Agency Report –
Berlin – The German military is facing severe personnel shortages, and those who do serve are growing older, the German parliament’s commissioner for the armed forces warned in her latest annual report released on Tuesday.
Although the size of the German military, known as the Bundeswehr, managed to remain steady at roughly 181,000 people over the past year, the average age of those serving in the forces has grown sharply over the past five years, according to the report.
The commissioner, Eva Högl, said German lawmakers need to act urgently to rebuild the country’s registration system for possible military conscription to bolster Germany’s defences.
“The Bundeswehr is getting older and older. While the average age at the end of 2019 was 32.4 years, it has risen to 34 years by the end of 2024,” she wrote in the report.
Debate over mandatory service
Germany suspended mandatory military service for men in 2011, although the proviso remains in the country’s Basic Law, the de facto constitution. At the time, the German government also ended registration and closed the 52 district military offices that had managed the conscription system.
It’s now “urgently necessary to reactivate the registration system anchored in the Conscription Act,” said the report from the commissioner.
“A country that could respond to a possible attack with an excellently trained and equipped army is a deterrent to potential aggressors,” wrote Högl.
“Fundamental to this is data on who can be called upon in the event of tension and defence, how suitable the people are and what qualifications they have.”
But as a result of the previous dismantling of the system under former chancellor Angela Merkel, those sorts of data are no longer available to the military in case of conflict.
She added that a major gap exists even though “compulsory military service for German men based on Article 12a of the Basic Law and the Conscription Act continues to exist as a potential obligation.”
Collapsing barracks, big bureaucracy
The Bundeswehr also continues to face “considerable problems” in infrastructure, with barracks and bases having been left to crumble to “a disastrous state,” Högl warned.
The total investment needed amounts to around €67 billion ($73 billion), and some of the projects officially under way have made little progress. As an example, Högl cites an armory where construction has been pending since 2017.
Högl criticized excessive bureaucracy throughout the German military and said little progres has been made on initiatives intended to digitize procedures and cut red tape.
“For example, during a visit to the troops by the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, an officer reported that it takes ‘16,000 sheets of paper’ to deploy a company,” she wrote.
Little progress on women
Despite the shortage of troops and recruits, the Bundeswehr has made little progress attracting women to the ranks, and those who do serve too often face discrimination and rough treatment, Högl found.
In 2024, a total of 24,675 female soldiers served in the Bundeswehr, amounting to just 13.62% of the total forces, and only 9.89% outside the medical services.
Female soldiers often face prejudice, discrimination and sometimes sexual harassment. In the past year, Högl wrote that she received a total of 48 reports of sexual misconduct.
By Carsten Hoffmann
