“Germany is back,” said Friedrich Merz, the country’s likely next chancellor. That sentence once would have caused dread on the continent. Now, Germany’s neighbors are pleased to see Berlin shouldering more responsibility for their collective security. A huge step in that direction is new legislation that allows greater borrowing for defense spending, which passed through the Bundestag on Tuesday and should give Merz the financial means to make the country fighting fit.
What would be harder is changing the German mindset. Dragging a country that was happy to leave its militaristic past behind into an age of defense-readiness would be a massive challenge.
If the enormous spending package the Bundestag approved travels through the rest of the legislative process and becomes law, Merz would have a historic opportunity to transform the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, from top to bottom.
Illustration: Constance Chou
Alongside allowing 500 billion euros (US$545.3 billion) in debt for infrastructure investments, the world’s third-largest economy has effectively exempted defense spending from its usually tough rules on borrowing. That is on top of the special 100 billion euro military fund German Chancellor Olaf Scholz approved in 2022. This vast financial leeway should help Germany contribute to deterrence and defense in Europe, now that US security guarantees could no longer be relied upon.
However, there is a problem: The majority of Germans seem unwilling to fight for their country. All that spending on military equipment would be pointless if there are no people around to use it. In a recent poll, 60 percent of people said they “probably” or “definitely” would not defend Germany with military force even if it were attacked directly. Among women, the rate went up to 73 percent. The survey also found that, on average, people were less willing to defend Germany the higher their education status was and the more left-wing they were in their politics.
This is reflected in the Bundeswehr’s longstanding recruitment crisis. A recent report found that Germany’s military is 20,000 soldiers short of its 203,000-people target, and that since 2019, the average age of personnel has gone up to 34 years from 32 because fewer young people are joining.
The government and Bundeswehr have long called for a return to some form of conscription to solve this problem. Marcel Bohnert, senior army officer and deputy leader of the German Bundeswehr Association, recently said that there was no point in hoping for more voluntary recruits. He argued that the military has tried everything from modern marketing and social media campaigns to job fairs and school visits.
However, it is doubtful that people can be forced into service. Many younger Germans resisted male conscription before it was suspended in 2011. By that point, it had already been reduced to just six months (during the Cold War, it had been 15 months in West Germany and 18 months in East Germany). There was also a civilian service equivalent, which young men could choose to do instead. Still, many resented the whole principle of enforced national service.
When I was at school in Germany in the early 2000s, my male friends did everything they could to fail their medical fitness tests once they had received their draft letters. Some ate a lot of eggs to mess up their kidney values. Others took drugs. One feigned a mental health condition. It worked for most of them. In 2010, only 32,673 young men completed military service, even though the government wanted 50,000. The idea seemed a waste of time for those who wanted to go to university, start an apprenticeship or travel. Wars were things that happened to other countries.
Of course, the world is not what it was 20 years ago. A major war has returned to Europe, and many feel the continent stands alone in the face of Russian aggression. Studies have suggested that fear of war is now the number one concern of young Germans. One poll showed that in 2019, just under half of 12-to-25-year-olds worried about “war in Europe.” Last year the figure went up to 81 percent.
Yet fear might not be a strong enough motivator for action. Currently, just 11,434 men and women are completing military service on a voluntary basis. When recent polls asked if conscription should be reintroduced, a majority of up to 70 percent of Germans said yes. However, among people younger than 30 — those who would actually have to serve — only a minority approved.
Last year, I attended a conference at which former German minister of defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg spoke. It had been his decision as defense minister in 2010 to suspend conscription. Now he was arguing that he had been wrong and it should be brought back. A young man in the audience stood up, annoyed, and asked: “Why should I spend a year of my life doing something you want me to do?”
He is clearly not alone.
A study conducted by the Bundeswehr in 2022 found that the main motives of those who do join are that they feel the military offers “a good place to work, camaraderie and teamwork. But not pay, working hours or mobility.” So there is room for improvement in making soldiering a more attractive career choice.
The biggest challenge would remain convincing young Germans that their country and its values are worth risking life and limb for. The truth is, while the military enjoys consistently high trust levels in society, German society emerged from the moral bankruptcy of Hitler’s genocidal war rightfully chastened and wary of military culture. This legacy lives on in hearts and minds today.
When the Bundeswehr performed its traditional Grosser Zapfenstreich (“Grand Tattoo”) ceremony in 2021 to honor the 90,000 German soldiers who had served in Afghanistan and especially the 60 of them who had fallen, there was widespread outrage. The 19th-century tradition, which involves torch marches, has been used by all German armies for well over a century, including by the Nazis, but also by both German postwar forces and the current Bundeswehr.
Yet public figures such as former Green party politician Jutta Ditfurth were disgusted by the sight of German military traditions on display. Ditfurth posted on social media at the time: “When Germans pick up torches, I can’t eat as much as I’d like to sick up.” Hashtags like #Wehrmacht — the name for the German army in World War II — were soon trending on social media.
The incident exemplifies the careful balance Germany has to strike in becoming more at ease with defending itself and others without forgetting its history in the process. The armies of France, the UK and the US draw much of their proud modern-day military cultures from the same history that causes feelings of guilt and anxiety in Germany’s collective psyche. They would not work as role models for Germany, which would have to find its own path.
Getting a bigger defense budget approved is nothing compared with what would have to come next to make Germany fight fit. The Bundeswehr does not have a long-established military tradition of fighting for democracy and freedom. Merz would have to find a way to build one, and that requires a transformation that goes beyond politics and money.
Katja Hoyer is a British-German historian and journalist. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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