Status: 06.01.2023 4:17 p.m
Last year almost five times more people in Germany filed an application against possible military service than in the previous year. According to the Defense Ministry, the war in Ukraine could be a reason.
The number of conscientious objectors in the Bundeswehr skyrocketed in 2022, the year of the Russian attack on Ukraine. “In 2021, the Federal Office for Family and Civil Society Tasks received 201 applications for conscientious objection, in 2022 there were a total of 951 applications,” a spokesman for the Federal Office told the editorial network Germany (RND). The number has therefore almost quintupled.
Most of the applicants were unserved
According to a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Defense, the applicants are “by no means” just active soldiers, as stated in the original and in some other media reports.
“On the contrary, these applications for conscientious objection can also be submitted by non-servists and reservists, and they also account for the larger proportion,” emphasized the spokesman. Men and women with German citizenship who have not done military service are called unserved.
He named a number of more than a thousand applications in the past year. Of these, 593 were unserved, and 266 other applications were made by reservists. Accordingly, 223 applications came from soldiers.
War in Ukraine possible reason
As the Federal Office for Family and Civil Society Tasks reported to the epd news agency, the justifications for the applications for conscientious objection are not evaluated. The war in Ukraine could be a reason for the increase in numbers, a spokesman said.
Military service can be refused on grounds of conscience. These must be plausible and understandable, said the spokesman. The proceedings can often drag on for more than a year. According to him, 208 applications from conscientious objectors were recognized last year.
Opponents of war service: “Must be offered a simple way out”
The political director of the “German Peace Society – United War Service Opponents”, Michael Schulze von Glaßer, told the RND: “Soldiers who come to the realization in this “security policy explosive time, but do not shoot at other people and kill or injure them want, an easy way out of the army must be offered.”
According to Schulze, acknowledging the refusal is difficult for active soldiers. Your reasons to leave the Bundeswehr are justified. “Many of today’s Bundeswehr members were lured into the army with advertising promises that have nothing to do with reality,” he said.