A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #36 - International - Berlin Goes to War, Germans Less... - Marco Veruggio (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Last week-May 21, 2025-the new Chancellor Merz announced that Germany 
will have the "strongest army in Europe": military spending will rise to 
5% of GDP, as Trump has requested, but to achieve this, the workforce 
will need to be doubled, and German society doesn't seem to appreciate 
this, especially among young people. On May 15, presenting the new 
German government's program to the Bundestag, Christian Democrat 
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the German Bundeswehr will become 
the "strongest army in Europe." Two days later, following talks with his 
US counterpart Marco Rubio in Istanbul, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul 
(CDU) added that in the coming years, Germany aims to achieve a military 
spending-to-GDP ratio of 5%, as advocated by Donald Trump. This goal was 
confirmed by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) on Tuesday. Huge 
investments are planned in the Bundeswehr's armored units and military 
infrastructure. In 2024, German military spending amounted to 
approximately EUR70 billion-EUR50 billion from the regular budget, plus 
EUR20 billion from the EUR100 billion extraordinary fund created to 
respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Regular spending is expected 
to rise to EUR60 billion in 2025, but reaching 5% of GDP would mean 
exceeding the EUR200 billion annual threshold, approximately 40% of 
Berlin's healthcare spending and the German state's annual expenditure 
on education. Meanwhile, in March, the last act of the former 
SPD-Green-Liberal legislature was to exempt defense from debt 
containment rules.

300,000 Soldiers Wanted

Weapons alone, however, are not enough: it also takes the people who use 
them. The new government's program, a coalition of the CDU-CSU and SPD, 
includes the introduction of a new voluntary military service, aimed at 
rebuilding the German armed forces, which are overstretched and subject 
to inexorable erosion. The plan calls for, among other things, all 
18-year-old male citizens-for women, the questionnaire is voluntary-to 
complete a questionnaire declaring their willingness to "serve the 
fatherland" and verifying their suitability. Those eligible will be 
invited, but not required, to enlist. This is actually a measure already 
introduced by the previous Defense Minister, the Social Democrat 
Pistorius-confirmed by Merz.
"Würden Sie für Deutschland kämpfen?"-"Would you fight for Germany?"-was 
the headline in the weekly magazine Stern a few weeks ago, featuring a 
very young man on the cover, half in civilian clothes and half in 
uniform. And that's the crux of the matter. In 2024, a Gallup 
International poll (1) recorded that one in four Germans was willing to 
fight for their country, and it is likely that the percentage among 
young people will be even lower. According to Christian Richter, 
lieutenant colonel in the reserve and expert at the German Institute for 
Defense and Strategic Studies, a Bundeswehr think tank, "If basic 
military service fails to significantly motivate a higher number of 
young people to volunteer in the near future, the Bundeswehr will not 
have the number of trained active soldiers and reservists it needs."
According to the government's annual report on the state of the 
Bundeswehr (2), moreover, the German armed forces are already shrinking. 
The number of personnel has stabilized at around 181,000, and the 
average age has risen by almost a year from 2021 to 2024, from 33.1 to 
34. Furthermore, last year, discharges outnumbered enlistees, and nearly 
a third of new recruits dropped out of training before it was completed. 
"We need 100,000 additional troops immediately or as quickly as 
possible," General Carsten Breuer, Supreme Commander of the German Armed 
Forces, told an event of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
The broader, long-term goal is much higher. According to Breuer, 
"Germany has personnel needs on the table that amount to 460,000 
soldiers," including active-duty personnel, reservists, and former 
soldiers to be recalled in the event of a serious crisis, which may not 
be far off. According to Politico.eu (3), NATO and German intelligence 
expect that by 2029, Russia will have rebuilt its capacity to threaten 
NATO countries, which had been eroded by the war in Ukraine. By then, 
Germany must be ready for war. "We must become kriegstüchtig" - fit for 
war - Pistorius often repeats, referring not only to the Bundeswehr, but 
more generally to a society "fit for war".
Bavaria anticipated this trend: in July 2024, it approved the Gesetz zur 
Förderung der Bundeswehr in Bayern (4) - Law for the Promotion of the 
Bundeswehr in Bavaria - with the votes of the CSU, Freien Wählern, and 
SPD. The law, among other things, will guarantee "smooth cooperation" 
and "unhindered access by the Bundeswehr to research and development at 
universities," as well as to scientific expertise and scientifically 
qualified specialists, eliminating the so-called "civil clauses" 
provided for by German law. This allows scientific research institutions 
to conduct research exclusively for civilian and peaceful purposes. The 
first such provision was at the University of Bremen in 1986, in the 
twilight of the Cold War. Today, around 70 German universities and 
colleges have introduced them, and in some cases, they have even entered 
higher education. In Bavaria, on the other hand, civil clauses have 
never been stipulated, but with the new law, they are categorically 
prohibited. At the national level, the CDU and FDP are calling for the 
abolition of all restrictions on military research and the repeal of 
civil clauses from federal law and university statutes, as they are "no 
longer in step with the times."
The law passed in Bavaria stipulates that "research results may also be 
used for the military purposes of the Federal Republic of Germany or 
NATO allies" and that a "research limitation" to the civilian sphere, as 
regulated by the so-called civil clauses, is inadmissible and therefore 
prohibited. As the drafters of the law wrote in their introductory 
report, civil clauses are "unacceptable in light of the existing 
security policy challenges."

The new law also applies to all state schools in Bavaria: in future, 
they will be required to collaborate more closely with the Bundeswehr's 
Jugendoffiziere (Youth Officers) and Karriereberater (Career Advisors) 
"in the context of political education" of students and on "security and 
defense policy issues," as well as for "vocational guidance regarding 
career and employment opportunities" in the armed forces.

Military service? No, thank you

Germany's military shortage has its roots in policies that for decades, 
especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, marginalized the armed 
forces from German society. Under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, numerous 
military bases were closed, especially in cities, and the army 
disappeared from public view. Conscription was abolished in 2011. The 
armed forces responded with massive campaigns promoting voluntary 
enlistment, including on social media, such as those seen on the TikTok 
account Bundeswehrkarriere (5) - Working Group of Homosexual Members of 
the German Armed Forces, which since 2020 has been called Queer BW. But 
often these initiatives have had no effect or have even sparked a storm 
of controversy.
Already in 2018, a Bundeswehr poster featuring the slogan "Multiplayer 
at its best" at the Gamescom video game festival in Cologne was accused 
of trivializing war in the eyes of adolescents. This January, the city 
of Zwickau banned military advertisements from public spaces, calling 
itself a "city of peace" (although the municipal supervisory authority 
later ruled that this decision violated the law). In the months that 
followed, there were protests by Munich tram drivers against Bundeswehr 
advertisements on the exterior liveries of trams, and student 
demonstrations in a Leipzig high school against the invasive presence of 
Jugendoffiziere in classrooms. (6)      Even the United Nations has in 
the past censored proselytism in German schools. In a 2014 report (7), 
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) deplored 
that "some advertising campaigns for the armed forces are specifically 
aimed at minors and representatives of the armed forces are sometimes 
present in school settings, speaking to pupils and organising 
activities" and called on the German government to intervene with a law, 
including raising the minimum age for recruitment to 18. Despite this, 
in the last five years the Bundeswehr has recruited almost 8,000 
underage boys and girls - since 2011 almost 20,000 seventeen-year-olds - 
and trained them in the use of weapons (authorised by their parents). In 
2023, there were almost 2,000 citizens, a record number, who, as the TAZ 
journalist wrote on 26 July 2024 (8), quoting the figure, "cannot vote 
for candidates for the Bundestag but they can learn to die". In Bavaria, 
nearly 14% of recruits are "child soldiers." But as we've seen, a 
significant portion drop out before completing their training, 
confirming that the Bundeswehr's announcements truly trivialize the 
barracks experience.
The main school union, Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW), 
also strongly opposes the growing influence of the Bundeswehr in 
schools. "In our opinion," they write on their website (9), "political 
education - including security policy issues - should be the 
responsibility of personnel with educational expertise, not of 
Jugendoffiziere. Young people must be protected from advertisements that 
publicize military service by hiding or trivializing its risks. Service 
differs from most training and employment relationships." The GEW 
invites its members to submit agendas in school bodies against the 
presence of the Bundeswehr in classrooms and is part of the "Unter 18 
nie" ("Never under 18") campaign, which calls for raising the military 
conscription age to 18 and a ban on military proselytism among minors.

The Achilles' Heel of Imperialism

In short, Germany, a country that for decades attempted to exorcise the 
crimes of Prussian and then German militarism, is rapidly positioning 
itself at the forefront of a Europe that raises the threat of Putin and 
"American betrayal" to try to escape the quagmire and relaunch the 
project of a European imperialist hub capable of competing with other 
global powers. Moreover, military proselytism in schools is one of the 
measures included in the measure recently approved by the European 
Parliament, which encourages rearming and support for Ukraine until 
"victory over Russia."
However, German society, like European society more generally, has 
changed profoundly over the last century. According to Destatis (10) the 
average age is growing, 44.6 years in 2023, despite the contribution of 
immigrants (non-Germans are 15%), but in the eastern Länder it even 
exceeds 47. A figure to which the population growth rate contributes, 
which in 2024 was negative - +100,000 new Germans against 340,000 the 
previous year, while at the height of the Prussian power and on the eve 
of the First World War Germany experienced an extraordinary demographic 
growth - from 41 million in 1871 to 56 in 1900. The class composition 
has also changed considerably. The peasant masses, who could be 
mobilized by force, but also manipulated with a certain ease, to turn 
them into cannon fodder for the Kaiser, have effectively disappeared: in 
1907, agricultural workers in Germany numbered 10 million, by 2010 they 
had become one million (11).
Finally, there is another aspect that should not be underestimated. The 
German labor aristocracy, the core of the SPD's social base, which on 
August 4, 1914, voted for war credits to finance the war adventure of 
its ruling classes, was at least initially able to judge that it was 
worth it, all things considered. German imperialism had long guaranteed 
them the legacy of the welfare state desired by Bismarck to neutralize 
the socialists, supplemented by the fruits of labor struggles. The 
socialists also reaped significant benefits: parliamentarians, swarms of 
party and union officials, newspapers, a thriving associationism 
financed partly by the profits of German capitalism, 35,000 cooperatives 
with over six million members. Today, Germany is one of the richest 
economies in the world, but also a country where, according to Destatis 
data (12), in 2022 21.1% of the population, equal to 17.3 million 
people, was at risk of poverty or social exclusion and 15.5% at risk of 
falling below the poverty line (but among young people this indicator 
rises to 25%). Therefore, beyond the rejection of violence or fear, if 
only 24% of Germans are ready to fight for their country, there are also 
material reasons: fight to defend what? And the situation in the main 
European countries, including Italy, is not dissimilar. This is the true 
Achilles heel of European imperialism today.

Notes:

1)(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/3/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3 
cuZ2FsbHVwLWludGVybmF0aW9uYWwuY29tL2ZpbGVhZG1pbi91c2VyX3VwbG9hZC9zdXJ2ZXlzX2FuZF9uZX 
dzLzIwMjQvRmV3ZXJfcGVvcGxlX2FyZV93aWxsaW5nX3RvX2ZpZ2h0X2Zvcl90aGVpcl9jb3VudHJ5X2NvbXBh 
cmVkX3RvX3Rlbl95ZWFyc19hZ28vRmlnaHRpbmdfZm9yX3RoZV9jb3VudHJ5LnBkZg?_d=A4M&_c=fd3abb61)
2) 
(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/4/aHR0cHM6Ly9kc2VydmVyLmJ1bmRlc3RhZy5kZS9idGQvMjAvMTUwLzIwMTUwNjAucGRm?_d=A4M&_c=9d51e850)
3) 
(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/5/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cu 
cG9saXRpY28uZXUvYXJ0aWNsZS9nZXJtYW55LXZvbHVudGVlci1maXgtYXJteS8?_d=A4M&_c=5ef71d06)
4)(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/6/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudmVya3VlbmR1bmctYmF5ZXJuLmRlL2d2YmwvMjAyNC0yNTcv?_d=A4M&_c=f8e46893)
5)(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/7/aHR0cHM6Ly9 
3d3cudGlrdG9rLmNvbS9AYnVuZGVzd2VocmthcnJpZXJlP2xhbmc9aXQtSVQ?_d=A4M&_c=f5a80f11)
(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/7/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGlrdG9rLmNvbS9AYnVuZGVzd2VocmthcnJpZXJlP2xhbmc9aXQtSVQ?_d=A4M&_c=f5a80f11) 
or learning about the LGBT movement, with participation in Pride and the 
creation of a[Working Group of Homosexual Members of the 
Bundeswehr](AHsAB)](https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/8/aHR0cHM6Ly9 
3d3cuYnVuZGVzd2Voci5kZS9kZS9xdWVlcmJ3LXdhcy1pc3QtZGFzLTUzNzkwMzYjLg?_d=A4M&_c=a239faf0)
6) 
([PuntoCritico040225](https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/9/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cu 
cHVudG9jcml0aWNvLmluZm8vMjAyNS8wMi8wMy9pbnRlZ3JhbGVfZGVsX3F1YXR0cm9kdWVfdmVudGk1Lw?_d=A4M&_c=f89f8833)).
7)
8)(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33m 
g/jpx1cpm/uf/11/aHR0cHM6Ly90YXouZGUvTWluZGVyamFlaHJpZ2UtYmVpLWRlci1CdW5kZXN3ZWhyLyE2MDIyNzk1Lw?_d=A4M&_c=beacf7f5)
9)(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/12/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ2V3L 
mRlL21laW4tYXJiZWl0c3BsYXR6L3NjaHVsZS9idW5kZXN3ZWhyL2VpbmZsdXNzLWRlci 
1idW5kZXN3ZWhyLWFuLXNjaHVsZW4tenVydWVja2RyYWVuZ2Vu?_d=A4M&_c=0795b302)
10)
(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/ 
uf/13/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVzdGF0aXMuZGUvRU4vVGhlbWVzL1NvY2lldHktRW52aXJvbm1lbnQvUG9wdWxhdGlvbi9DdXJyZW50LVBvcHVsYXRpb24vVGFibGVzL3BvcHVsYXRpb24tYnktdGVycml0b3J5LWFuZC1hdmVyYWdlLWFnZS5odG1s?_d=A4M&_c=6036c9f2) 
(ISTAT German)
11)
(Statista,[Number of employed persons in agriculture in Germany* from 
1882 to 
2010](https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/14/aHR0cHM6Ly9kZS5zdGF0aXN0YS5jb20vc3RhdGlzdGlrL2RhdGV 
uL3N0dWRpZS8xMDU1NjUyL3VtZnJhZ2UvZXJ3ZXJic3RhZXRpZ2UtaW4tZGVyLWxhbmR3aXJ0c2NoYWZ0LWluLWRldXRzY2hsYW5kLw?_d=A4M&_c=1f19d008)).
12)(https://assopuntocritico.voxmail.it/nl/pvdgpi/hx33mg/jpx1cpm/uf/15/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVzdGF0aXMuZGUvRU4vVGhlbWVzL1NvY2lldHktRW52aX 
Jvbm1lbnQvSW5jb21lLUNvbnN1bXB0aW9uLUxpdmluZy1Db25kaXRpb25zL0xpdmluZ 
y1Db25kaXRpb25zLVJpc2stUG92ZXJ0eS9fbm9kZS5odG1s?_d=A4M&_c=e099fb9f)

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