From: hreutte@andy.bgsu.edu (hans reutter)
Subject: Re: Wanted: information about draft resistance in Germany
Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:53:38 GMT

warren@nysernet.org (Warren Burstein) writes:

>Do all Germans have to serve in the army?  At what age?  For how long?

All male germans older than 18 years of age are medically examined and evaluated
(the socalled 'Musterung'). The scale is from 1 (perfect health) to 5 (almost
dead ;-) with people drafted usally having a grade of 1 - 3. However everyone
has the rigth to refuse military service with weapons as stated in the 
constitutional laws of Germany (I'll come back to the 'with weapons' soon).
So instead of learning how to kill people you can do something more
meaningful like working in hospitals, old people homes, etc.
Length of hte military service was 15, is now 12 months,
social service was 20, is now 15 month. An obvious violation of a statement
in the laws which says: The length of both services should be equal.

>Can someone who objects to the millitary be exempted from service?

Yup, for example certain religious groups like Jehovas witnesses etc.
But you have to prove it and joining them a week before being drafted
won't help very much (not that I know of).

>Are there exemptions for college students or other exemptions?

Kind of... if you have studied for a certain time, your draft will be
delayed temporarily.

>How does German public opinion regard people who don't serve?

It used to be kind of bad (the early ones were called 'Drueckeberger', which is
hard to translate, it means something between draft dodger and lazy bum).
But in the late 60ies the image of the Zivis (short form of Zivildienstleistender =
person who does civil/social service) became much better and today the
main opinion is rather favorable (from what I've experienced).

>What does the German Army do?  I imagine that since reunification,
>there aren't any tense borders.  Is the army involved in any
>international peacekeeping forces?  Does it play an active role inside
>Germany (e.g. a police-like role)?

What does the army do? Well, before I get to descriptive and grafic, let's say
to do pretty much the same things that they did before the reunification.
German constitution forbids German armed forces to join any mission outside
NATO territory (remember the Gulf war? German jets patrolled along the
Turkish border / NATO border).
It plays sometimes an active role inside Germany, but various laws heavily
restrict the use of the army for police-like roles. I remember many years
ago they used the army in a catastrophic snow storm in northern Germany
and I heard then and now from similar tasks.

>I hope that this doesn't start a flame war here, and please don't read
>anything for or against the draft into my questions.  To save bandwidth,
>if people want to send me answers by mail I'll summarize.

I'm tempted but I won't state that I'm 100% against the traditional system
of armed forces, that I was a Zivi for 20 months and served my community
(NOT! my country) in a much better way than certain other people (IMHO).
Anyone how likes to flame me for that: p-lease!!! But don't try any coredumps
we have a highly selective mail reader...

>thank you

You're welcome...



-hans. l. reutter

BGSU Falcons: repeated MAC title!!! How about that?