Talk:Conscription in Germany

message: What happens if a man refuses to serve in the military or do any alternative service? (Alphaboi867 06:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This man will be subject to legal prosecution and may be sentenced to confinement in prison. Such cases do occur, in fact, but are not very frequent.--KuK 18:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a native speaker so plz excuse my mistakes. sebastian 80.171.10.176 (talk) 19:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've heard that the judiciary has "found some way out" as it were, in sentencing such people to prison once, but not sentencing them if they are again drafted once they've come out and again refuse.--2001:A61:20B3:5701:3535:8A20:F76C:A375 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 09:41, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draft dodgers 

message: It is my understanding the 'civillian service' alternative to conscription in Germany had a number of choices available in 2005-2007 at least. Our school in Western Australia had a wonderful young volunteer who came to Australia on this scheme. The deal, I think, was that he would volunteer his services to one of a number of options approved by the German authorities, his being volunteering as a school assistant in another country. The school's obligation was to provide board, lodgings and transport. His duties were to help out in the classroom or the yard - i.e. support children in their work, organise equipment for teachers, or help out with the gardening and maintenance. He was a wonderful young man and we were all in tears when he left.
(Moonfire 5 July 2013)
This phrase appears in the section detailing the 'first alternative' to active military duty, namely 'civilian service.'
Being not personally familiar with the German language or current military forces, I am unsure as to whether this is a technical term, a poor translation, or a typographical error. I suspect that the desired term is 'mine sweeper', but I hesitate to make the correction as this seems a highly 'combat-oriented' duty to assign to those who are objecting to active service. I will check in a few weeks and if it has not been addressed by someone with first-hand knowledge, I will make the edit.
(Supasheep 09:34, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You are probably right that this was a typographical error and poor translation at the same time. I think that the author meant something like "explosive ordnance disposal" i.e. disposal of unexploded bombs etc. However, I doubt that such a mission can be assigned to these untrained people so I deleted it. May be someone has more information and can fill the gap.--KuK 10:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In Finland, where we have conscription, too, the fantasy of some militaristically-minded persons is that the persons who have refused conscription during the peace-time, would be used in military duties during war. (Finnish law does not recognize the right to civil service during war.) As the Wehrdienstverweiger have no military training, they could be used to clear mines by walking into mine field. Naturally, this is just a fantasy born in the minds of militarist crazies. I suspect the case was the same here, too. --MPorciusCato 07:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing described above is by-the-way not actually "civilian service" (Zivildienst) strictly so-called, but an "other service in a foreign country" (anderer Dienst im Ausland or ADiA), with the basic difference that while civilian servants, like conscript soldiers, may be drafted (though most looked for a post themselves and were then drafted for it, this was not technically necessary), ADiA servants must volunteer, and that civilian service was (for my year) 9 months, whereas ADiA was 14 months.--2001:A61:20B3:5701:3535:8A20:F76C:A375 (talk) 09:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mine sraper" 

message: Please add your sources to the page. Skinnyweed 21:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No references or external links 

message: I stumbled across this article and found it in a pretty mediocre shape. Therefore I structured it and added some information.
* Since my native language is not english, my prose may be a bit rough in some places. (However, it was already not very good to begin with.) Since I assume that facutal correctness trumps language, I edited it anyways. I'll be grateful to any native speaker who goes over it and smoothes the language.
* I did not add my sources, as all of them were German, and therefore of little use to the average reader of an english encyclopedia. If the majority thinks that German sources are better than no sources, I may add them later.
:An English language source would be preferred but any source is fine. In fact what would be even better are both original German language sources and English language sources as well. There are a considerable number of Wikipedia users who can read German (if not some German), such as my self, so these sources are useful. Kyle sb 11:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  8/13/2006 edit 

message: Sorry to inform you all, but this article is full of factual errors concerning the alternative service.
* disaster relief service has been shortened to 6 years, after military and civil service have been shortened to 9 months.
* disaster relief service does not require conscenious objection. I served myself in a medical disaster control unit, after first 
  applying for (but not entering) extended armed forces service.
The legal base of the disaster relief service stems from the law concerning military service, not the law concerning civil service.
§13a Wehrpflichtgesetz . There is an additional clause in §14 of the law concerning civil service(Zivildienstgesetz), which grants a comparable entry into the disaster relief service (also 6 years) to conscentious objectors. 
Since entering these facts would require a major restruction of the entry, I must unfortunately ask someone else to work on this.
141.26.70.165 20:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is correct: just changed the 7 to 6 and additionally changed the "state-driven" to NIL (it may be a NGO) as well as the "part-time" to "volunteer" service (you're treated completely like all of the other volunteers). I also would like to restructure the article: the disaster relief service is the third alternative in the duty of military and civil service (see §13a Wehrpflichtgesetz and §14 Zivildienstgesetz). Hmmm...I'll see, what I can do. --Bnow 16:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, added "Alternatives" and rewrote "Conscientious Objection" plus "Exemption from Service" to meet this (including development service, which as well is not necessarily based on a formal Conscientious Objection). By the way, there are some more exceptions, but maybe this could get into too much detail (see §12 Wehrpflichtgesetz which relays to the delay of service with alone six sections and several subsections). A nice addition would be, when the required time of service in disaster response changed from 10 over 7 to nowadays 6 years. I myself subscribed to 10 years (in a medical unit, too) and took advantage by the change to 7 years (theoretically - I'm still there...). --Bnow 17:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Factual errors 

message: I've added a sentence about what kind of objection will be accepted. The draftee must assure that he is morraly unable to accept military service in any case (even not to defend a country under attack). The wording that you had suggested that any reason was sufficient. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.52.146.182 (talk) 14:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More detailled information about objection 

message: The statement that "Women are not included in the draft" is not correct per se. Women (from 18 to 55) can be called up "for duty in civilian and military hospitals" if there are not enough volunteers available for such duty. GG Art. 12a, Abs. 4:
:(4) Kann im Verteidigungsfalle der Bedarf an zivilen Dienstleistungen im zivilen Sanitäts- und Heilwesen sowie in der ortsfesten militärischen Lazarettorganisation nicht auf freiwilliger Grundlage gedeckt werden, so können Frauen vom vollendeten achtzehnten bis zum vollendeten fünfundfünfzigsten Lebensjahr durch Gesetz oder auf Grund eines Gesetzes zu derartigen Dienstleistungen herangezogen werden.
Kato2k6 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes ... but they are not put before draft committees, and afaik there is no law that establishes such duties even for the State of Defence - the Basic Law only makes such laws possible, doesn't establish these duties itself. --77.4.78.80 (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conscription for Women 

message: (from the text, blanked out)
unverified: After completing his nine months, the CO will remain as a kind of "civilian reservist", because he may be drafted in case of defence to serve in a hospital, fire dept. etc. | added: this may be a misunderstanding of §14 Zivildienstgesetz, which states, that a civil servicer don't has to fulfill military duty even in wartime, but may be drafted for civil services again. Since all german man can be drafted to (military) service in wartime, this is just an additional exception to respect the former given objection, not a "civilian reservist" thing.
This needs to be cleared up imo.
:§79 ZDG details applicable sections of the law for Civilian Service in wartime. In particular, §4 Abs.1, 6 WPflG (re-drafting people who have served for continuous military service during wartime) "is applied accordingly"; §43 ZDG, Abs.1,1 (regulating dismissal of people in Civilian Service after their regular time) is suspended.
:§53 ZDG explicitly states a duty to attend Civilian Service in wartime (not doing so is punishable the same way as fleeing regular service).
This clearly means that during wartime, the government can legally draft any conscientious objectors who have served their full time before to perform Civilian Service, making them equal to Bundeswehr reservists. The German Red Cross in this German-language guide to Civilian Service also states their legal opinion of this: Im Verteidigungsfall kann eine Dienstleistung bis zum 60. Lebensjahr angeordnet werden. Dies gilt auch für ehemalige ZDL. Die Einberufung kann nur durch das BAZ erfolgen. Der Charakter des Zivildienstes als soziale Dienstleistung wird auch im Verteidigungsfall nicht aufgehoben.
Similarly, there should be at least some mention in the article that any conscript, after completed service, will be on reserve duty (until the age of 60) and can be called up both for military exercises in peacetime (not for Conscientious Objectors), or for indefinite service during wartime.
Kato2k6 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, a Zivi is not a Bw reservist. In the State of Defence he can, yes, be drafted for a Dienstleistung. But while some legal forms of redrafting reservists are also called Dienstleistung, the character of the Civilian Service as a soziale Dienstleistung is not suspended (translating cour last German sentence). In this context sozial includes the meaning non-military. Article 12a says that any law which regulates the Civilian service must include the possibility for any consc. obj. to a service without any connection to the Armed Forces.--91.34.239.227 (talk) 10:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wartime 

message: The article contains a number of HTML comments (e.g.:  ). I think this is a poor way of conducting discussions about the article — that's what the discussion page is for. Please make your comments here, where other editors can review and respond to them.
The "Political Debate" section consumes probably more than a third of the article. I have a few remarks about it:
*Firstly, the article should above all give a correct description of the status quo. The debate about how the status quo should be changed is IMHO of far lesser importance, especially because it doesn't seem like anything is going to change anytime soon, one way or another.
*A political debate, especially one still in progress, is notoriously hard to present in a NPOV and up-to-date manner. Therefore I think a brief description (that shows in broad strokes what people are generally talking about) is better than a finely detailed description of each and every fringe branch of the debate. The latter usually just invites someone to write an even more finely detailed description of the counterpoint to that particular argument, and is a b*tch to keep up-to-date as new arguments and counter-arguments are made.
*If you absolutely must add to the debate section, then please try to present all sides of the debate. The Brevity I ask for is no excuse for POV. Anyway, Wikipedia is not the place where is debate is going to be resolved, therefore favoring one side over another really serves no purpose, except for detracting from the impartiality and therefore the quality of the article.
84.138.170.1 11:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  HTML comments and "Political Debate" section 

message: What percentage of German women volunteer for service equivalent to that performed by men?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.197.19 (talk) 20:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Women volunteers

message: I took out Weimar Republic as it couldn't be described as anti-deomcratic (it was a democracy) or particularly elitist. Even the Nazi regeime couldn't really be regarded as elitist. If the the section means to suggest that the professional army in these periods was anti-democratic and elitist, there may be more truth in it but that doesn't seem to be what its suggesting. Perhaps it just needs rewriting as it doesn't read particularly well anyway.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clomb (talk • contribs) 18:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical Arguments 

message: This article only deals with conscription today. It needs to be expanded to include the history of conscription in Germany as least since the Unification of Germany. Urban XII (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs to be expanded (or reduced)