Last Friday, the German Bundestag voted on steps toward reactivating compulsory military service, which has been paused since 2011. A few hours later, young people in 90 German cities went on strike—according to organizers, it was 55,000 total.
Of the 596 “representatives of the people” who voted, 323 said “Ja” to a new draft—despite one recent survey showing 63 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds are opposed. Bourgeois democracy at work!
This is not yet conscription. Starting in 2026, all 18-year-old men will be required to fill out a survey and take a physical exam. They will then be offered enormous benefits to sign up for the Bundeswehr. Starting pay is €2,600 per month—and since soldiers pay lower taxes and insurance contributions, they can take home €2,300 or €2,400. Additional perks include free driving school and free benefits on the train. In vocational programs, in contrast, 18-year-olds often have to survive on just a few hundred euros per month. The German government claims there is no money to pay nurses, day care workers, or bus drivers—but somehow there is limitless money for soldiers.
They hope to expand the army to 270,000 soldiers via voluntary enlistment—and if they fail to reach that number, they can start press-ganging young men. Given the enormous unpopularity of the measure before it’s even started, it likely won’t take long until Zwang (force) is introduced.
Fight for what?
At the demonstrations on Friday, young people were clear: If Merz is so enthusiastic, he can go to the front himself.
One young person got to ask Merz directly on TV: “Why should I fight for a country that doesn’t give me the feeling that it’s fighting for me?” He mentioned the cancellation of the Kulturpass and rising prices for train travel.
Merz could only offer dumb patriotic clichés: “We are one of the most beautiful countries in the world!” Merz could ask the more than one million people without a home how beautiful Germany seems to them. Even though he seems to believe that there is no homelessness in Germany.
This demand to “serve your country” comes after decades of neoliberalism. A generation of people have been raised with the message that they are on their own. The state doesn’t care if they freeze to death on the street. Yet now they are supposed to sacrifice? For what? In a moment of unintentional comedy, “service” is being pushed by shamelessly corrupt politicians like Jens Spahn, who “serve” only to line their pockets.
If Merz were interested in “defending” young people, he could build affordable housing. The Bundeswehr’s most recent missions included occupying Afghanistan and Mali. Who or what was being protected there? According to disgraced former president Horst Köhler, the German military was protecting “free trade routes.” Köhler had to resign for accidentally telling the truth.
Into the trenches
When news of Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine leaked, German arms manufacturers and politicians needed a neologism for what they were feeling: Friedensangst or “fear of peace.” A cessation of hostilities would be terrible for Rheinmetall’s profits. European governments have been doing everything they could to prolong the fighting.
Over three quarters of Ukrainians want to see the conflict frozen, according to one poll, and hundreds of thousands of young people are fleeing the country to avoid conscription. But Europe’s imperialist powers are determined to fight to the last Ukrainian. So young men are being kidnapped off the streets and forced into the trenches—even as they see that this is not about protecting their families, but rather about protecting capitalist profits.
To be honest, I was expecting even more kids on the streets last Friday, given the widespread antimilitarist sentiment. But I think lots of young people do not yet believe that the bourgeoisie is serious about waging new wars. It doesn’t help that you have pedantic bootlickers saying: this isn’t yet compulsory military service! Yes, this is just the organizational preparations for conscription.
The German bourgeoisie has waged two world wars, and they have never paid for their crimes. They are coming for our kids—and we need to help our kids stop them.
Red Flag is a weekly opinion column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.
