The SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil has spoken out in favor of asking every young person whether they are willing to do military or civilian voluntary service.
“Personally, I don’t believe in reintroducing compulsory military service because I think that compulsory service is not appropriate,” said Klingbeil to the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post”. “What I think is right is that every young person is confronted at some point in their life with the question of whether he or she would like to do a service for our country. No matter whether in the Bundeswehr or in the social sector. For this we need the voluntary services strengthen.”
At the same time, Klingbeil welcomed “the efforts of (Defense Minister) Boris Pistorius to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as an employer and to recruit young talent.” Pistorius said before Christmas that he was examining models of compulsory service in view of the shortage of personnel in the force, citing the Swedish model as an example.
However, there is no pure compulsory military service there, but rather a general civil or military service requirement for all young men and women. Everyone is mustered and then selected based on their suitability and motivation for military service – in 2025 around 8,000 out of 100,000 will be able to complete their duty in the troops, as the defense attaché at the embassy in Berlin, Jonas Hard af Segerstad, recently wrote in the defense blog “Augen straight ahead!” explained.
