Germany must rebuild military conscription system, commissioner says

The German parliament’s commissioner for the armed forces urged a rapid rebuilding of the country’s registration system for possible military conscription in an annual report released on Tuesday.

Germany suspended mandatory military service for men in 2011, although the requirement remains in the country’s Basic Law, the de facto constitution. At the time, the German government also ended registration and closed the 52 district military offices that had managed the conscription system.

It’s now “urgently necessary to reactivate the registration system anchored in the Conscription Act,” said the report from the commissioner, Eva Högl.

“A country that could respond to a possible attack with an excellently trained and equipped army is a deterrent to potential aggressors,” wrote Högl. “Fundamental to this is data on who can be called upon in the event of tension and defence, how suitable the people are and what qualifications they have.”

But as a result of the previous dismantling of the system under former chancellor Angela Merkel, those kind of data are no longer available to the military in case of conflict.

“As a result, there is no longer a comprehensive picture of the situation for the respective age groups subject to compulsory military service and their willingness and ability to perform military service,” wrote Högl.

She added that the gap exists even though “compulsory military service for German men based on Article 12a of the Basic Law and the Conscription Act continues to exist as a potential obligation.”

Current German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius had called on lawmakers to approve a model for military service in recent months, but that proposal was put aside because of the February election.

Högl, however, warned that newly elected lawmakers need to urgently take up the issue and make swift decisions on how to introduce a new military service system as well as an alternative non-military service for conscientious objectors.