FDP considers ending conscription - Germany

Something I heard on the radio whilst sitting in a stau this morning is that the FDP may be considering ending the Wehrpflict (National service/Draft/Conscription) during this government.

Pros and cons?
The actual act of conscription gives a country a sort of shared experience that they can all relate to - Mr Head of company did the same 18 months (or whatever it was) training and being mucked about as the guy who sweeps the warehouse floor.

Of course it has become a farce now as only something like 14% of the males actually go.

The fact that women can serve in the armed forces but are not liable for it is also a bit strange as well.

Is there a place for this type of service now or is it just an idea whose time is past?

So what do the panel think.? I would do a poll but I am a cheapskate and still haven't become a supporter.

I did my 10 months. I'd do it again. And i'm the wrong person to ask if it comes down to suspending conscription - i'm all for expanding it back to the at least twice the current numbers, while cutting volunteer posts especially among the officers.

The CDU won't let the FDP end conscription anyway. I'm seeing the FDP push through all other parts of their plans for the Bundeswehr though (ie. wide-scale privatization, outsourcing and cost reduction through firing civilian employees).

It's been part of the FDP party platform for years, but I doubt they'll be able to do it with the CDU/CSU - unless it's proposed as some sort of budget-consolidating measure that the Blacks can't say no to (conscription is horribly expensive and inefficient compared to an all-volunteer army).

I don't expect it to be part of any coalition contract, in any case.

I question if there is any need for it anymore. I thought I heard they don't even have room for all the guys that are supposed to go. It might possible make some of the guys actually grow up a little bit but since it's very easy to get out of, the guys who need growing up are probably not going.

Our neighbour here, little Denmark still has conscription but it's based on a lottery system. First they rule out all the guys who are unfit and then they do a lottery of the rest where a number will decide if they go, where they serve and for how long. My cousin there served only 9 months.

I am all for conscription believe it or not especially since you have the option to do Zivieldienst. I think it would have made me a better person. I wish something like this was implemented in the U.S. but that is just my opinion.

conscription is bad for the army and bad for employees in the social and caring professions (though good for the state as they get cheap labour).

I can see the benefits but I'd be happy if it was ended.

I would be concerned that the right-wing weapon-horny crowd would flock into the Army. Part of the extreme right parties' platform is to look and act normal, clean-cut and intelligent and so attain positions of power.

Without Zivildienst, the entire healthcare industry would collapse overnight.
Without Ersatzdienst, the THW and firefighters in most cities would no longer be able to operate.

And without Wehrdienst, there'd be no cheap Bundeswehr soldiers to replace the THW and firefighters in natural disasters

I think it should be kept and maybe extended to draft women as well.

According to my son (who completes his 9 + 3 month's service tomorrow) these gentlemen are spotted a mile off by the Ausbilder and are kept under tight reign.

I agree that IF they keep it, they should extend it to women. There is no reason why it shouldn't be.

Why would they be more likely to volunteer if conscription is ended, than they would be at present?

I am all for conscription to be ended. I am all for both males and females to be made to join up or complete the Zivildienst when they are not in education or actively looking for work, as it might just help them grow up. But with someone who, for example, has got great employment opportunities, or even has just got a job and a life and joining the "big bad world" at 18, I think it is just past its time.

One possibility is to scrap conscription while maintaining a (shorter) Zivildienst which everyone who does not do military service has to complete, including males deemed physically unable to do military service and females, two groups not now required to do Zivildienst.

An all-volunteer military could invest more in training, including offering vocational training to enlistees who join after being unable to get an apprenticeship after completing Realschule.

There's a economic impediment angle to mandatory conscription and/or civil service ... it adds to an already-long-by-world-standards adolescence for the german workforce relative to the rest of the world.

I have people in my office who graduated from high school a year later, a long slog to receive their Diplom (or worse yet PhD) or an interminable series of internships who also had to squeeze in their mandatory service as well; often living at home with mommy and daddy the whole time. Therefore, these folks enter the "real" workforce as taxpayers well into their late 20s or early 30s. I often think when I'm presented a 29-year-old embarking on his first job assignment that at his age I'd already been out in the workforce with my own place for almost eight years.

Some say that this allows older workers to work longer, but then again many germans retire preposterously early. If one works from c. 29 to 59 (40% of an actuarial lifespan), and the rest of the world works from c. 22 to 67 (60%), that's an enormous 15-year difference.

I completely understand the impetus (prevent a resurgence of Prussian/Hitlerian professional military), and I agree that some sort of military service generally builds character ... or at a minimum teaches one how to clean up after one's self. But it shouldn't come at the expense of global competitiveness.