Conscripts during an exercise as part of basic training in a photo from 2005
Image: dpa
A quarter of a century ago, a federal government commission developed a model for modern conscription. It's time to bring it out. A guest post.
NSo Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has once again made the reactivation of compulsory military service, which his predecessors were happy to avoid, the key question for the future of the Bundeswehr. He has no other choice.
The recruitment deficits of the volunteer army introduced in 2011 are too obvious, especially since Russia's attack on Ukraine has made it a priority of German defense policy to strengthen the contributions of our armed forces to alliance defense.
But Pistorius is lucky. He does not need to research suitable concepts in other alliance armies, as he suggested, but simply instruct his office to place a document from May 2000 on his desk. At that time, an independent commission convened by the then federal government (the author was a member) and chaired by the former Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker presented its recommendations to the government and the public.
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