Is he just informing people, or is he already recruiting? Influential education unions reject youth officers. At a secondary school in Berlin, the positive experiences predominate.
Berlin – It is 10.30 a.m. on a Wednesday shortly before the summer holidays. The first long break is over, the pupils at the Johann Julius Hecker School in Marzahn-Hellersdorf are going to their classrooms. There are videos on the shelf, “The Hitler Assassination Attempt” and “Good Bye Lenin”. A few days before the certificates are handed out, however, the usual DVD is not put in – an unusual guest is speaking.
“Good morning! You see, there is someone else standing up front today,” greets the Bundeswehr soldier Mike Siebert in a firm voice. “I am standing before you today as a youth officer.” Captain Siebert, wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt, still looks youthful himself. He is 28 years old and, as he stands clean-shaven in front of the class 10.3 blackboard, he looks even a little younger.
Pistorius assumes that “the Bundeswehr’s information work remains in high demand”
Siebert looks at the students with alert eyes. He immediately begins with the most dangerous of all tasks: “What do you think,” he asks, “is sending the armed forces into a mission?” Everyone in the room should think for a moment, after all it is a “serious decision”. You could be injured or – in the worst case – not return home at all. The majority of 10.3 believe that the Minister of Defense is responsible. “That just sounds the most extreme,” says a 15-year-old student. She is wrong. The Bundeswehr is a parliamentary army, two of her classmates suspected this. “It would be logical,” says one, “if a large group decides.”
Youth officers are advisors on security policy. “They inform, clarify and organize,” writes Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) in the latest annual report. And above all: “They do not impose preconceived opinions, but rather help people to find their own answers.” Last year, youth officers informed 158,149 mostly young people about the security situation in Germany at 5,499 events. In view of the war in Ukraine, Pistorius assumes that “the Bundeswehr’s information work will remain in great demand in the future.”
The education union GEW criticises an “increasing influence of the Bundeswehr” in schools
The model has been criticized by the Education and Science Union (GEW). “The GEW is firmly opposed to the increasing influence of the Bundeswehr on the content of lessons,” it said. “Political education – including in questions of security policy – belongs in the hands of trained educational experts and not in the hands of youth officers.”
Youth officers only come to schools on request. Captain Siebert said he really enjoyed the task in a preliminary interview with this editorial team. “You have the opportunity to talk to young people and to society in general – especially in times of disinformation, it is important to talk about critical issues.” The Johann Julius Hecker School has been working successfully with youth officers for more than 25 years. “I always liked the concept,” says headmistress Jana Harwardt. “We have already held company evenings here with the Bundeswehr, which is also a major employer.”
The youth officer relies on the maturity of the students
In the 1990s, Detlef Wedde, Harwardt’s current deputy, took the initiative and invited a youth officer to class for the first time. Wedde, born in the GDR in 1963, served as a border guard in the National People’s Army (NVA) at the end of the Cold War. His personal experiences as a guard had a profound impact on him, says the politics teacher. “Orders and harassment” was how he experienced the NVA. “That later pushed me to give the students a different image of the army after the fall of the Wall,” he says. “We often talked about youth officers in the teaching staff, and now everyone here is behind the collaboration.”
Captain Siebert relies on the students’ independence. “Very important,” he stresses to class 10.3: “We don’t do recruitment advertising. You can like the Bundeswehr, you can not like it so much – that doesn’t matter to me personally.” The students can “ask critical questions at any time.”
The CDU advises school principals to abandon their “ideologically based fears of contact”
Where does information end? Where does advertising begin? Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, schools should be less squeamish on this issue, says CDU defense politician Kerstin Vieregge. “It is unacceptable that there are still head teachers and principals who withhold this form of political education from their students due to ideologically motivated fears,” says Vieregge in her parliamentary office. “The German peace movement also seems not to have understood that it is our soldiers and our armed forces that secure peace and stand up for it.”
When asked about his own motivation, Siebert describes in Marzahn-Hellersdorf how the attacks of September 11, 2001, affected him as a child. “That was a big Turning point“, he says. “But what do the Twin Towers have to do with the Bundeswehr?” asks one of the students. “That is exactly the right question,” replies Siebert: “After that day, NATO Article 5 was triggered for the first time.” Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty guarantees the mutual protection of NATO members.
The youth officer’s main message: “Security policy concerns everyone”
As enthusiastic as Siebert sometimes comes across when he talks about security policy, he is just as critical when it comes to the consequences of 9/11. In Germany, the Afghanistan mission was not described as a war for a long time, he says. From the soldiers’ point of view, this did not always seem happy. “Comrades died in the Hindu Kush, including from other nations.” The Bundeswehr only really received appreciation after the most recent change of times, says Captain Siebert, after the Russian attack on Ukraine. Perhaps this is due to the armed forces’ refreshed basic idea: “It’s about being able to wage war so that they don’t have to wage war.”
“Security policy concerns everyone.” This sentence is repeated several times by Siebert during this lesson. “Do you feel safe, in general, in Germany?” he asks. The 10.3 class ponders this. “Yes, I do,” say some. “Partly, partly,” say others. According to the results of a short survey, the young people in the secondary school class are particularly worried about environmental pollution, armed conflicts and extreme weather events.
Headmistress Harwardt and her deputy Wedde think highly of the young people. “They are honest and ask questions,” praises Harwardt after school. This may be a difference between secondary schools and grammar schools, where the climate is much more performance-oriented and no one wants to attract attention by making critical comments. “Our students should learn to reflect.”
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