don't really think I would asylum anywhere on the basis of Germany maybe intending to conscript me in the future.
I'm reasonably sure Russia would take you.
It is quite difficult to leave a country without simultaneously entering another
It is trivial for any country that is not land-locked. You just have to sail to international waters. What is difficult is to stay there.
And "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person." Military service also serves the purpose to defend that right when the country is attacked. Rights aren't absolute, they have to be traded off against each other.
Military service in the west is not for defence. Irak, Iran, Syria, Vietnam...
Defense doesn't mean not to start a war. Think about how Vietnam justified their invasion of Cambodia in 1978, or how China started the war with Vietnam the following year, or how Turkey entered Syria, how Pakistan fought the Taliban recently, and of course what Russia did in Ukraine, 2014 and 2022.
Wars are messy and have always been. Military actions are to be decided by the governments. Those who have resources are more willingly to use it, west or east.
The German constitution explicitly prohibits starting wars: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
It's about time to finally grok that all world's military is only there to wage wars at the whim of the 0.001% under the guise of being defence-only, and that constitutions worth less than toilet paper these days.
What's an example of the German constitution being "worth less than toilet paper these days"?
There's none yet until there suddenly is.
So what's your proposed solution? Not have a military and just roll over when someone decides to attack you?
My proposed solution is understanding what this scene means:
In front of a blood-stained chessboard littered with mutilated chess pieces finely dine two royal couples - black and white - cheering their endgame.
How does that solve any problem?
It is for the defense of the American national interests and friend nations:
- Iraq: 1) to expel Iraq from Kuwait, and 2) weapons (though this turned out to be mistaken) after the 9/11 attacks
- Iran: we don’t need another nuclear nation
- Syria: destroy terrorists (ISIS), enforce the red line on chemical weapons, and to protect US troops (when we attacked Iran-supported militias)
- Vietnam: to stop the spread of communism and protect neighboring nations
That is basically redefining the word defense, though.
I can’t be like “it was self defense” if I beat somebody up because they are getting too big at the gym and they could beat me up later if I don’t beat them up first.
That doesn’t mean such a thing is never ever justified, in international relations, it just ain’t “defense”.
> That is basically redefining the word defense, though.
I guess that dogemaster2026 wanted to express this in a little bit more indirect way. :-)
So while many of the reasons are questionable (understatement of the year), let’s focus on the last one. After America lost the war in Vietnam, what happened to those neighboring nations? Did they suffer from Vietnamese communists? The only Vietnamese intervention was in Cambodia, and hardly anyone thinks that wasn’t the right thing to do.
The OP said it was not for “defence.” I am arguing the reasons were for the defense of American interests. That is objectively true.
The OP probably thought of defense in the narrow sense as "the action of defending against or resisting an attack", and not in the broader sense defined as "we’re going to travel halfway around the world to kill a million people because that’s who we are". A common mistake.
That depends greatly on which interests you allow to be defined as "American". The vast majority of American people would have preferred not to be involved in most of our foreign adventures. The rich and powerful thought differently. Is our citizenship determined by the size of our bank accounts?
Germany was one of the least militarized countries after WWII. They were kind of scared of themselves.
Rather: the "victorious" countries of the Second World war were afraid of a re-militarization of Germany. On the other hand, they wanted to re-militarize the Western part of Germany just a little bit so that West Germany could become part of the NATO.
Quite the contrary; up until the end of the Cold War both German states were highly militarized. They were quite happy to be able to roll back a lot of it after the reunification though.
Germany participated how there?
Germany participated in the NATO military campaign/occupation of Afghanistan, including ground forces, naval activities and special operations units. Its seems a total of 150,000 German soldiers (and police officers?) were deployed overall (not at the same time of course); of them, 62 were killed and 249 wounded:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Armed_Forces_casualties...
Germany was also directly involved in the NATO campaign against (former) Yugoslavia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
and finally, Germany hosts large contigents of US forces, including air forces likely involved in the current illegal war against Iran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramstein_Air_Base
To put the number of 150000 total deployes soldiers into perspective, the Bundeswehr contingent in the end had a ceiling of 5350 troops.
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam? Hosting US forces in Germany is participating?
Rights are morally absolute, and the cynical insistence that they must be traded off is both fallacious and intellectually hypocritical. You want certain weaker rights, then just admit it, don't be disingenuous about it.
Ukraine has been violating that for young men since the start of its war.
In an attempt to preserve the rights of Ukrainian citizens in the long run. Surrendering to Russia would have more impact than the draft does.
The UN acknowledges this conflict to some extent; https://www.ohchr.org/en/conscientious-objection
Shockingly sexist policy.
And as per usual because its harmful to men no one cares.
The constitution made it impossible to make a less sexist law, because it says that women cannot be forced to military service. It is an old document, and it is based on old role models. Modernizing the constitution would require 2/3 majority, and the government was already struggling with making a law at all.
This is an explanation, not a justification.
Fuck the constitution if it can't treat all equally
In a scenario where you are losing a significant part of the population to war, it's better that it be men.
Only if you ignore free will. Feels unlikely that women will suddenly abandon monogamy and forced procreation à la the draft is probably very unpopular especially given that women would be a majority. Not that they’re wrong to disagree, but there are more conditions here than the biology of procreation.
The modern answer would be immigration, and that’s gender-agnostic.
And russia has been violating this too, along with other much worse things, as usual.
Hard to feel the same sympathy for Russian men to be honest, I've seen many gallivanting abroad, whilst majority of Ukrainian men are stuck either in hiding in their own country or have been sent to the front lines. Only a few got out early or by paying bribes.
honestly i am happy for the russian and ukranian young men and women i meet here in NL each day. Glad for them they can dodge the draft. most simply drove out, some had more hastle than others.
war is shit on all sides and thinking one or the other suffers less because you dont like their colours is very short sighted.... i think we had enough time by now to realise it.
and dont call it cowardice if someone doesnt want to fight for a bunch of 'rich pricks' playin with their money while normal people get to die in the streets. It has never been good or normal and should never be.
It's objectively worse on the Ukrainian side. Imagine you haven't been able to leave your house in 4 years for fear you'll be grabbed by a draft officer. Russians do not know this fear.
To boot, many Russian men have been paid handsomely for their participation in the SMO and get to live nice lives abroad.
Did you just forget about the mobilization drive Russia had in 2022, where they grabbed young men off streets and from their houses?
It was very unpopular, lead to people fleeing the country, and was pushed out of the public eye as soon as they figured out how to forcefully volunteer people instead.
Nobody grabbed anyone. It was an unusual, but otherwise a normal bureaucratic process. Got handed a paper, signed, have to appear. Many probably didn't have plans to go voluntarily, but felt it unmanly to dodge. I was at one of such sites and saw a man who got there too drunk and was handed over to the police; he was very disappointed he is not allowed go with the fellas.
It wasn't hard to dodge; you could just refuse to take the papers pretending it's not you or get sick the very day or something like that. The system had a number and once it was reached (very quickly) no further action was necessary. The only change so far us that the employers started to follow their military tracking procedure to the letter; before that it was required but not really enforced, but now all the paperwork gets done by the book.
Some people indeed left the country but those are the kind you don't want to have your back anyway.
Forceful volunteering is pure imagination. At most it's intensive persuasion or a new way to get out of jail, but if you don't want to go, nobody will force you.
> Nobody grabbed anyone
Around the Moscow elite, no. In the outer provinces, we have ample evidence of forced conscription.
Factually untrue, Russian men can and do leave the country. Also, nice whataboutism bro.
How about Russians from abroad, do they often go back to Russia?
The men I know try not to go unless it's absolutely necessary. The women generally prance to Russia and back all the time. (Exceptions exist, of course.)
You started with bringing Ukraine up under an article about Germany, so how is your comment any less a whataboutism than mine?
That was a different user and not me, but fair point.
Just because some people write some words doesn't mean they have any relevance to any society.
Yeah, those are just pretty words without the power to enforce them, like everything else the UN does
Every law is just words unless there is a power that can enforce it.
But the UN DHR doesn’t seem to have been written as law. It was written as a declaration, in line with our own Declaration of Independence. It lists our ideals that need to be spelled into law. That lets it be airy and vague in a way laws cannot.
How does this relate to my comment?
It isn’t “every law.” It’s not written to be directly operationalised. You’re comparing a declaration of values to operational law; they’re words in different ways and contexts.
Is a "declaration of values" more than words if there is no power that is willing to enforce it?
Almost everything about societies except cities is just pretty words. Countries and most borders are just an abstraction. We fight for them because someone convinces us with words to do so. We could do the same for the UN and it would be a much nobler cause in most cases.
Human territory is absolutely natural and exists in other apes also.
The feeling of defending territory is natural and is not words
Only what constitutes the territory to defend has been warped by words.
Territory is not something physical that just exists. It's an idea, no matter whether a human or any other animal feels the need to enforce it.
Sure but it isn’t words, which was the claim.
Human food preferences are also just an idea by this standard.
A hunter gatherer tribe failing to defend its territory could result in its death just the same as not acquiring and eating appropriate food.
That doesn't turn it into a physical reality like a stone or a stream of water that exists regardless of what animals think about it. Territories exist because they are defended. They are not obvious unless one deals with the means employed to defend it.
The need to defend might be a necessity for survival, but the desire to defend additional territory and resources has existed ever since humans have acquired the power to achieve more than the means of mere survival. Similar to food preferences, which become peculiar if there is plentitude, basic if tight, and sub-par in emergencies: during famines, sometimes people resort to eat grass to sate their feeling of hunger even though digesting it is an energetic net negative.
And this regulation violates this how exactly?
Because if you need a written confirmation that may conditionally not be given, you don’t actually have the right.
First of all you don't need it. Secondly, the regulation even states that the right is granted automatically anyway. Technically, the rule had been in place for the past 45+ years anyway - even when there was mandatory military service! - so it doesn't make any practical difference.
Then they should remove the law this weekend. Apparently it is bureaucracy without purpose after all?
> Apparently it is bureaucracy without purpose after all?
No it's not without purpose at all. The purpose is to know who could be drafted in a timely manner should the need arise. There's currently 2 major wars - sorry "special military operations" - happening, one of which in Europe.
A certain government involved in one of these simultaneously calls for allies to assist while at the same time openly questioning half a century of military alliances. So maybe this helps to understand why regulations like this make sense - even for people who never lived through a time when there was mandatory military service and take their own security for granted.
It has a purpose: to be ready when/if needed.
At the moment, the law has no teeth since they cannot stop anyone from just leaving without return ticket, and nothing happens when you return. Of course it would be very easy to change that, and that's the reason why it exists.
I have been living in Germany for 11 years and qualify for citizenship. This is exactly the kind of thing that has stopped me. If this country goes to war, I'm out. My presence here has always been transactional when it benefited Germany. It will stay transactional when it benefits me.
There is a difference between military service and going to war.
Only volunteers can be send outside Germany, everyone else stays in Germany for defense
So it's a cold war law which is still in place but not being enforced.
Same for conscription laws in the Netherlands, which are also still active. They just don't ask anyone to report for conscription. It was even expanded a couple of years before the Ukraine war to also include women.
> The new military service law requires all men under 45 to seek approval from the Bundeswehr to leave the country for longer than three months. It also obliges the military career center to issue it.
New. Not cold war. This didn't exist before.
It's a re-instatement of a cold war era law that was suspended in 2011.
The point is not when the law originated, but that it's being reinstated.
Okay sure, but I didnt say otherwise. I was just correcting someone who said something untrue.
The main point was that they changed it so instead of being activated during crisis now it applies anytime, including in peacetime. Making it similar to the cold war provisions doesn't make it sounds better.
No, the one that said it was only activated during crisis was the post 2011 version.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
It's an important distinction because it prevents the defence of "oh it's just an old law, there are lots of old laws on the books that everyone knows aren't relevant, they can't be tidied up for political reasons".
It was suspended for the last 15 years! Surely it was easier to leave it suspended and unsuspending it is a conscious choice.
Previously it was conditional, only in effect “in the event of tension or defense” (machine translation) which I will define below, but they are very exceptional circumstances -- AFAIK not ever invoked since unification.
The change this year was to make it applicable regardless of those conditions: “Outside the tension or defense case, §§ 3 [...]” shall apply.
"Tension" is defined by an imminent threat (e.g., invasion) and must be explicitly invoked by leadership. "Defense" is actual ongoing attack of territory, and must be explicitly invoked by the Bundestag.
I have used https://www.fr.de/politik/drastische-wehrpflicht-aenderung-m... to form my understanding. Can be read freely by prepending archive.is/newest/ to the URL.
Singapore has a similar requirement called an Exit Permit. It may have changed, I don’t really know or care anymore. But the conscription was a huge driver for me to emigrate as soon as I could. I left the country 2 weeks after finishing my military service.
I'm surprised this news is stalling at 24 points. Everybody has to understand that even if this law isn't impacting you; this is a signal in the noise. Germany is a major part of the industrial military complex together with the US and still the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China. This is meaningful as it sets course for war in Europe. And for Germans it means soon to be enforced limitations of civil rights. That fits right in with the surveillance crap that is being attempted to roll out in EU (which is effectively headed and controlled by Germany).
The law was the status quo from the 1950s up to 2011. This is reverting to that era, for good reasons, given the state of the world.
no, it wasn't. old law only when defense situation. new law even when no defense situation (like right now).
"When defense situation" was only from 2011 on: https://www.buzer.de/gesetz/5521/al28643-0.htm.
See also the complete version from 2008 here: https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/text.xav?SID=&tf=xaver.compon...
Other than moving within the rest of the EU under Article 21
EU law trumps German law.
In US terms such a requirement is not “constitutional”.
> In US terms such a requirement is not “constitutional”
Then what is the selective service?
"Gradually, then suddenly", as someone once said.
Men are expected to die for their countries that treat them as trash.
I don't think there is any moat here, most European countries have these kind of "deprecated" laws, that are not enforced and just stay there because it's too much of a hassle to remove. In France, I think there are still laws forbidding women to wear jeans, and requiring permission of the husband to work. Still in the text of law, but obviously non enforceable.
This is not a deprecated law but rather was changed towards its current form on January 1st of this year
The law exists since the 1950s. It was just suspended from 2011 to 2026. The new law just reactivated the old law.
Such laws are unenforceable until someone comes along who decides that enforcement would be useful to them.
US has just as many if not even more. Every state has their own collection of weird laws, like donkeys are not allowed to sleep in bathtubs or dandelions are illegal to grow over a certain height.
Next step in Germany - from mid-2027, a fitness test for 18 year olds.
Busification, when?
I guess this is a new word basically meaning conscription by force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busification
> conscription by force
Is there any unforced conscription? By definition conscription is compulsory.
its a question of degree. going to the barracks when you get called up by mail vs getting grabbed off the street, punched in the face and shoved into a bus headed for the training center.
But if you don't do #1, then #2 will happen involuntarily, right? So conscription ultimately = physically forced.
They will probably go to prison instead, like some of my friends did. Giving military training to people who definitely don't want it can be a bad idea for many reasons.
Unmotivated draftees are mostly used as a workforce. Especially in modern warfare, soldiers without significant training are worse than useless, as the wrong action at the wrong time can compromise the stealth and mission of their unit.
If you ever wonder what is the role of professional army in case of any serious invasion or war. Their role is to hunt for conscripts, kidnap them, and transport them to the army recruitment centers.
It is very true. Look at the Ukraine war for a current example.
I don't know where you are getting this, but this is very much not the role of professional armies in most invasions historically
Usually when your country is invaded you don't stay in your silicon valley privileged mindset and you go to conscription willingly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busification - the definition of consent is very stretched.
Thats not how most of the manpower gets there, without even knowing the Ukraine example, I venture to guess based on the superior morale of Ukrainian forces, that most are drafted willingly.
This still does not prove the very general statement GP made, which doesn't align with draft reality in historical wars
Millions of people enjoy great lives today because at least one of their ancestors were smart enough to not go to the meat grinder. While millions of young men became genetic dead ends dead in a ditch for no reason at all. Even their names forgotten forever.
Millions of people were not burned to death due to not living under Nazi rule you mean.
Most of our ancestors did join a draft, as it was universal, be it the Napoleon wars, WW1 or WW2. This interpretation of history is highly creative I will give you that
Name 10 common soldiers who liberated a concentration camp , from the top of your head. If you care so much about that as you give the impression of doing.
Sorry I am failing to see your point.
Are you implying that the fact there are no common soldiers famous for liberating concentration camps, means that saving further millions that would be killed by the eventual Nazi occupation of Europe, is in vain?
Silicon valley privileged mindset in Europe, what are you talking about?! You mean Piotr, Ivan, and Andrei working remotely for American company for equivalent of 60k USD annually?
Most armies in Europe, especially in post-Communist part of it, are nepotist corrupted structures. People go there for tax and housing benefits and early retirement. They are not even particularly fit, skilled, or trained to fight with an invader. Especially in these countries men aged 18-45 have absolutely nothing to fight for.
A tangent, but I’m interested (as an American) what is the German attitude towards laws that have no enforcement or penalty? Do most people feel an obligation to observe them? Is there any social cost for disregarding them?
I think it varies. I suspect in most common cases the lack of enforcement results from the rest of society not having an appetite to punish it. No harm done, no need to punish.
I believe jaywalking (or crossing a red light as a pedestrian) is prohibited, but you would have to do it in front of a really motivated cop (or cause an accident) to actually get a ticket for it. It is common and no one really cares - but if you were to do it in front of children or a school you will probably get disapproving looks or a somewhat stern talking to from others around you.
I think the image of the "order-loving german" is a bit of a stereotype. Some people overdo it (Calling the police for noise harassment if you still mow your lawn at 20:01), but they are generally not popular with their neighbors (or the police...)
Jaywalking is illegal is many jurisdictions, partly for pedestrians own safety, but also partly to shift the blame if a pedestrian is involved in an accident. So it’s mostly seen as a crime where people only hurt themselves.
jaywalking is illegal because the term jaywalking defines the illegal crossing of a street. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
legal jaywalking is by definition not possible. what is however possible and legal is crossing the street away from a marked crossing. at least in europe and in most places in the world except the united states.
They changed the law in CA, it's still technically illegal, but police are directed to not cite anyone unless:
"... a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power"
Turns out the police were mostly stopping non-white people for it
Any idea how the attitude compares to the Swiss?
The population is very diverse about this I would say. Some people would stand at a red light as pedestrians until they starve to death while others don't give a fuck about anything.
IIRC there is actually a practice of nullifying laws that cannot be enforced (Vollzugsdefizit). One example I remember is that the enforcement of minor drug possession charges was declared unconstitutional because that law was only selectively enforced.
Not all men, but all men over 17 and under the age of 45. This still seems draconian, though.
Drafts seem like an outdated pre-globalist concept. Die for the borders nobody respects anyway. You need to be nationalistic when it’s useful to your leaders that hate you. Of course just the natives need to die, all the immigrants won’t be doing that.
Fine you can make do in the Congo with everyone else who disrespects borders
Are you proposing we send undocumented migrants to the Congo? That’s a terrible idea!
Number of characters for the title is limited. And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my country; it in deed comes as a shock. And it is also shocking that I just randomly stumbled over this news article when this law is in effect already for 3 months. How is it possible that our news talk about all sorts of nonsense but not about something as fundamentally relevant as this ... this is the real shock.
> And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my country
The ends don't justify the means. Conscription has no place in the free world. It's slavery, plain and simple. Going into the military should be an appealing career choice. Our soldiers are supposed to be highly skilled professionals, not cannon fodder in large quantities.
So, if some other country with different value system attacks your homeland with intention to effectively colonize it then you'd be okay with just letting it happen?
I believe it is up to the free individual to make that decision. I'm not saving the slave ship when I'm treated like one.
ps: There are 8 billion people on this planet, and I've never had any serious issues with any of them, much less a reason to start a war. Governments are always the cause of everyone's misery. Beware of yours!
We now know for certain you don't live in Ukraine, nor any other country that has been invaded in your lifetime.
My family is from Ramallah so my wish to die for someone's greater cause is somewhat constrained.
Any country that contains millionaires while using military slaves ("conscripts") is evil. If there is clear existential risk then the state should implement wealth taxes to pay volunteer troops instead of enslaving people. And if literally everybody outside the military has been taxed down to the poverty line, and there are still not enough volunteers, it's time to surrender.
If you can’t get volunteers for a defensive war then that says a lot about how much the people living in your country value its continued existence.
The regime spent the past 50 years teaching everyone that their nation is just a source of shame and at best just a meaningless social construct, and that their culture and people's history is trash, that really nothing about it is worth saving.
And now the regime wants them to voluntarily sacrifice their lives for it.
No. I support a strong, volunteer military force of highly trained professionals (AVF). For example, how the US Army works today.
It's not only moral and compatible with human rights in the free world, it's also far more effective.
I am also surprised that I haven't read about this in German news before. I am following the news. If Trump would have signed an executive order with a similar content affecting US citizen, German media would probably report about this multiple days long with many articles.
I was looking in Google news for other reports about this, but only found an article from Berliner Zeitung published 5 hours after this article from Frankfurter Rundschau.
I am worried about what other information which could be important to me, the news did not report on.
As far as I understood the law the article from FR is correct: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html
Really exposes the current state of journalism in Germany and more broadly Europe: just propaganda and gossip.
A functioning "fourth estate" would have reported on this *before* the law was passed.
I agree in general. One reason we haven't heard anything about it might be that the administration already admitted that this legislation needs correction or at least clarification, as mentioned in the article.
No, that is not mentioned in the article. The correction and clarification is regarding how exactly this is being implemented. The law is there ... don't think this is a mistake. And there should be serious discussions in a society before something like that is made a law.
Fair, yes I agree. Didn't mean to excuse anything they introduced.
Draconian law gets introduced, public outcry ensues. Oh okay we will make it six months then. This is how civil liberties get eroded.
It’s also discriminatory on the basis of the gender, “weird” that nobody’s complaining about that.
Men are biologically disposable. If a nation lost 90% or better of its adult male population, it could still bounce back within a generation or two.
Women have no incentive to change that, and the small fraction of men powerful enough to change it can already exempt themselves from the meat grinder. The remaining men's opinions don't matter.
So this definitely works for hunter gatherers and that’s definitely how humans are architected, I agree.
However, if I think through what this process would look like under modern living arrangements, what would happen? Intensified serial polygamy with a massive increase in single motherhood? Full on polygamy?
Our social structures aren’t really set up to handle that. It seems like it would be so bad for society that I wouldn’t really say men are “disposable” under the current arrangement. More like they are the roof and women are the foundation, maybe.
It’s better to lose your roof than your foundation, sure, but losing your roof is still really bad. It does not really compare to, say, throwing out a paper coffee cup.
> If a nation lost 90% or better of its adult male population, it could still bounce back within a generation or two.
Yes in theory, no in practice for Europe.
Europe population and society collapsed 2 generations after WWII. We are literally discussing the consequences of the collapse here and now.
People also forget European societies were already starting to collapse after WWI as the consequence of a large proportion of the men population being killed or wounded.
And farewell gender equality I guess.
German women as capable as men, btw. How about to stop this sexist bullshit
It's not about capability, it's about value.
Women's lives are valuable, men's are not. This has been the case across basically all societies in human history. Losing a ton of men really doesn't matter too much - especially young, family-less men.
Losing a lot of women, though, is really really bad.
I was informed that we are all equal. Plenty of wartime occupancies carry no risk of dying, like being a nurse
> Plenty of wartime occupancies carry no risk of dying, like being a nurse
Isn't that reinforcing a gender stereotype? I was told we were against that kind of things around here.
One woman can have one child a year. One man can have hundreds of children a year.
This isn't sexist, it's reality. It's the rationale for male conscription and male disposability.
The law says all men aged 17 and older, not military-aged.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html
From your link
(3) Die Wehrpflicht endet mit Ablauf des Jahres, in dem der Wehrpflichtige das 45. Lebensjahr vollendet.
It’s interesting to read the discussion here through the lens of obligations vs rights. It would seem the rights are definitely winning.
At the moment, the German state is reneging on its obligations. The current workforce is expected to work harder and harder while retirement is pushed back and social benefits are threatened. A third or a fifth of the population is considering emigration already. Why would they fight for a country that is giving up on them?
Are you surprised that a forum full of people all-in hustle culture and the whole VC-startup grift is extremely selfish?
This is not to say that the government should get blind faith, but some notions that the collective good has any value is alien to many people here.
Libertarianism is a societal disease. "Fuck you got mine".
over and over again, we see that governments are pretty bad at doing their job. over and over again, they prove to us that they cant handle money, that they are corrupt, that they put the interest of their political class above that of the people.
so are you surprised?
id rather be left alone as much as possible in my pursuit of happiness. On my own terms!
Forget the government, what about your fellow humans? Is defending your country an obligation towards your government or towards your neighbor?
My country and my neighbors I would defend, my government not so much.
How is refusing to kill your fellow men selfishness? For one organization over one other?
In Bucha members of the Russian army systematically raped and murdered the towns occupants after it was occupied.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre
"Fuck you got mine" is the attitude of the boomers expecting young people to die for a country that the boomers left economically and demographically ruined. Young Germans have the worst life prospects of any generation in the past fifty years.
But if you look at serious polls then not many young people will actually fight for this. I remember reading a number of around 15%... And those probably don't have a high IQ.
That's a generation of people who had to never suffer the prospect of invasion and occupation of German soil by hostile armed forces. Even so, this number of willing recruits would already be much more than the Bundeswehr can possibly arm, and are unneeded as long as there is no military altercation actively involving Germany.
You're discussing boomers in the context of an awful lot of history.
Unsurprisingly when people here engage in serious politics beyond a desire to enrich themselves, those politics tend to take on a distinctly libertarian bent. I’m not sure what else people expect though, this is a very sheltered group with relatively limited skills outside of specific technical areas.
To put it another way this forum skews selfish.
I miss the days when hackerdom reliably skewed selfish instead of fascist.
Those ideas tend to go hand in hand.
So I am slowly learning!
I miss the days when such people lacked the power to turn their half-baked fantasies into a broken reality for the rest of us. Alas.
Why does it exclude women? War is not just physical strength, but also logistics, operating vehicles, operating drones, nursing, and so on. All tasks that women are well capable of.
Because it would take a change to the constitution to do that while reinstating the old draft laws only takes a regular majority in parliament. The draft is a severe limitation of personal freedom, so you can't just do that by law. The draft for men is already enabled in the constitution, the draft for woman isn't.
At this moment, changing the constitution is not possible, there is no majority for this. So that pretty much took the option to change the broader parameters out of the discussion entirely.
Can it be challenged under the European constitution?
If there were one. The closest thing is the Treaty of Lisbon, which in turn was an update on the Treaties of Maastricht and Rome.
However, the matter has been heard in the European Court of Justice in 2002, and the short version is "Community law does not preclude compulsory military service being reserved to men."
For more details, feel free to study the legal opinion behind the ruling: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
It probably could be challenged under the German constitution, but nobody knows if that would be successful. The draft for men is set up in the constitution, but there is also an explicit equality for men and women in there. In the past any challenge would almost certainly have been denied, but it's a different time now.
In practice, this draft is not a real draft yet. Nobody is actually drafted, so there are almost no practical consequences. If there was an actual draft, I'd expect to see a challenge to this.
Not sure about constitution, but it is clearly discrimination based on sex, which violates plenty of EU laws and regulations.
Some countries in the EU, like mine, have funny discrimination laws that say a positive discrimination is not considered a discrimination under the law, so it cannot be challenged. It is used as the basis for all women-favoring regulations.
Such laws are unconstitutional in Germany. I'd be interested in which country you live in and an example of such a law.
I wouldn't trust the European Union to be the one that will challenge that German mobilization register at all.
COVID-19 has proven that if anything, the European Union tends to spread national initiatives among other countries (and Germany is often a leader in EU).
In this specific case, the EU is more likely to be the type of organization that would think about how to create a unified permit
-> as they did with the EU Digital COVID certificate; some sort of "I am in the register of mobilization" / "have a temporary travel authorization".
So, EU might be an enemy that pretends to be your friend there.
Humbug. Defence policy, especially how the EU member states choose to organize their military forces, is very much in the hands of the individual countries. A majority of the member states don't even have conscription anymore.
Yes, there is the common security and defence policy, and the Article 42 of Lisbon and all that, but it all still relies on national systems.
Don't post made up lies here.
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-indus...
There is a new military Schengen project to make troops and unified military documentation across whole EU.
Obviously there will need to be a registry of personnel there, so these people can be prevented to leave.
On the side you have SIS Schengen, where you can (already) have an active arrest warrant for desertion.
Nothing indicates that European Union is going to fight against such registries. It's even the opposite.
Nothing in there is anywhere close to the claim you made.
That's interesting because on the face of it this none of the EU's business... but also typical of the EU and EU governments to expand what is thr EU's business little by little.
The whole existence of the EU has its background in the end of WWII.
> 18 April 1951 – European Coal and Steel Community
> Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past. The six are Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The European Coal and Steel Community comes into being in 1952.
https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
Why wouldn’t a unified permit to prove you registered for mobilization be relevant to what the EU is for?
Absolutely not. What you quote is beside the point and irrelevant.
Defence and the military is a sovereign matter that has nothing to do with the EU... except we are seeing that this is changing without democratic national mandates.
How can it be irrelevant when the quoted text is from a website about the EU, written by the EU itself?
This is the EU describing its own history and beginnings.
How does that make it relevant?
I can only repeat that defence is a sovereign matter in which the EU has no power, but there is a trend of changing this by making it happen as "fait accompli", especially since the war in Ukraine, which is used as pretext.
Theoretically yes, practically no. The ECJ can order the revision of national laws, but the country in question is responsible for implementation, and can send plaintiffs on a multi-decade merry chase. Several countries have also taken the view that they can refuse changes to their constitutions. This stands on shaky ground legally, but there is no real enforcement mechanism anyway.
I wonder why it is so trendy to want that.
Yeah, the law is unjust but spare even this part of the population this unnecessary risk. It's not like they can't join if they want to but why put force on it? So everybody feels miserable? What's the point?
And yeah, ich habe treu und tapfer verteidigt...
A lot of draft laws haven't been touched in a long time and aren't updated for modern gender politics. Though I do wonder if they'll actually get updated ever - no politician wants to touch it and it's not like anyone is screaming for the right to be forced to go die in war.
It's always weird to me how surprised women are that every single man they know has had to specifically, actually physically ink paper to sign up for the draft. It definitely feels weird/spooky when you do it, given the implications and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.
> and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.
I though it was weird that the United States had a requirement for people to physically sign a paper to do it. It looks like only this year they made it automated.
> Beginning on December 18, 2026, the Selective Service System will be required to identify, locate, and register all male (as assigned at birth) U.S. residents 18 to 26 years old on the basis of other existing federal databases. Men will no longer be required to register themselves or be subject to penalties for failing to do so. This was noted to be the most significant change to Selective Service since the self-registration system began in 1980.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System
Denmark made drafts mandatory for women last year.
In Portugal as well, both genders get listed when their time comes up.
The same in Sweden since 2017.
To clarify: every young person regardless of gender is legally obliged to go through fitness testing for conscription and if deemed suitable must go through it if selected. I imagine it’s roughly similar in Denmark?
Up until the fall of the USSR ~all men did go through conscription/basic military training. After the fall only the ones that wanted to and were selected did. Now it’s ramping up massively.
Tie draft registration to voting registration. Equality before law, and all that
both are already tied to residence registration (which is mandatory in germany, because it defines where you pay taxes). there is no need to register for the draft. it is automatic, once you turn 18 you get the letter to get tested if you qualify.
Service guarantees citizenship (rights). I am doing my part!
https://youtu.be/jO1vWxUqpFI
Less evil than military slavery.
> For women, answering the questions is voluntary, as they cannot be required to perform military service under the Constitution.
Specially article 12a Paragraph 4: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
Specifically it says:
If, during a state of defence, the need for civilian services in the civilian health system or in stationary military hospitals cannot be met on a voluntary basis, women between the age of eighteen and fifty-five may be called upon to render such services by or pursuant to a law. Under no circumstances may they be required to render service involving the use of arms.
Seems crazy that women can vote to send men to war.
No crazier than that the old can vote to send the young to war.
A little crazier — the old were once young, and could have been voted into a war themselves.
Trans people exist. So: Some women were treated by law as "once men, and could have been voted into a war themselves
Footnote: But not necessarily felt to be correctly labeled men, ever in life.
And yet the vast majority of combat veterarans are very anti-war.
Which combat veterans?
My grandpa (ww2) was one of them. He helped my father dodge the draft, when he was supposed to go to military service.
Why don’t presidents fight the war; why do they always send the poor?
Look at the Ukraine war. Who is being drafted against their will?
Everybody. Do you have some statistics ?
I haven’t seen any women be bussed or blown up with a drone yet. Are you sure this is the case?
> Everybody. Do you have some statistics ?
This is false, overwhelmingly MALES. For a time, males couldn't leave Ukraine, while females could. Those who go to die on the front in all wars are mostly males. Doesn't mean that females aren't casualties as well, they are.
Because the constitution only allows drafting men: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
The intersection of parties wanting to reinstate compulsory military service and parties supporting gender equality doesn't currently have the necessary supermajority to change the constitution. So we get a wishy-washy compromise, as is so often the case in democracies.
Starting 2026, Ukraine at least has restrictions on women leaving the country as well.
Women in the civil service, law enforcement agencies, or those registered in the military and serving under contract may face restrictions on traveling abroad, particularly for non-official purposes.
Right, a lot of the draft law being male-only reflects a combination of the reality that, relatively speaking, not much war has been waged since the end of WW2, and that much of contemporary gender equality is still somewhat new on a historical basis. So they're really just out of date laws with not much of an impetus to update, at least until recently. The worldwide trend is pretty clearly in the direction of making service and conscription, where needed, more gender agnostic. There are still some realities that don't really change here, such as men being most useful for direct combat, so even if women are conscripted it's likely they'll still avoid much of the worst of warfare simply by virtue of not qualifying for stringent standards.
You mean "some women in specific situations", not women in general. 2 weeks ago my cousin's wife and her 2 daughters got in an out for my aunt's funeral, in Ukraine. She is 50 years old, former teacher, no restrictions, the daughters are in the early 20, no restrictions either.
Yes, you’re right. I could have been more specific
I thought it was obvious with the second paragraph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_expendability
According to the constitution, women can be drafted into hospitals.
Look at $$4. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_12a.html
You could of course require women to register, too. In case of war, they'll be drafted into hospitals. They just don't want to.
Most roles in the military require ad hoc applications of brute strength to do the job competently even if it isn't per se part of the job description. This includes things like operating vehicles, desk jobs, etc.
In the military context, almost every job must be performed in the field or in the absence of (working) machinery. You still must be capable of carrying the equipment load-out for your role on your back. The inability of women as a class to do this effectively has been a longstanding issue. Everyone is at risk of being thrust into combat situations due to circumstances beyond anyone's control. The "rear echelon" can suddenly find themselves no longer in the rear.
All of which is separate from the question of the use of conscription generally.
In the US there is a separate gender-agnostic authority that allows the US to impress someone into non-military service for (IIRC) 6 months.
None of this disqualifies women from service. Of course, special forces and frontline troops will face these challenges day-to-day, but women who can't handle this will simply wash out from those. Which is not a big problem; only a tiny percentage of the military comprises these.
What about man that has gender woman in papers?
Going to assume this phrasing is an awkward translation, but we can see how this works out in tolerant nations with conscription like Thailand. Typically, trans women who are already on a medical pathway are medically excluded from military service. This is less an affirmation of who they are by the military and more of a frank admission that their current state could never be made combat-ready. It's likely that even if SHTF, this would remain the status quo, because it's difficult to imagine draft resisters taking estrogen simply to avoid service. Even if treatment is largely done via informed consent, medical exclusion would likely require blood levels be in a certain range, or certain surgeries performed.
As far as I know as long as the change was made outside of an ongoing conflict and it's reasonable to assume it wasn't done to evade a potential one, it would actually protect you from being sent to your death
IDK about legal situation, but I know people who transitioned in both directions and they tell me that the hormones they take do make a big difference to strength and resiliance.
Saved, can freely enjoy cocktails on the beach.
The registered gender is the one that counts.
Women have been treated similarly to children. Fewer rights, but also fewer responsibilities. Feminists are very vocal about the rights but not too bothered about the responsibility.
I suspect the end result is just, no political will for that at this point.
Because of the equality implementation.
> Why does it exclude women?
In addition to the legal point regarding the constitution: A lot less people in those roles you listed, die. The compulsion is necessary for the state to get enough people to go die - or at least, seriously risk their lives - for it on the battlefield.
There is an actual answer to this, don’t listen to the random people replying saying stuff like “because the CDU is in power” or whatever.
The actual answer is because the constitutional instrument that allows conscription (Artikel 12a Grundgesetz) is explicitly limited to men. Therefore women are not subject to conscription in Germany, unless the constitution is changed.
Perhaps if the constitution were written today instead of in 1949 it would include women too.
You are misinformed and it is pretty much because of the CDU/CSU. There was a chance to change it with the help of the CDU just after the election but before the last government got dissolved the CDU objected...
Can you give a link to what you’re talking about?
It doesn't even exclude just biological women but everyone who has either "female" or "diverse" in their passport, which, according to current law, can both be biologically male.
passwordless sudo kind of stuff.
Because CDU is the government.
Honestly, I don't think the problem with war is that not enough women die in it. It makes more sense to argue against forcing anyone against their will to fight in a war.
That's a non-sequitur to the question.
And the answer is that women are equal to men in all things, except when things get serious, and then all of a sudden biology matters again
> That's a non-sequitur to the question.
How so? Why isn't the question 'Why is anyone being forced at all?' Their question assumes that someone has to be forced, which I fundamentally disagree with, so they should justify that assumption first.
> And the answer is that women are equal to men in all things, except when things get serious, and then all of a sudden biology matters again
Correct. They are equal, so I don't think either men or women should be forced.
Well women are the rate limiting factor in having more men produced for war fodder.
It probably makes more sense to ban birth control at the same time men are required to die for the war machine as both would then be playing out their slavery-induced biological role in ensuring survival of the nation. That is if you're down with the whole slavery for war thing.
Biologically true, but probably not in practice. Do we think Ukraine will compell women to repopulate postwar? It won't happen.
That’s essentially what the commenter is proposing when talking about banning birth control. This would be equivalent to compelling women to reproduce (or forego sexual relations, which in reality most people won’t do).
Most actively wars are over long before the replacement rate starts to matter, and women that get pregnant or raise children will in all likelihood get an excemption from frontline duty.
Wouldn't make more sense instead of make conscription mandatory only for men, to make it mandatory for all childless people then?
> women are equal to men in all things, except in extreme circumstances when violence is required on a mass scale
Fixed that for you.
Not only violence. There are plenty of concerning situations in which you all of a sudden stop putting middle-manager women in email jobs or HR/DEI finger-wagging jobs.
When things get existential, the jobs favored by men multiply and the jobs favored by women decrease. And nowhere more than in countries and societies which are highly feminist and supportive of women, which seems counterintuitive but isn't.
You might not want to fight in the war but eventually the war might fight you whether you like it or not.
That's not true. When France surrendered in WW2 most French men didn't have to fight or die (unless they were Jewish).
99% of males in the U.K. avoided dying in ww2 - 380k military casualties vs a population of 47 million (and presumably 23.5 million male)
I’m assuming non military casualties were evenly spread between male and female.
Figures I’ve seen say over 700,000 casualties in the British Army alone.
3.7 million served in the Army, which is a fairly high proportion when compared to the age range suitable for military service. Add in the Navy and RAF and you get to nearly six million. Those that didn’t serve were generally needed at home - roles like doctors, miners, police, or were too young or too old to fight.
The British, unlike many European countries, had time to mobilise those forces. Had they lost the Battle of Britain and had Germany commenced a land invasion of Britain then it’s likely the numbers would have been a lot lower.
That was also true of much of the feudal or monarchist European wars in the centuries before WWI. In the near term before the "democratic" era around WWI wars war largely seen as wars of the aristocracy and armed forces. Merchants could usually ~freely come and go between countries at war and you could generally pass to a country you were at war with without common people seeing you as an enemy. Wars also tended to be less "all or nothing" where the other side was evil and had to be destroyed and were seen more as property and rights disputes of the elite where armed force was a negotiating tactic or strategic use to assert some particular right.
It wasn't until the scam of 'democracy' fooled people into thinking war was against the actual people of the other country that they not only scammed everyone into having such buy-in and stakes for the war but also to view the other countrymen themselves as the enemy. People started viewing the nation of themselves because their laughable miniscule influence of their vote somehow means the government is of them. (Note this was a resurface of course, there were times in history where war was seen as against a peoples rather than of the elite).
Stop reading Curtis Yarvin's pseudo-history. Like 8 million people died in the Thirty Years War before modern democratic states, and there's plenty of other examples.
> unless they were Jewish
Cold comfort. Just decide to not be of Jewish descent then. Who would have known it's so easy to escape the attention of the Gestapo! /s
In the case of a typical war of conquest, fighting pretty much stops as soon as one nation surrenders. However, no nation state in the world asks, 'How can we save the most lives?', instead asking, 'Do we have enough people to send to their deaths to potentially preserve our monopoly of power?'
Of course, at the beginning of every war, some people genuinely believe that joining and defending the nation they live in is in their best interests, but these numbers quickly drop over time. As history and current events show, states start to use forced conscription in every prolonged war at some point.
The guys who are willing to shoot people will win that argument every time tbh.
I agree but in countries with larger populations, there are two reasons:
1) Women can have children, and after a major war a large section of the population may be killed, and its better to have more women than men, since you can repopulate faster.
2) Women take over a large share of industrial labor during wartime. This was a mistake the Germans made in WW2, because they were so mystified by Nazism. But in the US, women basically took over all the manufacturing jobs that men left when they went to war, and it helped shore up the industrial base and, in the end, helped lead to an allied victory.
In a place like Israel, there are so few people that it doesn't make a massive difference. If half the men get taken out, its not like the 2-3 million remaining women are going to be able or even want to "repopulate" so rapidly (not to mention that Israel has an interesting setup where a small section of the women make up the majority of the births--the ultra-orthodox--and the majority probably aren't having kids anyway).
I'm in a country ~5mil population (less than israel's) where men are conscripted and there is a fair amount of angst regarding their sacrifice. IMO, the cause is a mix of patriarchy and voteshare.
Factor #2 is no longer true, nowadays more and more stuff is being produced by machines. Moreover women can pick up guns. Drones can be piloted. Lethality is only going to go up.
No one sane would want to go fight in a war where lethality is high. Nor train for something that requires looming, recurring obligations for a good 10-20 years of their life. This is real sacrifce. If you want respect, at some point you have to put skin in the game.
Finland?
Could also be Singapore or Taiwan.
Taiwan has waaaay more people, like 20ish million I think?
Easier to repopulate... at the expense of men being considered essentially disposable by the society. I should have as much right to not being forcefully sent to my death to wage billionaires' wars as the other half of population.
Well, you see, if men stay alive, but women are killed, society collapses eventually as not enough new people are born. It sucks being a man in this scenario, but it is what it is.
And if you include women (well, all genders) directly in the war efforts you double the amount of soldiers you have, which would increase your chance of winning and not needing to repopulate.
You can lose a war, yet still keep your country. You can also win a war, yet still need to repopulate.
Someone has to stay behind and make ammunition.
If you refuse to fight, you lose.
If you all agree to refuse to fight, you win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
The key here is to refuse fighting. Nobody becomes a hero by becoming a murderer whose goal is to defend the political power of Stalin, Napoleon, Bush, or whoever.
Arguably, not enough people are being born as it stands. We're already in your collapse scenario.
I suspect one tool governments across the world will resort to when they get desperate about sub-replacement fertility is changing mandatory conscription from males to the childless. Quite strong incentive, not be sent to the meatgrinder.
Modern Germany will collapse in the face of any war that would justify conscription, so it's all a moot point anyway.
The country is already in a slow burning crisis due to the political and economic results of its demography, and a war coming to its own soil will send the walls tumbling down.
No war justifies slavery ("conscription").
Yes, my guess is most of western Europe would collapse after one or two weeks without electricity.
I have seen people acting really erratically just after a few hours without electrity and internet. Most people are so clueless they would quickly put their home on fire because they do not know how to safely use candles.
Also, just looking at what would happen to a large part of the population once they would run out of meds is terrifying. Heart medications, SSRI, anti psychotics. etc.
There is not gonna be a war in Europe like how WWI and II was described to us. It is gonna be far less heroic.
How does feminism survive if this becomes the norm? If young men feel like they're expected to give more to their society it's natural to expect renumeration financial, socially or politically. Nordic countries don't seem to have this problem, but their conscription laws are quite relaxed compared to what the future will likely hold. A declining youth population almost certainly means greater youth repression (higher taxes for pensions, conscription, etc.)
Norways conscription law was much stricter until very recently. Military police was looking for me to hand deliver my draft notice up until I moved abroad because doing so allows them to charge you and imprison you if you don't show. At the time women were not called in at all. It didn't stop a rapid move towards more equality. And that eventually moved towards more women in the military. Couple that with a reduced need for recruits, and it was relaxed significantly for men.
EDIT: I moved in 2000. I finally took a call from the military police the day I landed in London, to gleefully tell them I'd left - the practice was that draft notices would not be delivered abroad, so moving effectively put an end to the matter. Norwegian law also required notifying the military if you left for more than 6 months, and provide evidence. I sent them a letter; they sent me one back demanding evidence. I told them the fact I'd received the letter was evidence and to stop bothering me. They did.
Basically, for the Americans who find this weird: In the countries in Europe where this is still a thing, this is a cold war holdover most places. When I was growing up air raid sirens were being tested monthly, and my primary schools' basement was a bomb shelter. It took a lot of time before things were relaxed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decades. The people who are trying to make young men only doing the killing the norm are the same people trying to end feminism. Therefore, there is some logic in your question.
When I was in Asia two years ago, as an American, every time I met a young Russian man escaping conscription, drinks were on me as appreciation to their commitment to world peace. I'm in South America now and it is being inundated with young Israeli men running like the Russians were. Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.
No. It is not about Ability. Feminism may fight for ability, but conscription is a Requirement. You're not free to choose. That's the entire point.
> Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decades.
If any claim ever required "citation needed", this one is the biggest.
I've never seen feminists fight for duties, only for privileges.
I need to revise what I wrote. The protests and stance have all been against selective service for both men and woman. However, on the flip side, the stance for enlisting and volunteering are opposite. I'll let you Google that one to see if you think if "citation needed".
Do you agree that women and men should serve equally in front line combat?
> Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decades
Not heard anyone fight for that once. The more pressing issues seem to he "mansplaining" and men being shirtless in the summer.
> Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.
Why?
> Nordic countries don't seem to have this problem, but their conscription laws are quite relaxed compared to what the future will likely hold.
This seems very misinformed at least when it comes to Sweden. Upon war, everyone is obliged to defend the country. Nobody can leave unless you have a good reason.
I think it's misleading to credit what is happening in germany to feminism. It's a very toxic ideology and the best thing is to leave if you are discriminated by this (e.g. as young white heterosexual male).
How does the concept of the global citizen survive?
You have a group of citizens who are expected to perform military service, and another group who aren't really invested in the country and don't have to serve.
This concept never existed, it was always an illusion.
Feminism survives because it never was about equality, it was about making women the privileged class.
How does a government express "anti-feminism". Surely you're not suggesting a reduction in voting power for women. So what else would make it seem "fair" to men in your mind?
I'm not being prescriptive, just observing the likely consequences of gendered policy.
> Surely you're not suggesting a reduction in voting power for women.
Why not? If the male side has "getting droned your legs off and people watching it in 4k", surely everything less than that has to be on the table for the female side. Not being able to vote physically yourself (you can still influence public opinion, eg through social media, imo a far more effective action than casting 1 vote)
It won’t and it never has. It’s not like society post-1945 developed the phenomenon for the first time in human history. Even in this country, New Jersey was the last state to ban women voting in 1807 iirc.
How can a state survive if this weren't the norm? Why would men fight and die for a government that views their own wives and daughters as cannon fodder? If the government is conscripting men's wives to war, is it really in the interest of men to risk their own lives to protect that government? If the government took my wife and sent her to war, I'd sooner firebomb a government office than join up to fight for the government.
If a woman wants to fight, that's another story entirely. But conscripting women? That's poison.
Why are those women then allowed to have vote in matters if they are not forced to carry responsibility for their voting behaviour?
Because we saw what men do in the last thousand years and if women would be in charge everything would be like the paradise /S
And what about a government which sends sons? Your point makes absolutely no sense, especially in relation to feminism. Equal rights and equal duties.
Yes, but in 12 month, 1 man and 20 women can produce the 20 kids.
It's not the case with 1 woman and 20 men.
There is a birth crisis. Modern, liberal women are not actually reproducing, they are not keeping their end of the evolutionary bargain (men protecting, sacrificing and dying, while women giving birth). Therefore, there is no need to maintain the old-fashioned, patriarchal system with women as a more protected group. Everyone should contribute equally, pull their own weight. Equal rights, equal lefts (responsibilities).
Western women are already only producing ~1.5 kids (many with none!), you could send 50% of young women to die in war, then have the other half have a fertility rate of 6, like what their great great grandmothers had, and we would be far far ahead already.
That's a thought game, not reality.
Can you share examples of this happening in modern history at scale?
Chill, they will soon send robots because everybody else is going to give'em the finger or they're too slow and hard to replace. Look at Russia/Ukraine. Russia is sending minorities and North Koreans to war and they get blown up by drones assembled and flown by Ukrainians. I would totally assemble drones rather than dig trenches or crawl through mud infested with mines. Guess what the North Koreans are now doing in Kursk? De-mining.
We're not having this conversation in a cultural vacuum; men figure out at a young age that if things go to shit, their lives become expendable for the sake of the community. I view conscription as a form of slavery; something that I hope never happens to me or anybody, but could conceivably happen. That's the way the world has worked for thousands of years, and the Bayesian meme asks me to therefore bet on it continuing to be this way. But it doesn't have to be this way for women too. Why should it be, misery loves company? If men are going to be dying, we should draft women to die too? That's not feminism, that's insanity.
Why should men sacrifice and die for nothing, by not getting anything in return, not even a simple appreciation? Why should only men die when things get tough? I also would much rather see other unknown women die, than to send myself or my son to die for them.
Women need to pull their weight. And since they aren't doing that from the evolutional POV, neither in practice (birth crisis) nor in theory (not like giving birth is a legal duty, unlike a draft), then they can at least be useful for a society as a cannon fodder. The more women start pulling their weight and contribute, the less weight there will be for men to pull. What not to love about this equality!
The right reaction about bad things happening to a percentage of the population is to get rid of it if at all possible, not making everybody suffer from it.
If you don't expect males to voluntarily sacrifice and die for the country, why would you expect women to suffer nine months of body horror (provocatively stated) and expend multiple years of full-time care to raise children?
> And since they aren't doing that from the evolutional POV, neither in practice (birth crisis) nor in theory (not like giving birth is a legal duty, unlike a draft), then they can at least be useful for a society as a cannon fodder.
Women already contribute to society by being in the work force. If you think that's not enough, then you should probably think about rewarding them for doing something else.
> That's not feminism, that's insanity.
No, it's equality.
Taken to its logical conclusion, you cannot have gender equality without either making the draft cover everyone or abolishing it entirely.
The fact that women losing their lives is so much larger a risk for the nation only serves to test the resolve of those people claiming to want gender equality, but this is not the only time you'll find a conflict between idealism and reality, even within the scope of gender equality.
It would be equality if there were a law forcing women to have children during a war. Which is insane and no one would support it.
But young men maybe dying after being forced to fight against their will? Completely fine.
It's honestly just very telling how in modern Western egalitarianism, gender essentialism is factually wrong and evil unless we're explaining why men need to die for their country.
Even if you draft women a men can not shit a child.
Most young men don't have wives or daughters. It's not 1850 anymore.
I would rather both genders get drafted than be in a Ukraine situation where millions of women leave for richer countries while I am pulled off the street to go eat FPV drones. What's even the point? Why not surrender? What am I protecting or preserving?
You are protecting a society who doesn’t care about you. Aren’t you glad?
This goes missed a lot in debates about conscription. The Iran war in the US and the Ukraine war in Russia enjoy very little popular support among military aged men. This is in stark contrast to WW2, and even in Vietnam there was still a strain of thinking of draft resisters as cowards. But wars in this day and age enjoy a shockingly tiny public mandate, and it's entirely possible that governments can only do a draft on paper. Putin is practically unable to push further mobilisation because the first round provoked such stiff violence and resistance.
> What's even the point? Rich people staying in power is the point.
> Why not surrender? Surrendering is not always practicable. You will get killed if you're a liability to your captors.
> What am I protecting or preserving? That's really only yours, and yours alone, to consider.
There is another option too: cooperate.
Any ruler wants active units of production (humans extracting money or gold or food), and for that it has to bring some sort of stable life environment and not be too greedy so people don't try to revolt.
Whether you get such through political negotiation before or after a war, or through a vote, or through a revolution, is the same as the end.
How does a state survive if refugees/immigrants are imported en masse and then the state becomes so dysfunctional to such a degree that its male citizens must be conscripted to fight and die for it? Surely this is a recipe for disaster.
I would sooner die for my family and my country but I wouldn't lift a finger to save the lives of refugees/immigrants.
You die for your country and the refugees make the state survive. Germany becomes Deutschstan, Köln Dom is converted to a minaret and Hildegard is required to wear a hijab in public at all times, that's how. At least that's probably how Michel Houellebecq would imagine it.
Why not just leave for another more sane country before that happens? It's for sure what I will do.
Why would this affect feminism? If they want to fight for equal rights to conscription nobody is stopping them, and if they don't nobody is going to force them to. These gotchas don't really have any reflection on reality.
I am wondering if the affected men will demand preferential treatment as a consequence of service. Women currently benefit from disproportionate employment in the social safety net, affirmative action in German government hiring, etc. I would imagine that this would be essentially offensive to the men who are required to stay in the country, or face (potential future) conscription. I suspect the demands of European governments will increase as countries continue to age.
> I am wondering if the affected men will demand preferential treatment as a consequence of service.
I'm more thinking about leaving asap.
I would define feminism as the belief that on balance and in aggregate, there is a difference in the fairness that society accords to the genders and it's in favor of men.
The risk to feminism would be that this becomes so blatantly and obviously not true that no one can take it seriously. I don't think the continued draft of men would impact this because it's not a change to the status quo, and it isn't changing opinion in Ukraine.
> and it's in favor of men.
Definitely going to have to disagree there.
So are you also not allowed to move away or? I find it pretty messed up that your life as a man is literally owned by the government.
No, it literally says the law says you must seek permission if you wanna leave for more than 3 months and the govt must always grant you this if not in a war. And if you fail to seek permission nothing happens. You can ignore it without consequence.
>And if you fail to seek permission nothing happens. You can ignore it without consequence
The consequence is you violated the law, and they can have you at any time, even retroactively, for that.
That they don't is merely a detail. If it really has "no consequence" they should remove it.
A lot of laws head this way. Sweeping chances but not enforced so people ignore it, then later there's nothing stopping the government going back 7 years after select individuals. Just because it wasn't ever enforced doesn't mean it isn't illegal. An example is disguised employment laws for contractors in the UK (IR35)
Civilized countries don’t allow retroactively increasing the penalty for breaking a law. Does Germany allow that?
The penalty doesn't have to be increased, it just needs to be selectively enforced.
You'd need to have some unenforced penalty first though.
No, Germany punishes according to the laws at the time of the crime. It is not possible to retroactively enforce new criminal statutes.
I think it's like they want to have it on the books now so they can use it later. If they try to emergency legislate during wartime people will protest and/or flee the country the day before it starts applying.
At least Germany isn't looking at entering any wars at the moment...
All nation states are like that. They monopolise power and violence, and will defend that monopoly by sacrificing their citizens' lives if another state tries to infringe upon it.
I think it's clear that the interests of citizens and their state typically do not align. Unfortunately, most states have cultivated and propagated a different idea for decades, which is why so many people have a different perception of their state than the reality.
No idea why you single out nation states, all states are similar.
States before nationalism generally used mercenaries to fight their wars. No soldier was dumb enough to think they were protecting their family.
Vast over-generalization
Nation state is just another word for state, no? What state is not a nation state?
The states of the United States of America are not nation states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state
Yes you are: the article says that the permission must be granted in general by authorities (I guess no war and not active military) and no penalties for breaching it.
You are, but it's a shit law and surprising to still exist in Germany. Per the article it's not a new law, has been in effect since the 80s, and there have been no repercussions for violating this law.
Instead, my 2c, should have changed it to a notice you have to send the military, at most.
The older I get the more I can't stand "countries" as a concept. Especially this notion that somehow countries own their citizens. It's quite gross to me...
Countries do not own their citizens, citizens own their countries. Countries are a technology - albeit an old and sometimes useful technology, but a technology. This is like an iPhone requiring your permission to leave it on the counter for a day.
This idea that you're not allowed to travel without a permit is a perverse inversion of reality. People are not property and the idea that a "country" can feed human beings into one meat-grinder or another at will in order to preserve itself is the very thing that the AI safety people are panicked about. It's the paperclip maximizer, but instead of making paperclips it tries to grow and expand it's influence into all aspects of the human experience. Increasingly this disgusts me at a cellular level.
If you don't fight for your rights you lose them.
Quite shocking to see the downvotes I'm getting - and you're right, I have been fighting for them, but I am only one person. But it definitely seems like most people would much rather do what they were told than risk anything.
It distresses me a bit.
If the U.S. implements a draft, would we first implement exit visas?
If the U.S. implements a draft, will women be required to register? Right now, only men are required to register with the Selected Service when they turn 18. Would Congress amend the Military Selective Service Act?
If they aren't, all men should just identify as women.
Question for German friends: What do you think about the production level of military equipment? If Russia does move (which I think is unlikely in the near future), how many days does the ammo last?
NATO has days/weeks of ammunition, so it's woefully under-resourced.
NATO doctrine is basically air superiority against any invading force, with the ability to wreak destruction far behind the front lines.
Conveniently the Iran war has depleted stockpiles of almost everything.
The reality is NATO is vulnerable on two fronts.
The first is that NATO has no defences against the kind of drone and missile waves Russia has been using against Ukraine. A surprise attack could easily take out a large part of NATO's air superiority and do significant damage to arms factories.
The second is more serious - capture of the independent nuclear deterrent. The US is clearly giving up on defending Europe, the UK's deterrent is barely functional, and only France has a truly independent deterrent.
Russia has spent a lot of time and money trying to get a puppet government elected on France, along the lines of the governments in Hungary, Slovakia, and the US.
If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender.
The question is really whether Russia can hold on until the French elections next year.
This reads like Russian propaganda. NATO's EU forces have not used any ammo in the Iran war as they are not a belligerant. Russia's nuclear deterrent has to prove to be still in working condition. There is no guarantee Le Pen would win in 2027 and the chain of command would allow that to happen
> If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender.
Ukraine isn’t under anyone’s nuclear umbrella, but Russia hasn’t done more than threaten to use nuclear weapons in that war. Probably because it’s not at all clear that it would actually force a surrender.
Russia likely also still remember the aftermath of Chernobyl; a nuclear strike so close to their home would hopefully be seen as something to avoid at all costs. On a similar note, Ukraine also still has a few bandages it could take off in the event of a nuclear strike, like an all-out strike on Russian nuclear power plants. Those are undoubtedly well-defended, but there are a lot of them and they only need to succeed in causing fallback to leak from one.
Nice try!
The meme goes "Nice try, Ivan"
time to emigrate
Working on it.
Imagine replacing "men" with "women" in this article.
Oh the uproar.
The crazy thing to me is also that they slipped it into the law on January 1st, and our quality journalism (such as OP DW), for which we are forced to pay monthly fees, only reports about it now - and I'm fairly sure they didn't break the story, they caught onto it pretty late.
Almost like by design.
Oh yeah and the obvious discrimination. If you change your gender on paper now you probably won't be affected, but you will be affected if you change it short-term.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/sbgg/__9.html
Deutsche Welle is not funded by the “Rudfunkbeitrag” but part of the federal budgetz
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”
The famed German rule-following in action. This kind of routine violation of regulation is what led to Dieselgate. Social norms in places like this rarely support rule of law. There's a reason the EPA was the one which blew this wide open. Local regulators follow these norms because that's what German cultural norms are.
The EPA was able to do this because they made up some new numbers and set an arbitrary deadline. The same cars the year before were fine. The EPA altered the deal and then exacted punishment.
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights quoth:
Article 20 Everyone is equal before the law.
Article 21 1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
It is wonderful to see this much-needed discussion on HN. There is a strong argument to be made for that we need to recalibrate rights and responsibilities of men and women. Especially since women have largely abandoned their traditional duties and still kinda expect men to hold their end of the bargain. All while constantly degrading, offending, and calling men's nature toxic. Men essentially get nothing in return for doing these deadly jobs. So let's make it truely equal as everybody wanted and conscript everyone. No sugarcoating either, equality starts from the front line.
> Especially since women have largely abandoned their traditional duties and still kinda expect men to hold their end of the bargain.
As far as I see, women still birth and raise children and take care of most of the household; they just also work in the addition. Don't know what you're talking about.
How about we just don’t fight stupid wars? There hasn’t been a real need for a draft in America since the civil war (in the sense that America was not plausibly threatened by the world wars, Korea, Vietnam, etc).
Manoshpere much ?
Press gangs are back
Owned like a slave to the government.
Being 46 (and quite an active 46 year old, just finished a Skitour), am curious why the cutoff for these things tends to be 45?
There has to be some cutoff and I assume it's for law historic reasons, maybe other related laws reference that age.
Cynically speaking: the people making those laws probably don't want to be impacted by it. And Germany is effectively a gerontocracy.
I'm pretty sure it's politics. The reason is a potential draft, but it is also very potential for now and may never happen. So this message signalizes to the older and/or richer population two messages - "you will be protected by the mobilized army in the worst case" and "you personally will be exempt from the need to sit in a freezing trench for multiple years" (which is not true in reality, if the draft will be needed, higher age will be increased to 60 most likely). So the older and conservative population is appeased this way.
CDU are losing popularity if we are to believe press, so that is one of the populist ways to boost some numbers for elections.
diminishing returns. people over 40 heal less quickly, start to run into chronic health issues, and are more likely to have suffered permanent injuries. it's easier to set a global cutoff at an age where the probability that any given person will be unable to do the job safely than it is to assess each person individually.
I wouldn't survive a week at the front just because of my back. But I'll happily catch a couple of bullets.
Mainly because people older than 45 have a hard time marching with 30 kilos of equipment on their backs while blindly obeying orders.
Let's see ... On December 5, 2025 the German parliament passed a law requiring all men between 18 and 45 years to register "for military service", which everyone should fully understand to mean to register for conscription.
Oh and they've added a very political clause: the government can activate conscription WITHOUT a parliament vote. So most political parties who have voted in favor of conscription want to be able to claim "it wasn't us, it was Merz" (ie. CDU). In reality CSU and SPD have voted to effectively conscript German men between 18 and 45.
In other words, Germany expects to be in open war in a matter of months to years. Like every country before them they've decided young men are cheaper than actually investing in military equipment (they're investing in military equipment, but they just won't have it in that time period)
This probably means that if you can get out, get out, because it's not like being 46 years old will protect you from the impact of that, and yes it's not clear what the timing is going to be, and they're not being very forward about what the reason is for conscription.
So that's why 45. Because the existing conscription law (1954 + 2025) allows for conscripting every German male between 18 and 45.
The US has this too. All males register at 18.
But the US, for all its militarism, and all its military adventures, has not used the draft since Vietnam.
So I would say that Germany sees the need to be in a position where it can respond quickly if they need it. Well, given current events in their neighborhood, I can see their point. In fact, I would say that they are probably at least three years late in doing this.
I mean, short term it's obvious what will happen. Europe's peace at all costs (or should I say: at NO cost) will fail and Russia will attack in a matter of years. Some states will be forced to defend and a number of European countries will respond as a coalition. Many other European states will refuse to help, a few very publicly. And obviously this coalition will either beat Russia back or at the very least stop Russia advancing much at all. So far the obvious part of the next few years.
Let's start with an easy one: Will Germany be ready (war is more than cheap bodies, after all, equipment, plans, ...)? No, they won't. They've never been ready before.
Will the US help? That was a given even just 1 year ago, but now is strongly in doubt.
What will Germany's reaction be to the European states that just don't help?
What will happen to world trade? The question is who will save it, because the historical answer was of course US.
I am a US citizen and I try to see the world as it is.
>Will the US help? That was a given even just 1 year ago, but now is strongly in doubt. With the current commander in chief, the US will do nothing except talk a lot of nonsense contradicting itself daily.
>What will happen to world trade?. World trade as we know it is done. National security interests will force strategic industries to be on-shored. New trade deals will only be made with a short list of trustworthy allies.
If Russia does attack, the US will take 1+ years to ramp up and we will take a long time before we reach Europe in large numbers. The rapid reaction forces we have are not prepared for the new way of fighting we see in Ukraine.
For the past 5 weeks the most advanced military technology in the world has acomplished basically nothing.
Also the main reason russia is still slowly gaining land in Ukraine is because there are not enough people to man the frontline.
for the risk of getting downvoted:
why only locals, but no migrants?
Why would non-citizens get drafted in the military?
The US draft included non-citizen legal residents, such as Howard Stringer. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Stringer>
? This includes all male citizens aged 18 - 45.
It doesn't, only German citizens
does citizen and German not mean the same thing? Are EU citizens living permanently in germany even considered to have a duty to either militarily or in civil service serve in war times?
Not a lawyer but the German constitution, Article 12a, speaks of men above 18, not of citizens, or even residents of Germany.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
So that article can in theory be used to conscript any man, citizen or not, living in Germany or not.
The Wehrpflichtgesetz, which is a simple law and requires just the 50% Bundestag majority to have it changed, refines this very wide constitutional power in article 1, to require men who hold German citizenship above 18.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/BJNR006510956.ht...
Article 3 refines it even further to folks below 45 or 60, depending on the severity of the situation.
But yes, in theory it can be changed to include any non-German citizen man, people aged 80, living inside of Germany since a while or never having been to Germany ever, or just random men who happen to change flights at FRA.
It's unenforceable in the EU that has no borders.
That doesn’t mean it’s unenforceable. You don’t need a permit to leave Germany to any country as long as your planned stay is shorter than 3 month. The only way this could be enforced is by checking if people are in country, that is in case of drafting them. The paragraph essentially ensures that any person that gets drafted needs to present themselves in person within 3 month of the draft notice.
EU law overrides and breaks German law. Germany is d'accord with that.
So if german consitution sayed, starting in cold war era, what this law states, then the newer joining into EU made a new law, bringing freizügigkeit ("feedom of movement") to superseed even our Grundgesetz.
EU members have a well documented history of ignoring EU law.
I remember people in Germany who had to go underground to evade the draft, even as recently as the early 2000s.
Here's a story from 2002 about how the supreme court there upheld the legality of a military draft:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-apr-11-mn-37321...
anyway, if you refused to be drafted and did not want to go to jail, you had to more-or-less stop using any government services, rent with roommates, avoid using a credit card etc. until you've reached some age, and then you could emerge again because the duty to serve expires at that certain (not very high) age. It was cuh-razy.
I'm not sure how credible it is, conscientious objection is literally in the German constitution: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
As you said, you can only object if it goes against your conscience, but if you are against it for political reasons (e.g. you don't think its worth it to die for Germany), that's not a valid reason and your objection will be denied. They were also incredibly strict during the Cold War, only easing off a bit afterwards when they wanted a smaller military.
What's a reason that is politically and not against one's conscience? I assumed that one's political beliefs would also manifest in conscience.
The cold war has been over for a very long time. The whole process was reformed in 1984 by removing the mandatory oral hearing. Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995. That's not good enough (should be 100%), but not terrible either.
> What's a reason that is politically and not against one's conscience? I assumed that one's political beliefs would also manifest in conscience.
For example, I don't think it's in my interest to defend or die for the German state. However, I would use violence to protect my life if someone tried to kill me or threatened my life directly. The German state would interpret this as a political objection rather than a conscientious one, since I am willing to use violence in principle. If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.
> Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995.
Yes, as I said, after the Cold War, Germany no longer wanted to maintain such a large army, so they started accepting any reasonably well-written argument. But in any war, you can see that nation states will start struggling to recruit new soldiers as it becomes obvious to the population that it's a rather pointless endeavour to die for their state. So, they start forcing people. We've seen that in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, USA, etc.
Thanks for clarifying! I did some own research and apparaently in those oral hearings, objectors were often tricked into contradicting themselves with quite absurd scenarios.
>If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.
That is a complete fantasy of yours. Political convictions are explicitly stated as a valid type of justification for conscientious objection by the Act on Conscientious Objection to Military Service. It even states the reasons do not have to be logical or objectively comprehensible, which easily covers your "I'm not opposed to all violence in all theoretically cases, but I fundamentally reject service for the German state".
On the contrary, it says that even if you object, they can force you into "alternative service" without the use of arms. So they make you a soldier without a gun, or rather - a state slave.
> or rather - a state slave
That's one way to put it. The other would be 1 year of paid community service (which the alternative services ALWAYS were).
I had to go to the draft office in that time and behaved so badly that they didn't want to take me.
Also at that time only some people had to go to the draft, because they had not the capacity to take everyone. That made it likely easy for them to let go of suboptimal candidates.
Welcome to Dubai, German habibis, you can join all the Russians fleeing their draft here. Still a lot less likely to get hit by a drone here than to die when fighting on the frontlines in Europe.
Why would someone go to a place in an actual conflict zone that is under attack by actual drones right now to flee from hypothetical drones in a hypothetical conflict?
They just told you why. The probability of being hit by a drone there is extremely low.
We are indeed evolving into a situation where Islamic monarchies not only sound reasonable but start to look like a viable option.
*As long as you're part of a privileged, accepted class
Islamic societies could be the only ones that will be left standing after all these nonsense we see in the west.
I would bet my money on asian societies.
I don't know. A lot of countries in East Asia seem to struggle demographically just as much as Western countries do, if not more.
But at least it seems they didn't go for the easy solutions that is mass immigration, so hopefully their children's "seats" won't be taken when they finally wake up.
On the other hand, as someone living in Central Europe, it's obvious our society is heading towards a radical change. I don't know what will happen, but I don't recall ever reading about a indigenous population becoming a minority being a good thing for them.
I think its more about a rotten ideology and mass migration is only a symptom. Also it could make sense if you would actually care about taking people that are educated and willing to work.
That seems more “oh we fucked up and didn’t realize our changes to the law imply this” than “Germany forces men to request permission to leave”.
It is very likely this was done intentionally. Maybe not all people involved in making this law noticed it, but the person working on article 2 did this intentionally. They explicitly list that this article is always active now:
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__2.html
Highly doubt it. This is a very new addition. Their fuck up was to pretend for ideological reasons that a country doesn't need an army. And that the concept of considering a country home and its culture as something worth preserving is just right wing bs. Now they are surprised that only very few men deliberately registered for armed service ...
We’ll see, I guess.
The quotes very much read to me like someone realizing what the change of Paragraph 2 means to Paragraph 3 means in real time and having to figure out what to answer to journalists.
I’m curious how that would work administratively though - would they require you to have that when trying to do Ausmeldung? And what about those who moved out before this law got changed?
Technically, do I need to go Bundeswehr office when I come back next time, to get the permission?
I _want_ to believe if this was a deliberate change that someone cared about; we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now because there would be clear answers to the very obvious questions here, but maybe my hope is misplaced.
I'm not sure you understand how laws are made. It's not like "ooops a new law, who did that?" It's going through all sorts of processes with lots of people involved. And even if this is just an "innocent mistake", well, that would mean our government is run by a bunch of incompetent morons ...
Even NATO generals aren`t talking about Russia invading Germany anytime soon. It`s all about securing NATO territory in the Baltics. Confusing this with "considering a country home and its culture as something worth preserving" when there is no threat to German soil is misleading.
I kind of predicted this a long time ago. They way germany is currently run they will need to act like the DDR and force their people to stay.
Otherwise everyone with good education will leave.
that's a sad fact.
Note that this law still exists because it requires a constitutional change to include women (well, or to be abandoned). A constitutional change of the Grundgesetzbuch requires a 2/3rd majority in the parliament. That almost never happens these days, especially with green/left/social party being not really united anymore in their votes and the conservatives allying themselves with the far right.
The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.
Bundestag seats (from 2002 onwards):
2002 (15): https://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/html/pressemitteilungen1.ht...
2005 (16): https://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/html/presse_lwl_bw2005.html
2008 (17): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung17-2...
2013 (18): https://www.bundestag.de/webarchiv/textarchiv/2013/sitzvert_...
2017 (19): https://www.bundestag.de/278118-278118
2020 (20): https://web.archive.org/web/20211102103524/https://www.bunde... (couldn't find an article on the Bundestag website, got deleted. Web archive version is a little broken)
2025 (21): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung
> The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.
This is not true. After the last election the old parliament made a deal to change the grundgesetz with 2/3rd majority to allow the new parliament to take more debt.
"Free world"
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes says this:
> (2) Männliche Personen haben nach Vollendung des 17. Lebensjahres eine Genehmigung des zuständigen Karrierecenters der Bundeswehr einzuholen, wenn sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland länger als drei Monate verlassen wollen, ohne dass die Voraussetzungen des § 1 Absatz 2 bereits vorliegen. Das Gleiche gilt, wenn sie über einen genehmigten Zeitraum hinaus außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verbleiben wollen oder einen nicht genehmigungspflichtigen Aufenthalt außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland über drei Monate ausdehnen wollen. Die Genehmigung ist für den Zeitraum zu erteilen, in dem die männliche Person für eine Einberufung zum Wehrdienst nicht heransteht. Über diesen Zeitraum hinaus ist sie zu erteilen, soweit die Versagung für die männliche Person eine besondere – im Bereitschafts-, Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall eine unzumutbare – Härte bedeuten würde; § 12 Absatz 6 ist entsprechend anzuwenden. Das Bundesministerium der Verteidigung kann Ausnahmen von der Genehmigungspflicht zulassen.
See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html
This was not changed.
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes was previously only active in a war or close to war situation (Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall). Article 2 said this before:
> § 2 Geltung der folgenden Vorschriften
> Die §§ 3 bis 53 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
See: https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze/blob/master/w/wehrpflg/...
Now it says this:
> § 2 Anwendung dieses Gesetzes
> (1) Die nachfolgenden Vorschriften gelten nach Maßgabe der folgenden Absätze.
> (2) Die §§ 3 bis 52 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
> (4) Die §§ 15a und 16 sind nur auf Betroffene anzuwenden, die nach dem 31. Dezember 2007 geboren sind. Satz 1 gilt nicht im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__2.html
This law changed it: https://www.recht.bund.de/bgbl/1/2025/370/VO
Is the a up to date git repository with all German law changes? The one I found was last updated 4 years ago.
Very ancient law, yes.
Also: Our law only knowns in this regard only knows either peace and wartime, but no in-between state of state financed propaganda or partisan/guerilla warfare that could already be our current status quo.
Propaganda of course is very legitimate in peace times. Digital attacks might always be criminal action or plausibly deniable. Recruiting civilians happens by both e.g. Russian Federation for sabotage and Ukraine for printing missile, drone or mine parts, see drukarmy. But when one group of allies and another state behave the current way, "Spannungsfall" might be reached easily when policy makers declare that has now happened once again after the fall of the eastern block wall.
This headline is kind of misleading.
First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.
And to be completely honest, if more people made use of registering for the damn ELEFAND emergency contact list, this rule wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.
So, men are kind of responsible for this themselves by being lazy.
I had to help exfil Germans in Kabul when the US decided to pull out without telling all of their partners in time.
Everyone wanted to be rescued, but you have no idea how many German idiots travel to foreign countries, not even taking five minutes to let their own government know how to reach them and where they went in case of an emergency.
It’s super fun to drive around Kabul and pick up 55 years old complaining male Germans yelling at me because I told them I transport people, not their fucking luggage. Two even sued me afterwards for leaving their expensive camera equipment behind. A dozen complaints about my behavior.
Sometimes it’s really annoying to protect the average citizen. Luckily, I understand that it is an extreme situation for them. Just like some people sue nurses after they broke their ribs reviving their dead ass.
It’s a good thing all these idiots now have to ask for permission in the future and likely need to leave the data necessary so it’s known where they are, for how long and how to reach them.
just want to point out you started at this headline is misleading and meandered to agreeing with this being a law now and it was made for a reason and it will be enforced sooner or later. and that's effectively the headline + you think it's a good thing.
Thank you, I suspect the _de in your username means you are German or German-speaking?
A friend from the US sent the link to this thread to me, asking about it.
The source website has no ability to be switched to English language, so all information my friend got was from the headline, which without context was misleading for him. If it was clear people wouldn’t ask German-speaking friends to explain this to them, don’t you think?
And if we are really precise, right now German men don’t need to request permission, because there is neither a process nor any paperwork in place to request permission.
Without being able to see and understand the context, the headline on its own is misleading in my opinion.
Just do an experiment for yourself.
Take the original transcript from any trump speech during the Iran war and put it in a German translator. You will understand it’s about the Iran war but you will be surprised how insane those speeches sound if you are not able to understand English and rely on Google Translate to understand the context.
I get your point, I'm not agreeing ... anyway, there are plenty of tools available to translate text from German to English.
That’s fine. I don’t want to get into a discussion about how important the accuracy of translation is with topics like law, civil rights, military, etc.
I trust humans. I don’t trust machines. You do you.
Thank you for the exchange and pointing out my inaccuracy. I will try to do better next time.
Have a good day and enjoy your Easter holidays if you’re Christian.
> First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.
Previously this article 3 was only active in the "Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall" which the Parliament has to declare. The law was extended with: "Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45." so this article is always active now.
Those governments are totally inept.
For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.
Think about it, Trump approval rating fell sharply but is still at about 40%. Merz is at 15% and most of those 15% are probably boomers in a nursing home. He is probably closer to 0% within the demographic he is trying to conscript.
The only war you're gonna get in Europe is a civil war.
> For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.
In particular concerning the military conscription (laws), there exists a cross-generational opposition to these.
I just post two famous songs concerning this topic (if you know German):
Franz Josef Degenhardt - Befragung eines Kriegsdienstverweigerers [40 Interrogation of a conscientious objector] (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDTtMTcj8X0
--
Reinhard Mey - Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht (1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0qPsYTBCtQ
Reinhard Mey & Freunde [Reinhard Mey & friends] - Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht [No, I won't give my sons] (new recording; 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-Ga3myTP4
See also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nein,_meine_S%C3%B6hne_geb%E2%...
> He is probably closer to 0% within the demographic he is trying to conscript.
To be fair going against the demographic where you have a 0% approval rate does not lose you much.
At some point you need to be nice to your children or they'll not help you when you get old and senile.
This is only for citizen not refugees/immigrants so both MEA and NA folks can chill.
Yes the US has a more insidious "hidden" law that I'm amazed Trump has not used to his advantage. It's a felony for the younger illegal immigrants males who are eligible to not register for the draft (most visa and legally visa exempt tourists are exempt, but the exemption falls off if you fall out of status). Almost none of them do, meaning almost all undocumented military-age-males are actively committing a serious crime.
It's either generousness or incompetence.
Why aren't refugees/immigrants conscripted over citizens?
Because citizenship is a commitment, not merely a set of privileges. If you obtain a citizenship (or have it imposed on you upon birth), it comes with a set of duties other residents and visitors do not have. The duty to defend your country is a traditional one.
Some countries may conscript non-citizens or allow them to serve voluntarily. Often because they are more likely to use the military as an extension of foreign policy rather than for defense. Others may see it a waste of effort, as those people are probably not sufficiently committed to the continued existence of the country.
The philosophical justifications sound nice and all.
The thing is that when you have a huge non-citizen percentage of the population that is actively drawing taxpayer money out of the state to the point where the social welfare system is beginning to break down, and you have the working citizens of the country being taxed at 50% or more to support that during an escalating global cost of living crisis, you have effectively destroyed the social contract around citizenship that permits this system to function. For the massive aged population that's drawing retiree benefits, there's at least the justification that they paid into the system during their lifetime, even if the equation that makes the retirement system work increasingly doesn't work anymore.
Now the young people are being told to go die to keep that system alive. I wouldn't be surprised if most don't.
Do I have the right to give my citizenship away if I don't want it anymore?
Because not only that the immigrants have no allegiance to Germany, most have different culture and sometimes incompatible values.
I grew up in the Middle East and I can tell that cultural differences and values were more smooth and compatible than what I saw in Germany. Conscription requires a degree of trust in the people you give guns to and expect to fight on your side in case it is needed, that is mostly not true with immigrants in all times and all countries.
Ten years of "refugees welcome" to fighting age men who we don't trust won't run amok when we go to war with a third party. Very cool.
Because immigrants have the right to be protected, while native men have a duty to die for their rulers.
Dunno how it is in Germany but quite a few of my non white friends wound up in the Canadian Army.
I don't know why immigration is brought up in this conversation at all.
It is about citizenship, not race.
There are a lot of non-white citizens of Canada (and Germany) whereas the comment you’re replying to is about non-citizens. Also Canada hasn’t had conscription for a long time as far as I know, the friends you refer to were volunteers.
Posted previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626116
Comments moved thither. Thanks!
Edit: actually, we'll merge them hither instead of thither since current article is in English.
(We have deep respect for other languages, but HN has always been an English-language site - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
Are homo sapiens the only species that organizes themselves into tribes and work towards the destruction of other tribes of same species?
Not even close. Territorial disputes are incredibly common in nature. Humans are relatively rare in that we're capable of understanding that depriving competitors of resources will eventually lead to their deaths, but that is the ultimate result of winning a territory dispute in nature too.
No, Chimpanzees also have tribes and fight over territory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
TBF that is an isolated incident, not a distinguishing trait of a species.
Weaver ants
That is how some people make a lot of money.
No, this is a very common behavior in the animal kingdom...
I still cannot understand why and what we are fighting for. Setting aside the wars of the previous decades, Russia was a long term ally with Ukraine, much like the USA and Canada and then out of nowhere they are in a "soft war". Also, after 50 years of the Islamic regime in Iran, we should engage in another soft war, again because of ill defined reasons. The soft is in contrast to regular war which locks down the whole society and has innumerous deaths and pain. I still cannot.
What is this propaganda.
> Russia was a long term ally with Ukraine, much like the USA and Canada and then out of nowhere they are in a "soft war"
First off the history between Ukraine and Russia is nothing like between USA and Canada. Russia killed millions of Ukrainians in 30's by starvation, known as "Holodomor".
Secondly Ukraine voted for independence immediately after Soviet Union collapsed.
Most egregious claim is the "soft war" one. Russia attacked to Ukraine in 2014 and started full scale war in 2022 that has led to close to two million casualties. What the f*ck is "hard war" if this is "soft war"?
where did you get this information? after the collapse of the ussr and before putin there was no tension at all. yeah, there's some history, like between any (almost) neighboring countries. there are no real reason to fight between russia and ukraine. these conflict was absolutely hand-made by russian propaganda
I cannot agree that Russia and Ukraine were ever long term allies. It was, at best, more like an uneasy co-existence.
Russia, and especially Putin (over the last 26 years), never considered Ukraine an ally but rather a puppet and something that must be in their direct influence/control. Their relationship can’t be compared to the one the US and Canada had.
Nothing that is an actual serious threat. Overall, my (cynical) interpretation is that the aim is to handle military matters at EU level (nail in the coffin of national sovereignty in Europe) and to become more of a credible military power. Both of which require a narrative to get public consent and a foreign threat is a proven, effective narrative.