Nina Leonhard is a sociologist based at the Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences in Potsdam.
Military Service: Duty and Right of Citizenship
Conscription is back—at least to some extent: at the end of August 2025, Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius presented a draft bill for a “New Military Service.” The draft provides for compulsory medical examinations, beginning July 1, 2027, for young men born after 2007. This is linked to a survey—already scheduled for January 2026—of all 18-year-olds, regardless of their gender, about whether they are interested in serving in the Bundeswehr. For young men, completing the relevant questionnaire is mandatory; for everyone else, it is voluntary. However, only those who have expressed their willingness to serve will be inducted into military service.
As a result, a dispute among the governing political parties has flared up over this restriction of the new military service to voluntary participation. The Christian Democratic Party (CDU, conservative and center-right) is pressing for a provision to impose a further obligation on young people, if the intended increase in Bundeswehr personnel is not achieved through voluntary enlistments. Denmark and Sweden are cited as examples of such selective conscription, where, if voluntary enlistments appear to be insufficient, additional conscripts can be selected by lottery (see the overview in Werkner 2025). Lost in that discussion is the discriminatory aspect of the draft legislation: that it mainly targets young men. In view of a debate about a general service obligation or compulsory year of social service (see the article on this website by Silke van Dyk, as well as Werkner 2004 and 2023), such gender-specific codification of civic duties and obligations seemed to have been overcome. It is now experiencing an unexpected resurgence. This is partly due to the existing power relations in the German Bundestag: Amending Article 12a of the constitution, which pertains to military service and currently stipulates that only men are subject to compulsory military service, would currently require a two-thirds parliamentary majority, including the votes either of the Linkspartei (far-left party) or the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, far-right party).
From the perspective of military sociology, the question of how armed forces recruit their personnel is an expression and element of civil-military relations. These derive from the way the military, an instrument of state coercion, is embedded within civil society. This concerns the question of how the individual is involved in the state apparatus of power, but also how this apparatus can be controlled. For democratic political systems characterized by free elections and the separation of powers, a distinction is generally made between two models of civil-military relations, which represent different conceptions of citizenship: in the liberal tradition, the central task of the state is to safeguard the rights and freedoms of its citizens. To protect itself and its citizens from external threats, the state establishes armed forces. From a liberal perspective, there is no general individual obligation for citizens to perform military service; such service is deemed justified only in exceptional cases. The military prototype of the liberal model is therefore the volunteer army, whose members, conscripts and professional soldiers alike, are responsible for the (external) security of the political community. According to the republican tradition of thought, however, the participation of citizens in all public matters—that is, those concerning the citizenry—is central. This particularly includes measures for their defense. The military prototype of the republican model is therefore the conscript army or militia (as in Switzerland, for example), in which every citizen serves for a certain period of time alongside a small number of professional (career) soldiers.
With regard to the question of democratic political control over the armed forces and the containment of the potential for violence they embody, proponents of the republican model argue that conscript armies are less susceptible to the abuse of military power, as citizens collectively bear responsibility for the means of force necessary to defend the state. Whilst the liberal model focuses on the preservation of individual rights and freedoms against state interference, it remains silent on the political orientation of the armed forces and the nature of their deployment. The statement attributed to former Federal President of Germany, Theodor Heuss, that conscription is “the legitimate child of democracy” —a phrase reliably invoked in earlier debates in this country on the pros and cons of conscription—stems precisely from this republican ideal of the citizen-soldier. The Bundeswehr’s model of the citizen-soldier—the “citizen in uniform”—can also be traced back to this school of thought. In contrast, proponents of the liberal model warn against the risk of (partisan) politicization of the military that the republican equation of citizenship with soldiering entails. In accordance with the principle of functional differentiation, they instead advocate for the political neutrality of a (professional) army that sees itself and operates as such.
The Influence of Conscription on the Development of Modern Statehood
Historically speaking, conscription dates back to the French Revolution. Following the defeat by Napoleon’s troops, Prussia first introduced it, and it later spread throughout the German Empire. The ideal of the citizen-soldier associated with conscription can, however, be traced back to antiquity. In the ancient polis, however, only those who possessed full civil rights were entitled to bear arms, which excluded women and non-free persons. In the context of the French Revolution, this civic right reserved for the few became a duty for all (men), and this duty to defend the country was linked to political participation rights, which were thus also expanded. Service in the armed forces also led to the institutionalization of entitlement to benefits, for the purpose of cushioning the socio-political costs associated with military service generally, and with military service during armed conflicts in particular. In many places, the emergence of public social security systems can therefore be traced back to the provision of support for veterans and their families or surviving dependents.
Conscription was not only a key factor in the development of modern statehood in general, but of nation-statehood in particular. Establishing compulsory military service on a broader scope brought about extensive effects of social homogenization. In Germany, from the mid-19th century onwards, the military became a ‘school of the nation.’ Service in the armed forces entailed experiences of socialization that transcended regional and class boundaries, promoting not only external but also internal nation-building. As a place of male socialization that explicitly excluded women, compulsory military service also played a significant role in maintaining and reinforcing gender boundaries and identities. This is another reason why being a soldier and the notions of a duty to defend the country associated with it remain to this day—despite all gender mainstreaming measures—coded as male. The current debate on the new military service also illustrates this gender bias.
© CC BY / Landesgeschichtliche Vereinigung für die Mark Brandenburg e.V.
Last but not least, compulsory military service must be seen in the context of the state’s efforts to discipline a large section of the population; particularly in Germany during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, these efforts were aimed at molding obedient subjects or loyal citizens (by force if necessary) who were prepared to kill for Germany, God and the Kaiser, and later for the Führer, and to be killed (or wounded) themselves. Disciplining the military corps was increasingly accompanied by a disciplining of the mind to instill what was formerly known as (combat) morale and is now referred to by the broader term ‘motivation for service.’ Understood as a willingness to fight or to make sacrifices, this represents, in a sense, the core of voluntariness in a military context.
Conscription After 1945, its Suspension and Current Challenges
After 1945, as a result of the disastrous experiences of National Socialism and the Second World War, both German states sought to draw the ‘right’ lessons from the past. In West Germany, despite massive public resistance initially, the Bundeswehr was established in 1955 as a conscript army. Through a series of institutional measures an attempt was made to create an army “in a democracy,” whose members would see themselves as “citizens in uniform” and, out of inner conviction, would be committed to protecting the free and democratic order of the Federal Republic. In the GDR the establishment of East German armed forces had initially been based on voluntary service in deliberate contrast to the “compulsion of imperialist conscription” in the Federal Republic (Wenzke in Foerster, 1994, p. 124). However, following recruitment problems after the construction of the Berlin Wall, a compulsory military service for all men was introduced and reframed as a “‘school of political-military training and education’ for the youth” (Wenzke in Foerster, 1994, p. 125). It was intended to impart the willingness and guarantee the ability to “defend peace and socialism” in accordance with the interpretation and interests of the ruling state party. Until reunification, military service was thus part of normal life for men in both German states.
© Bernd Settnik, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1990-0503-046, CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons
In West Germany, however, from the late 1960s onwards the number of young men exercising their right to conscientious objection and instead performing civilian service rose significantly. That indicated a shift in attitude, particularly among better-educated young men, which must be seen in the context of the shift in social values symbolized by widespread student unrest in 1968. Those protests signaled both a decline in the importance of virtues such as obedience and loyalty, and a sense of duty and willingness to make sacrifices—virtues associated with military discipline. Moreover, a recognition of other forms of civic engagement intensified, of which civilian service (German: Zivildienst) was one example. When many European countries abolished conscription following the end of the Cold War and the rise of international military missions in the 1990s, Germany initially retained it—partly because of the widely supported civilian service. After conscription was also suspended in this country in 2011, the collapse of the social systems that some had feared never materialized. Opportunities by the state for the individual to do something for the common good for a limited period were gradually expanded. Military service in the Bundeswehr had now finally become a completely voluntary option among many others for both young men and young women, turning it into a niche experience.
In response to the war in Ukraine, the proposed new military service—whatever form it ultimately takes—is bringing the state’s monopoly on the use of force back into the spotlight after three decades and setting up the military once again as a state institution of discipline. That citizenship encompasses not only certain rights but also duties is, thanks to compulsory schooling and taxation, an idea usually instilled in citizens from childhood right through to retirement. Mandatory participation in national defense, which was part of the lived experience of past (male) generations, is once again on the horizon, reshaping collective expectations. That is reflected in the intensification of discourse on civic obligation, which include claims that the willingness to use armed force, if necessary to safeguard the community, as a moral imperative.
From a functional perspective, how the armed forces recruit their active personnel and reserves depends on prevailing perceptions of threat and the resulting mission of the armed forces. Accordingly, in the literature on military sociology, the transformation of the armed forces in Western Europe and the USA following the end of the Cold War is modeled on the basis of types of armed forces that represent different military deployment scenarios—defense versus intervention—which require different military systems. From this perspective, the terms on which citizens engage militarily is less a question of civic rights or duties, but rather of state security requirements that take precedence over individual interests and needs. When it comes to national defense, a larger number of soldiers is required than in the case of military interventions beyond one’s own national borders. Defensive armies therefore typically resort to conscription to recruit sufficient personnel. We are currently observing such a restructuring of the Bundeswehr towards the ‘defensive army’ model, although it is still unclear how far-reaching this will ultimately be.
Such a functional perspective also characterizes military thinking, which derives measures for one’s own security from the strengths and weaknesses of a perceived ‘enemy’ (cf. Kohl 2009). Particularly in the context of a crisis such as the Zeitenwende (watershed moment) proclaimed by the then chancellor Olaf Scholz, it is hardly surprising that security policy experts, both in and out of uniform, are calling for greater efforts in the areas of security and defense. In addition to the billions of Euros allocated for the expansion and re-equipment of the Bundeswehr, the call for a new compulsory military service to increase the troop strength of the Bundeswehr and the reserves is the result of these considerations. Should the principle of voluntary service nevertheless be retained, this would signal a prioritization of individual civil liberties over civic duties, with the aim of minimizing political resistance to the ‘militarization’ of society by limiting the demands the state places on the individual. Whether intended or not, this would slow down the functional orientation of German society towards a state of defense, which is now required by the logic of war that states such as Russia are currently seeking to impose on the world.
Suggested Citation: Leonhard, Nina: “Military Service: Duty and Right of Citizenship”, Voluntariness: History | Society | Theory, October 2025, https://www.voluntariness.org/military-service/
