armed forces
SPD defense politician Arlt for general service
Arlt, who is a professional soldier and completed part of his training in Sweden, advocates following local practice. photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
There are increasing voices in the SPD for compulsory service in the Bundeswehr, perhaps also in disaster control or emergency services. A specialist politician also points to support from voters.
Due to the changed security situation in Europe and a shortage of personnel in the Bundeswehr, Pistorius is having models of compulsory service examined. Over the past few days, the minister has been in Sweden, Norway and Finland to find out about military service, muster procedures and the deployment of young men and women.
Arlt, who is a professional soldier and completed part of his training in Sweden, advocated following local practice. All young people would be recorded and receive a link with a personal questionnaire and details such as illnesses two years before they could start working. After an initial selection, a part is invited for sampling and then a decision is made within three months. The candidates would know what task awaits them about a year before starting work.
Young people have to fill out questionnaires
“From a population of 110,000 young men and women, at the moment you end up filtering out 8,000 who have to serve. But the Swedes have decided to change this system so that they now draft 1,000 to 2,000 more into military service every year.” said Arlt. It would be good to oblige all young people to fill out the questionnaire. “In Sweden there is a sensational response rate of almost 97 percent for these questionnaires. I find that very remarkable and certainly also that people are selected beforehand before they are invited to the sample,” he said.
However, Arlt expressed skepticism as to whether burdening only part of a generation could be reconciled with the German understanding of military justice. He also advocated including young women. He said: “It is simply no longer appropriate to only recruit young men into military service. We should aim for the big solution, including a change to the Basic Law, in a big national compromise.”
Arlt referred to “various opinions” on compulsory service in the SPD, but “more MPs than you think could be enthusiastic about such a model.” He said: “Our voters do that too. 70 to 80 percent of SPD voters would like to have compulsory military service or military service.”
In Germany, compulsory military service was suspended in 2011 after 55 years under then Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU), which in practice amounted to an abolition of military and community service.