It says a lot for German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that he is still in the seat after all the uproar with the German government changeover and the constant tension between new Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s fragile coalition and the now ever-present number two party in the country, the outcast Alternative for Germany (AfD).
With Merz’s commitment to the European Union’s defense spending and rebuilding scheme, Pistorius has had quite a job dumped on his already full plate, being tasked with invigorating and reconstituting a moribund German army.
A little over two years ago, I posted about what Pistorius had found when he first took on the position.
German Defense Minister Pistorius:
We do not have an armed force capable of defending against an aggressor like Russia.
The German Army does not have the strength to defend its NATO allies as well.
Bundeswehr does not have enough personnel, ammunition, equipment and weapons. pic.twitter.com/8XIuaAqVcV
— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 1, 2023
Quite honestly, nothing has changed, except that the talk has gotten bigger and the situation more dire with respect to Ukraine.
One of the blunt pieces of news he floated was that conscription might have to be reinstituted, as there simply weren’t enough Germans volunteering to be soldiers.
Holy crap – didn’t the scheiβe hit the fan.
This past May 5th, with Merz now as chancellor, the issue of a lack of bodies refilling the ranks resurfaced. The pact between the two men became a tenet of the new governing agreement between Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and Pistorius’ Social Democratic Party (SPD). The German Army would remain volunteer.
…With regard to the new regulation of conscription, the CDU/CSU and SPD entered the negotiations with different ideas. Now that the SPD can claim the ministry for itself, the coalition agreement also reflects the preference of the former and possibly also the new minister, Boris Pistorius : a new voluntary military service, modeled on the Swedish model.The only mandatory requirement for young men would be to complete a military registration questionnaire. The bureaucratic requirements for this are to be created this year. Women are not registered; their military service would require an amendment to the Basic Law.
Okay then, right?
Well, the handshake and signed agreement phase didn’t last ten days, with Pistorius himself deciding, all things considered, that ‘voluntary’ was more of a concept than a rock solid principle.
Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, is considering the reintroduction of compulsory military service in a bid to meet the country’s ambitious plans to strengthen its army, just weeks after seemingly rejecting the idea.
This rethink marks a rapid U-turn from the coalition agreement signed on May 5 between the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Pistorius’ Social Democrats (SPD), which agreed the German government would “initially” stick to voluntary military service – which has been in place since Germany abandoned conscription in 2011.
He couldn’t afford to wait when he needed bodies and lots of them.
…On June 3, the 32 member states were expected to set their new capability targets at the meeting of defence ministers in Brussels with a formal adoption to take place at a NATO summit in The Hague later in June.
For these capability targets, an 80,000 additional German military personnel would be required as newspaper Handelsblatt reported on June 2, citing internal sources at the Bundeswehr, or combined German armed forces
NATO will ask Germany to form seven new brigades totaling 40,000 troops — Reuters
These measures are linked to NATO’s review of its defense strategy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. pic.twitter.com/3CYiKCHd3H
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 28, 2025
Turning the mentality of native Germans around is going to be a monumental task without forcing them into service.
The idea that Germany – which did nothing after its NS-2 pipeline was blown up by ‘someone’ – is now going to chart an independent security course is ridiculous. Germans can even opt out of the draft by doing social work instead. Its native population – those most likely to want…
— FischerKing (@FischerKing64) March 1, 2025
…Germans can even opt out of the draft by doing social work instead. Its native population – those most likely to want to defend the place – falls as a percentage of the overall population every year.
Western European announcements of going it alone without the USA generally amount to toddlers having a temper tantrum. It would take them at least a generation to rebuild – which requires willpower they currently lack.
And Europe as a whole has not encouraged the immigration of the sort of newcomer who assimilates, appreciates, and wants to serve and protect their new homeland. So all those healthy young lads from Africa and the Middle East are never going to wear a German or French uniform, and one probably would not want them to.
Ergo, the German government is seriously considering calling up its lapsed reservists and Iraq/Afghan veterans.
But there’s a classically European problem there – they can’t find them.
When they turned them loose, they lost all their record-keeping as well and, thanks to privacy protections, can’t begin to try to contact them.
POOF
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants Germany to have the strongest army in Europe and has set aside billions of euros for this purpose. However, the Bundeswehr can’t even get ahold of its nearly one million potential reservists due to data protection regulations.
Patrick Sensburg, president of the German Reservists Association, tells Magyar Nemzet: “This is crazy. We have simply lost touch with these people,” he says, referring to the fact that the contact details of soldiers who previously served but have since been discharged are simply not available to the army.
According to Merkur, back in 2011, when Germany suspended compulsory military service, it also stopped recording any data. It is estimated that there are around 1 million former conscripts living in Germany who are under the age of 65 and could therefore be eligible for military service. However, they have no addresses, phone number or email address on record.
HOLY SCHAMOLY
…Berlin now believes that to be prepared for a Russian threat, they need more reserves. According to Carsten Breuer, the chief of staff of the Bundeswehr, 260,000 reservists are needed at a minimum, while they currently stand at just 60,000.
Even the 93,000 soldiers who served in Afghanistan cannot be reached, according to Sensburg, saying the Bundeswehr is “helpless.”
IT’S A JOKE
…Since 2021, soldiers leaving active service will be automatically registered as reservists, but Sensburg says at least 1 million reservists would be needed for real national defense capabilities. Referring to NATO calculations, he said that in the event of a war on the Eastern Front, up to 5,000 soldiers could die every day.
“The annual volunteer quota of 5,000 is illusory. It’s a joke,” he told the paper.
“Without conscription, we cannot achieve our own goals and we will lose a war.,” he added.
I guess it’s not only a financial thing for America to keep its personnel in Germany, huh?
It’s also opening gender war wounds, the likes of which have been methodically ignored by the crusading feminists of the EU.
Historical grievances from women — less pay for the same work, even lacking the right to vote — pale in comparison to the issue of forced conscription, which dates back to our origins as a tribal species. Men mostly had no choice but to pick up a spear or gun when the call came, or face imprisonment, execution or even torture. On the battlefield, men died violent, horrifying deaths.
In fact, the issue of conscription, and the imbalance between the genders, is becoming increasingly relevant across the world. As women demand the benefits of equality, equal pay for instance, they mostly have no desire to experience the negatives of equality, especially when it comes to combat operations.
The issue is now being debated in the German press as the country grapples with potentially reintroducing conscription under the new CDU and SPD government. Arguably, progressive and liberal Germany makes gender equality even more of an issue than mostly conservative Ukraine, so if conscription is instated in Germany once again, women should not only be drafted, but they should also be drafted in equal numbers for front-line combat positions.
How equal IS equal when push comes to, say, shoving Russians out of your hometown?
The Germans just stood up a new brigade in Lithuania, and Chancellor Merz was on hand for the ceremony.
“NATO can rely on Germany. We know that security doesn’t begin at our borders. It begins where our allies and partners have to defend it.
That’s why Lithuania’s security is also our security. The protection of Vilnius is the protection of Berlin.” 2/3 @LitdelNATO
— Germany at NATO (@GermanyNATO) May 23, 2025
That was a week before these revised NATO requirements were announced, which could well make the determination for the Bundeswehr and speed up Pistorius’s conscription plans.
Enforcing what may have to be the new normal could be a German battleground of its own.
