ROSTOCK, Germany — Germany has committed billions to beefing up its military’s equipment after years of neglect. Now it’s trying to persuade more people to join up and serve.
More than 3½ years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine kick-started efforts to revitalize the Bundeswehr, the challenge of strengthening the German military has grown along with fears of the threat from Moscow.
Alongside the higher military spending that Germany and NATO allies agreed on this year, the alliance is encouraging members to increase personnel numbers. Berlin wants to add tens of thousands of service members.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz says that “because of its size and its economic strength, Germany is the country that must have the strongest conventional army in NATO on the European side.” He hasn’t defined that goal in detail, but the tone underscores a shift in a country that emerged only gradually from its post-World War II military reticence after reunification in 1990.
Earlier this month, the military’s top brass watched as a ferry packed with armored vehicles was escorted out of the Baltic port of Rostock, drones were intercepted in the air and on the water and fighter jets circled above. That was part of an exercise focused on moving troops and equipment to Lithuania — an ally on NATO’s eastern flank where modern Germany is stationing a brigade abroad on a long-term basis for the first time.
“Credible deterrence requires operational readiness,” said the Bundeswehr’s chief of staff, Gen. Carsten Breuer. “And operational readiness requires matériel, personnel, training and … exercising, exercising, exercising.”
There’s plenty to do on both matériel and personnel, in a country where the military was often viewed with indifference or suspicion given the legacy of the Nazi past.
Germany suspended conscription for men in 2011 and subsequently struggled to attract large numbers of short-term volunteers. In recent years, the number of military personnel has hovered just above 180,000 — compared with 300,000, more than a third conscripts, in 2001. Now the government wants to raise it to 260,000 over the next decade, and says it will also need around 200,000 reservists, more than double the current figure.
Better pay is one way to make the Bundeswehr more attractive, said Thomas Wiegold, a defense policy expert who runs the Augen geradeaus! military blog. But a key issue is fixing the military’s longstanding equipment problems, “because a force that doesn’t have enough tanks, that doesn’t have enough ships, that also doesn’t have enough barracks, is not particularly attractive for applicants.”
F-35 fighter jets, Chinook transport helicopters, Leopard 2 tanks, frigates and other hardware are on order after a 100 billion-euro ($117 billion) special fund was set up in 2022 to modernize the Bundeswehr, but they will take time to arrive. This year, Merz’s new coalition enabled higher spending by loosening strict rules on incurring debt, a big step for a historically debt-averse nation.
After conscription was suspended, the Bundeswehr gave up 48 barracks. A report by the parliamentary commissioner for the military earlier this year said that some remaining barracks and other facilities are still in a “disastrous” state after years of penny-pinching. A program to build new military accommodation now aims to build 76 new buildings by 2031.
The Cabinet last month approved plans for a new military service system meant to tackle the personnel challenge. It foresees more attractive pay and conditions for people who join up on a short-term basis, better training and more flexibility on how long people can serve.
The aim is to draw sufficient recruits without reviving conscription, an idea unpopular with the center-left junior partner in Merz’s coalition, but the plan leaves the door open to do so if not enough people volunteer.
In a first step beginning next year, the government plans to send questionnaires to young men and women turning 18 about their willingness and ability to serve, which men will be required to answer. Starting in mid-2027, young men will be required to undergo medical examinations, though not to sign up for the military.
“I think what is happening now is above all preparation for compulsory service that is possible later, because not only was compulsory service suspended in Germany 14 years ago, but also the whole apparatus to administer compulsory service was scrapped,” Wiegold said. “It is now gradually being built up again.”
There’s widespread skepticism in Merz’s conservative bloc that some kind of conscription can be avoided. It’s shared by the head of the BundeswehrVerband, essentially a union for service members.
“We must not suggest to people in this country that this growth will certainly happen voluntarily — I strongly doubt that,” its head, Col. André Wüstner, said in an interview on German public television, suggesting that Germany should move “step by step” to compulsory service.
Wiegold noted that the military has had a different status in modern Germany than in countries such as Britain, France and the U.S. because of the country’s history, and consequently there’s no “great enthusiasm” to join up. But the invasion of Ukraine means that “the perception of the Bundeswehr as an important element of Germany has become much greater.”
Authorities have worked to raise esteem for military service. Ads exhorting people to consider joining the military have shown up on pizza boxes, kebab wrappers and elsewhere. The Bundeswehr has sent personalized postcards to 16 and 17 year olds pointing to career opportunities. Its social media efforts include a “Bundeswehr career” channel on TikTok.
In June, Germany marked an annual “veterans’ day” for the first time. Recruits are being honored with swearing-in ceremonies in prominent places — recently, for example, outside the regional parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state.
One of the newly trained recruits in Duesseldorf, a 21-year-old woman who like others was only permitted to give her first name, Lina, said that the state of the world “is getting ever more tense and, if no one goes into this service, who will do it?”
Another, 26-year-old Vincent, said that he wanted to contribute to the defense of Germany and its European allies, “and I can’t say that’s important and not do something for it myself.”
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Kerstin Sopke in Berlin, Daniel Niemann in Duesseldorf and Pietro De Cristofaro in Rostock, contributed to this report.
