Conscription Reloaded? The Debate About Compulsory Service in Germany in 2022 and the Peoples’ Attitudes Towards It

1 Introduction

On October 29, 2022, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivered a keynote speech in which he warned the population of difficult and uncertain times, particularly in view of the war in Ukraine, the inflation associated with this situation and the looming recession in the economy. To counter this headwind, he said that it would now be necessary for Germany as a whole to become capable of dealing with conflicts, which would also mean investing into the armed forces of Germany, the Bundeswehr to enable it to take a leading role in international security issues in the future. At the same time, he urged that it would be necessary now for society to stand together, for citizens to develop resilience to populists’ attempts to divide society, and ultimately for each individual to do his or her part for the good of the community. In this context, he took up a demand he had already made in mid-June 2022, namely for the introduction of universal compulsory service.

The historical development of compulsory (military) service and the debates surrounding this topic are very particular to Germany. Since this context is crucial for the understanding of the current situation and the attitudes within the population on this topic, the article starts with a brief historical outline of the German debate on compulsory military service. Based on an online survey this article investigates then what the German population thinks of Steinmeier’s proposal and what factors are associated with support for or rejection of compulsory service. The survey period (June 30–July 17, 2022) took place a few weeks after the intense debate in politics and media about the President’s proposal. The survey results can thus also be seen, at least in part, as a reaction to these discussions. Possible explanations for a person’s attitude toward compulsory service include socio-psychological factors such as a basic attitude of solidarity or the Big 5 personality traits, personal experience with military or civilian service, political attitudes and voting intention, as well as voluntary, honorary commitment.

2 History of Compulsory Military Service and the Debate on General Compulsory Service in Germany

In the Federal Republic of Germany, general compulsory military service for men was introduced in 1956. In 1968, this obligation was incorporated into the Basic Law as an optional provision (Article 12a of the Basic Law), along with the option of alternative service in lieu of military service. From 1963 to 1973, men were required to perform 18 months of military service. In the following years, this period was reduced in several steps to only six months for conscripts called up as of January 1, 2011. Although the Basic Law stipulates that “The duration of alternative service […] may not exceed the duration of military service.” (Article 12a (2) of the Basic Law), in the years 1973–2004 those performing alternative service had to serve between one and five months longer than conscripts.

At the beginning of the 21st century, more and more voices were calling for the abolition of compulsory military service. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the changing security situation after the end of the Cold War (a major, warlike confrontation on the European continent with German involvement was considered a less realistic scenario) and the emergence of new threat scenarios (especially international terrorism). This new security paradigm required a restructuring of the Bundeswehr. The concept of a comparatively large standing army, consisting primarily of conscripts, with the main purpose of ensuring national defence in the event of a major war was no longer considered viable. Instead, the Bundeswehr needed to be transformed into a flexible force that could respond more quickly and professionally to new terrorist and asymmetric threats. Such an army had no need for conscripts. Therefore, since the early 2000s, fewer and fewer conscripts have been called up to serve in the armed forces, with the result that the conscription process was no longer just. For example, of the 445,500 men born in 1982, only about 98,000 performed basic military service, and 106,000 performed Civil Service (Zivildienst). Thus, more than 54% of the men of this cohort, not to mention the female part of the population, were no longer called up for compulsory service of any kind (Deutscher Bundestag 2010).

In addition to security policy reasons and the unjust conscription practices, financial aspects^[1] were also a key reason why in May 2010, Federal Defence Minister zu Guttenberg (CSU) proposed suspending compulsory military service as part of a fundamental structural reform of the Bundeswehr, which was also to be accompanied by a reduction in troop strength from 250,000 to fewer than 200,000. While the coalition partner FDP as well as the oppositional Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left have long called for the suspension of conscription, this had been unthinkable within the CDU/CSU parties for the longest time. Conscription was seen as the core of conservative politics that should not be tampered with (SZ.de 2011). By November 2010, however, zu Guttenberg was able to convince both Chancellor Merkel (CDU) and the party committees of the CDU and CSU. Thus, the suspension of compulsory military service in the event of peace was passed by the Bundestag in 2011 with a special law, the so called Wehrrechtsänderungsgesetz. However, compulsory military service as such remained anchored in the Basic Law. With compulsory military service, the need for alternative service also ceased to exist. While the Bundeswehr had already displayed difficulties in meaningfully employing their conscripts (Fröhlingsdorf, Röbel, and Scheuermann 2010), there was a shortage of these civilian service members in many social and nursing areas (Scholz 2011).

Shortly after the abolition of compulsory military service, the first critical voices came forward calling for the reintroduction of compulsory military service or, alternatively, for a new general compulsory service for all young people (including women). Discussions about such a general compulsory service were not new. For example, following the ECJ’s decision that women could also be recruited for active military service in the Bundeswehr, a debate was sparked in 2000 about a so-called compulsory social year, to be served equally by men and women in the Bundeswehr or in the social sector.

At more or less regular intervals over the following two decades, similar concepts were put up for discussion by politicians from different political camps under slightly different names (compulsory social year, community service, general compulsory service, year of service for all, social year). For example, by the then Minister President of Lower Saxony, Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) in 2003, who referred to the republican tradition of compulsory military service in particular (Opielka 2003), in 2005 by the then Federal Minister of Defence, Franz-Josef Jung (CDU), who, in addition to compulsory military service and community service, also envisaged service in development cooperation as an option, or in 2018 by the then CDU Secretary General, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who also suggested that refugees should complete such a year of service just like German men and women. This would serve the aim of integration and increase acceptance among the population (Zeit Online 2018).

The current debate was initiated by German President Frank Walter Steinmeier, who voiced his support for a general compulsory service, for the first time in detail, in June 2022. He justified his support not only by emphasizing that such compulsory service would help the country but could also serve the personal development of young people. Specifically, he said that

“especially now, at a time when the understanding for other lifestyles and opinions is waning, compulsory social service can be particularly valuable. You get out of your own bubble, meet completely different people, help citizens in need” (own translation, Tagesschau 2022).

According to this argument, compulsory service could also reduce prejudice and strengthen public spirit. This initiative generated a great deal of support, but also opposition from a wide range of political camps. While the politically oppositional CDU supported the proposal and spoke out in favour of the introduction of a mandatory year of community service at its party conference in September 2022 – albeit against the votes of the party’s youth organization – there was clear rejection from the federal government, especially from the Greens and the FDP. A general compulsory service would represent a major encroachment on the individual freedom of young people and should therefore be avoided, while continuing to rely on voluntary participation within social service programs (e.g. in the Federal Volunteer Service (BFD) or the Voluntary Social Year (FSJ)) and voluntary honorary commitment. On the other hand, Steinmeier received support from Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left Party), who compared compulsory service with compulsory education, in which the state already intervenes in the lives of young people (Zeit Online 2022). Legal circles, however, have expressed doubts as to whether compulsory service would be legally possible at all, since it would contradict both Article 12 (2) of the Basic Law and Article 4 (2) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on the experiences of the Nazi era, both prohibit forced labour. Compulsory social service would only be legally possible as a substitute for compulsory military service (Härting 2022). This is also the view of the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag (Wissenschaftliche Dienste Deutscher Bundestag 2022).

Germany is not alone in debating compulsory military service. With the exception of compulsory service during times of disasters and civil defence, there are no European countries with a general compulsory service, and compulsory military service making up the exception, rather than the rule. Yet, two neighbouring countries of Germany are among them: Both Austria and Switzerland practice compulsory military service for all men, although this practice has been repeatedly criticized in both countries. In Switzerland for example, partly due to the falling conscription rates undermining the fairness of military service, a referendum was held in 2013 on the abolition of compulsory military service. However, this was rejected by 73.2% of the Swiss population. Sweden makes for an interesting case, since it is comparable to Germany in some respects. In 2010, the Swedish government also suspended conscription on the grounds that it was no longer necessary to ensure defence readiness. However, Sweden reintroduced compulsory military service in 2017, partly against the backdrop of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in violation of international law and the increased tensions with its eastern neighbour resulting thereof, and partly because of the problems of achieving the required troop strength through volunteers alone (Wissenschaftliche Dienste Deutscher Bundestag 2018).

While the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war waging in the Donbass since 2014 still resulted in comparatively few reactions within German defence policy, this changed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Just three days later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) described the invasion as a “turning point in time”, which also had to be reflected in the realignment of foreign and security policy. Accordingly, a special fund of 100 billion euros was approved to increase the defence budget, intended to help the Bundeswehr adequately fulfil its duties in national and alliance defence. Even though Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) does not currently consider the reintroduction of compulsory military service to be sensible, even in light of the changed security landscape (FAZ Online 2022), within the context of the war in Ukraine the question whether compulsory military service might become necessary again in order to maintain defence readiness is gaining importance. The potential need for conscripts is also evident against the backdrop that, as in Sweden, the number of applicants for voluntary military service has been declining since the start of the war in Ukraine, and increasing numbers of soldiers are refusing to serve in the army, with them leaving active service in the German Bundeswehr because of it.

In addition to the defence policy component, the socio-political side must always be considered in the debate on general compulsory service. While civilian service as a substitute service for those who refused to serve in the armed forces for religious or conscientious reasons did not initially play a major role in society, it developed into an important pillar of the medical and social system in Germany because of an increasing proportion of conscientious objectors and a growing demand for caregivers. As a result, from 2011 onward, the elimination of those performing civilian service further exacerbated an already problematic situation, particularly within the German nursing sector, which notoriously struggles with staffing problems due to poor pay and high workloads. The voluntary social year (FSJ) was only able to close these gaps to a limited extent. Although the number of people serving an FSJ – almost 65% of whom are women – rose from 47,000 in 2011 to over 56,000 in 2017, the number decreased in the following years again (BMFSFJ 2022). Even together with the maximum of about 40,000 volunteers in the Federal Volunteer Service (BFD), the number of people doing voluntary service never reached the levels of those in Civil Service (Zivildienst) in earlier years, with up to 135,000 in the early 2000s (Bundesamt für Familie und zivilgesellschaftliche Aufgaben 2022). A general compulsory service is therefore also seen by some as a solution to personnel problems, especially in the nursing sector. On the other hand, social welfare associations and hospitals point out that plugging holes with unskilled service personnel would be of little help. Rather, the conditions in nursing should be improved for professional nurses and the (financial) incentives for voluntary commitment in FSJ and BFD should be increased, because solidarity could not be forced (AWO 2022).

3 Theory

In addition to the military, socio-political and legal reasons for or against the introduction of compulsory service discussed in the previous section, the attitudes of the population naturally play an important role in determining whether such a project is pursued by policymakers. Since no specific research exists concerning factors that explain the attitudes towards compulsory service in Germany, the approach in this article has to be exploratory to some extent. Nonetheless, this section presents theories behind three blocks of factors that could potentially be used to explain attitudes toward compulsory service. These are 1) psychological personality traits, 2) political attitudes and voting intentions, and 3) people’s own experiences with compulsory service and voluntary commitment.

The basic idea of this analysis is to check in an x-centred way to what extent these three potentially relevant theoretical blocks are correlated with the attitudes toward compulsory service. A fully-fledged y-centred explanation of the variance of the dependent variable – attitudes toward compulsory service – is not feasible at this stage. All three theory blocks assume that the attitudes toward compulsory service are shaped by individual characteristics of the survey participants. This does not mean that socializing effects, e.g. in the form of regional contagion effects or other factors not included in the three blocks (e.g. religiosity), are assumed to be irrelevant.

The first theory block is based on the idea that personality traits, as they are used in psychological research, could play an important role in understanding the attitudes toward compulsory service. The standard approach for measuring personality traits are the Big 5, which are often also called the OCEAN-model, according to the five personality traits Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (John, Naumann, and Soto 2008). These personality traits have also shown to be correlated with party identification and political attitude patterns in general – e.g. those who score high on Openness are often more left leaning, while those who score high on Conscientiousness often identify more with right-wing parties (Fatke 2017; Gerber et al. 2011, 2012). It can therefore also be assumed that the Big 5 personality traits, by virtue of the fact that they are such fundamental psychological characteristics of every human being, are also closely related to attitudes toward compulsory service. This is all the more true because compulsory service is an issue that addresses something that is at the core of human coexistence, namely the idea of solidarity.

The second theory block assumes that the attitudes toward compulsory service are closely related to political attitudes and voting intentions. Compulsory service is a clear encroachment on the individual’s rights to freedom. This was already clearly noted by then Federal President Roman Herzog in 1995 with regard to compulsory military service, and he concluded that the constitutional state may only demand such an intervention if it is really necessary for the external security of the state – the effectiveness of the Bundeswehr in foreign missions not directly related to national or alliance defence is just as unsuitable as a justification for compulsory military service as the demand for civilian service in the social sector (Herzog 1995). This shows that the question of compulsory service touches on very fundamental political questions. Namely, questions about how far the state may infringe on the personal sphere to achieve socially desirable goals and for which goals such interventions are acceptable. Here, libertarian political positions oppose republican positions, which do not conceive the state as a mere servant of the people, but regard active participation of the population as a prerequisite for citizenship and thus ultimately for the functioning of democracy. Benjamin Barber therefore argues for compulsory social service on theoretical democratic grounds (Barber 1990, p. 43). Furthermore, more traditional-conservative persons place a greater value in fulfilling one’s duty to the state than people positioned closer to the political left. In addition, people with a stronger nationalist orientation attach greater relevance to security policy arguments, which are also likely to have a positive influence on attitudes toward compulsory service in the current environment.

In this second theory block, it is not only general political positions which could potentially play a role but also more specific party identifications or voting intentions. For the following analysis it does not matter which causal direction is assumed. Do party supporters adopt the views of their parties on compulsory service as with other party cues, and do the parties or individual politicians thus influence social reality with their contributions to the debate? See for example Boudreau and MacKenzie (2014), Bullock (2020), and Nordø (2021) for discussions of party cues. Or is it the other way round? Do parties adapt their positions on the issue of compulsory service to the prevailing attitudes within their electorate? In view of the significant average age differences among the electorates of different parties,^[2] it can certainly be assumed that those parties that benefit strongly from a younger electorate will speak out more vehemently against compulsory service. Since the issue of compulsory service has been discussed intensively in the context of party politics during the last years, it can be assumed – regardless of the direction of causality that ultimately prevails – that voting intentions and attitudes toward general compulsory service are closely related. For the analysis it makes sense not only to read the party programs on the topic of compulsory service but to focus on statements by major politicians from the parties as well in order to determine the party stances on this issue.

The third theory block tests to what extent own experiences with compulsory service as well as with voluntary work are related to attitudes toward compulsory service. The basic idea in this theory block is that it is plausible to assume that people who have done any kind of service (be it in the Bundeswehr or community service) will draw on their own experiences in service in their assessment of a compulsory service and that these will thus influence their attitudes on this topic. Two aspects might play a role: first, a fairness argument, since those who had to perform a service themselves see this as appropriate for others for reasons of fairness. Second, the type of (compulsory) service a person has performed and how he or she evaluates the service in retrospect might be important. While the purpose of military service in the Bundeswehr was often doubted, especially among the most recently conscripted cohorts – boredom was seen as the main enemy of the soldier (Fröhlingsdorf, Röbel, and Scheuermann 2010) – the service of those doing community service (Civil Service/FSJ/BFD) was often considered to be of value to society. Thus, the type of service, which in turn is related to publicly perceived meaningfulness as well as the personal perceived meaningfulness of the service for the own personality development could plausibly be argued to impact the attitudes toward compulsory service.

4 Hypotheses Guiding the Research

The following hypotheses are based on the three theory blocks introduced above.

5 Additional Assumptions and Controls

In addition to the three hypothesis blocks addressed here, it can also be assumed from an individual-rational perspective that younger respondents, who could potentially be called upon to serve themselves, are more likely to reject such a commitment than older persons, for whom this danger no longer exists. Therefore, it is advisable to control for the age of the respondents in the statistical analysis. It should also be examined to what extent the age effect differs between supporters of different parties. Indeed, it could be assumed that young supporters of parties that strongly emphasize individualism – for example, the FDP or Greens, which also performed strongly in the segment of young and first-time voters in the 2021 federal election – reject compulsory service more strongly than young supporters of the other parties. Without being able to present a clear hypothesis at this point, it might also be interesting to check to what extent H3b and H3c are related in the sense that the effect of the perception of usefulness of the own service is conditioned by the type of service. The two potential interaction effects mentioned here (type of service * perception of usefulness of own service; age * voting intention) will be tested additionally to the hypotheses presented above. In addition, the models should also control for gender, migration background, educational status, household income, religious confession and place of residence (size of town and state) as potentially relevant socio-demographic variables correlated with the attitudes toward compulsory service.

6 Data and Methods^[4]

The analysis of attitudes toward compulsory general service is based on data from an online survey conducted in the period June 30–July 17, 2022, the Politikpanel Deutschland (https://www.politikpanel.uni-freiburg.de/). A total of 8,598 people participated in this survey, of whom 8,060 completed the questionnaire. An overview of the survey, including the other topics queried, is provided by Wagschal, Jäckle, and Timmis (2022). Although the sample is not randomly drawn but self-selected, which means that it cannot truly be considered representative of the entire German population, all population groups are sufficiently represented among the participants, at least regarding the key sociodemographic characteristics of age, gender and place of residence (state). This enables the usage of a proportional iterative fitting procedure (raking) to adjust the data of the participants to the real distribution of these factors in the population based on the marginal frequencies of the variables of age group, gender, state and voting intention. This calibration makes it easier to make generalizable statements on the entirety of Germany, even though, in a strict statistical sense, this is not possible without random sampling.

The dependent variable is measured via the question “What do you think about the demand for compulsory service for young people?” Respondents were given five possible response options ranging from “I strongly disagree” to “I strongly agree”. The variable is taken as metric in the following. Solidarity is measured by an index of four items (Cronbachs α = 0.66). Sense of duty is surveyed with attitudes toward the following statement: “Important matters come first, even if free time beckons”. For the psychological personality traits, the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) is used (Rammstedt et al. 2014), with two items (one positively poled, the other negatively poled) for each of the five factors. The result of a factor analysis confirms the composition of the Big 5 factors. Political attitudes were surveyed firstly via GAL-TAN and secondly via a left-right scale (0 = GAL or left, 1 = TAN or right). To survey voting intention, respondents were asked which party they would vote for if a federal election took place next Sunday. Possible answers were CDU/CSU, SPD, Green Party, Left Party, FDP, AfD and Other. Respondents were also asked whether they had completed any of the following services: 1) military service (Bundeswehr/National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic NVA), 2) Civil Service, 3) FSJ or FÖJ, 4) BFD, 5) voluntary commitment in civil defence or disaster control. Those who had completed a service were also asked how they assessed this service in retrospect for themselves. The answer scale ranges from 1 = “it was a complete waste of time” to 10 = “it was a good and meaningful experience that helped me in life”. In addition, the respondents were asked about their gender (male/female/non-binary), age, highest general education degree attained, size of place of residence as well as state, migration background, general state of health, religious affiliation, and their personal assessment of the extent to which they could “live very comfortably” or “actually not get by at all” on their own household income.

OLS regressions are calculated to test the hypotheses formulated at the beginning. First, a single model including the control factors is estimated for each hypothesis block. In a fourth model, all independent variables are then bundled to identify possible intercorrelations.

7 Results

Before we turn to the regression models, we will first present some descriptive findings. First, Figure 1 shows that the two control factors age and gender are obviously relevant for attitudes toward compulsory service. Younger respondents are generally more negative about compulsory service than older respondents. While no major difference between men and women can be seen within the youngest age group of 18–30, men over 30 are significantly more likely to support the concept of compulsory service than women from the respective age groups. The highest level of disapproval is shown by people who indicated their gender as non-binary – however, due to the comparatively small group size, this finding should be viewed with caution. In any case, the figure clearly shows that it makes sense to control for both age and gender in the following regression models.

Figure 1:

Attitudes toward compulsory service by age and gender. Note: Data weighted by age group, gender, state and voting intention; absolute numbers rounded to full integers.

Figure 2 shows that different political views are also likely to be related to attitudes toward compulsory service. Respondents who intend to vote CDU/CSU have the highest average approval rating for compulsory service, followed by AfD and SPD supporters. People who said they intend to vote for the FDP or the Greens are just below the approval ratings of the Social Democrats. By a clear margin, approval is lowest among supporters of the Left Party. They are also the only ones who tend to reject compulsory service on average. On average, supporters of all other parties are in favour of compulsory service. This result is consistent with a representative survey made by Infratest dimap (2022) on the introduction of a social compulsory service. In that survey, 69% of all respondents supported this idea, with the highest approval rates among the CDU/CSU and SPD supporters and the lowest among the AfD and FDP supporters. The differences between the Infratest survey and the Politikpanel Deutschland survey used here can be attributed to the fact that the latter asked not only about a compulsory social year, but more generally about compulsory service, which also includes military service. As a result, a general compulsory service in this survey is less acceptable to supporters of the Left party and more acceptable to supporters of the AfD than a compulsory service that only includes social services (as asked in the Infratest survey).

Figure 2:

Mean attitude toward compulsory service by voting intention (+95% CI). Note: Data weighted by age group, gender, state and voting intention; grey error bars indicate 95% CI.

In addition to the political factors, the further analyses will also look at the respondents’ own experiences of service. Figure 3 initially shows that there are clear differences in how respondents rate their own service. Even if, on average, all respondents who have completed such service tend, in retrospect, to rate it as a good and meaningful experience that has helped them personally, those who have completed military service view it much more critically. Here, the proportion of those who consider their military service to have been a complete waste of time is by far the largest. Not surprisingly, those who did voluntary service (FSJ/FÖJ or BFD) rather than compulsory service are the most positive in their assessment of their service. In line with the variation shown here in the subsequent assessment of one’s own period of service, it can be assumed that this assessment is also related to the general attitude toward renewed compulsory service.

Figure 3:

Own assessment of the meaningfulness of the service performed by oneself according to type of service. Note: Unweighted data; the red bar indicates the mean, the blue box is the interquartile range, the blue spikes indicate the 90% percentile. BFD: Bundesfreiwilligendienst (Federal Volunteer Service), FSJ/FÖJ: Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr/Freiwilliges Ökologisches Jahr (Voluntary Social Year/Voluntary Ecological Year), other service: e.g. Anderer Dienst im Ausland (Other Service Abroad).

Table 1 presents the results of the OLS regressions. First, the three hypothesis blocks are each tested in their own models, M4 then summarizes all explanatory variables. The models were computed with listwise deletion, using only cases for which all information was available. Thus, all models are based on identical cases and the coefficients are comparable. The only exception is model M3b, which was calculated using the subsample of those respondents who had served in the past. Overall, the explanatory power of the models is not very high. The full model can explain just over 18% of the variance in attitudes toward compulsory service. Given the x-centred research approach this is not a major problem, yet it shows that there are probably further relevant factors that have not been included in the model. Nevertheless, the results also show that some of the variables tested have significant and substantial effects.

In terms of psychological factors, M1 shows that respondents who score higher on the solidarity index are more supportive of compulsory service. The same is true for individuals with a strong sense of duty. Thus, hypotheses H1a and H1b cannot be rejected. With respect to the Big 5 personality traits, Openness and Extraversion are clearly positively related to attitudes toward compulsory service, as H1c had also predicted. In contrast, no effect is found for Conscientiousness. In line with the assumption in H1c, Compatibility and Neuroticism are negatively associated with attitudes toward compulsory service. However, these effects are weaker and no longer significant in the full model M4.

The second model (M2) tests for political factors. Individuals who position themselves further to the right on a left-right scale and those who position themselves closer to the traditional-authoritarian-nationalist pole on a GAL-TAN scale are more strongly in favour of compulsory service. Interestingly, the coefficient of the left-right self-ranking is significantly larger than that of GAL-TAN. Overall, however, it appears that, as assumed in H2a and H2b, more liberal/libertarian individuals are significantly more critical of compulsory service than conservative/nationalist individuals. The strong left-right effect also indicates that people with a more left-wing political orientation also strongly oppose compulsory service. This finding is further supported by the coefficients on voting intention. While supporters of the CDU/CSU show the highest approval, people who intent on voting FDP and Left strongly reject compulsory service. The full model M4 shows that there are clear differences between the supporters of these two parties and those of, for example, the Greens, the SPD or the AfD, all of whom are not as strongly in favour of compulsory service as those of the CDU/CSU but are also not as strongly opposed to it as the Liberals and the Left. This finding is interesting insofar as FDP and Left supporters are very different in many respects, but they differ only slightly in their attitudes toward compulsory service. Overall, the assumptions from H2c are confirmed with respect to CDU/CSU, AfD and FDP supporters. Somewhat surprisingly, considering the issue of individualization, Green Party supporters do not reject compulsory service as strongly as those of the FDP. At the same time, the very strong rejection of compulsory service by the Left supporters is striking. In an additional interaction model based on M2, where age is now not categorized but brought in metrically and interacted with voting intention, it becomes apparent that the effect of age on support or opposition to compulsory service differs according to voting intention. Older persons are generally more positively inclined towards compulsory service, but this applies particularly to supporters of the FDP, Greens and SPD, as Figure 4 shows in the form of average marginal effects: An increase in age by one year increases the attitude towards compulsory service for FDP supporters by 0.02 (on the scale of 1–5), whereas an additional year for CDU/CSU supporters merely means an increase of slightly more than 0.01. This fits in with the assumption mentioned above that there would be significant differences amongst different age groups within the supporters of the Greens and the FDP, the parties which performed particularly well among the youngest voter group during the 2021 federal election. In contrast, age is mostly irrelevant among supporters of the other parties. The age effect is not significantly different from zero in this voter group.

Figure 4:

Average marginal effect of age on attitudes toward compulsory service by voting intention. Note: Data weighted by age group, gender, state and voting intention; based on model M2-Int (see Table A3 in the Online Appendix).

In the third model, we first test the extent to which individuals who have served in the past exhibit a divergent attitude toward general mandatory service (M3a). For certain types of service, this is indeed the case. Accordingly, hypothesis H3a must be partially rejected, since not all persons who have served in the past view compulsory service more positively than those who have not. Contrary to hypothesis H3b, however, people who have done military service and those who have completed an alternative service (commitment to civil defence or disaster control/police) are more in favour of compulsory service than people who have not done any service. In contrast, respondents who have done Civil Service, FSJ/FÖJ, BFD, or another alternative service (e.g. Other Service Abroad) do not show significantly different attitudes toward compulsory service than those not having served. In model M3b, the subgroup of respondents who have performed a service is additionally tested to see to what extent their own retrospective assessment of this service plays a role. It becomes clear that people who judge their own service as a good and meaningful experience which has personally helped them are more in favour of compulsory service than those who see their own service as a waste of time. This is consistent with expectations from H3c. In another interaction model, we additionally tested the extent to which the type of one’s service moderates the effect of the question of how useful the service was perceived to be. Figure 5 shows the result: although the question on the meaningfulness of one’s service has a relevant positive effect on attitudes toward compulsory service across all forms of service, this effect is particularly strong amongst former Civil Service members. Whereas a value of about 1.5 for the dependent variable, and thus a comparatively clear rejection of compulsory service, is predicted for respondents who view the Civil Service they performed as a complete waste of time, a value of almost four would be predicted for those who completed a Civil Service and retrospectively regard it positively. In addition to completed service, M3a also tests the extent to which voluntary commitment correlates with attitudes toward compulsory service. Here we find a very clear and significant effect. Respondents who engage in at least one volunteer activity are more supportive of compulsory service than those who do not. Another model also tested whether there are differences in the type of voluntary commitment in this regard. The results show that people who are involved in religious communities, civil defence (Red Cross/THW), works councils and trade unions are particularly in favour of compulsory service. On the other hand, political involvement is the only type of voluntary commitment that has a slightly negative, significant effect on attitudes toward compulsory service (see Table A3, model M3c in the Online Appendix).

Figure 5:

Predicted values for attitudes toward compulsory service by type of service performed and how useful it was judged to be in retrospect (+95% CI). Note: Data weighted by age group, gender, state and voting intention; the lines for the other service types (BFD and other service) are not presented in order to maintain readability; graph based on model M3b-Int (see Table A3 in the Online Appendix).

Even if individual effects lose some of their significance, the previous results of the three submodels remain largely unchanged when all variables are tested together in a full model (M4). In addition to the factors described above, all models also controlled for other additional variables. Here, too, significant correlations are found. Age, for example, has the expected influence, with the age group that would potentially still be affected by compulsory service (18–30 years) rejecting it significantly more strongly than older respondents. In contrast, there are no such strong differences between middle-aged and senior age groups. Interestingly, the two middle-aged groups (31–45 and 46–60) are more in favour of compulsory service than the oldest respondents (>60). With respect to gender, the bivariate finding from Figure 2 confirms that men are most in favour of compulsory service, while women are somewhat less in favour and non-binary individuals are significantly less in favour. The other control factors of household income, state, size of residence, health status, immigrant background, education level, and religion can be found in Table A2 in the Online Appendix. People who have difficulty getting by on their household income are more likely to reject compulsory service, and the same is true for people with an immigrant background and respondents with a high school diploma. In terms of residence, the size of the city does not matter, but there are some differences between the federal states. People from Baden-Wuerttemberg have the most positive attitude toward compulsory service, while respondents from Berlin and especially Saxony are the most negative. The state of health also shows a small effect, which is barely significant at the 95% confidence level. The worse respondents assess their own health, the more positively they view compulsory service. The only variable for which there are comparatively clear differences between the three submodels and the full model is religion. Whereas in the submodels Catholics and members of Protestant or Evangelical free churches showed a higher level of support for compulsory service compared to the reference group of non-denominational members, when all factors are controlled for these effects do not appear in the full model. Thus, which religion one belongs to does not play a relevant role for one’s attitude toward compulsory service.

8 Conclusion

This article is based on the debate initiated by German President Frank Walter Steinmeier in June 2022 on compulsory service, which has been a recurring topic in German politics for decades. Based on an online survey of more than 7,300 respondents from across Germany, the analysis explores the public’s attitude toward this issue and the factors that determine attitudes toward compulsory service. Calibrated for age, gender, state and voting intention, 37.9% say they would tend to favour compulsory service and 25.4% that they would even strongly favour it. In contrast, 12% strongly disapprove and 15.3% somewhat disapprove. Only 9.5% are completely neutral on this question, which shows that the issue of compulsory service is a controversial one in Germany. The regression analysis showed that psychological factors such as solidarity, sense of duty and some of the Big 5 personality factors (especially Openness and Extraversion) correlate positively with support for compulsory service. In addition, individuals who would consider themselves as politically more right-wing, national, and traditional are positively inclined toward compulsory service. In terms of party supporters of the larger parties, it is particularly those of the CDU/CSU and the AfD who are in favour of compulsory service. Supporters of the other parties are significantly less in favour. People who intend to vote for the Left are the only ones who reject compulsory service by a majority. The third relevant block of factors has turned out to be the respondents’ own experience with (compulsory) service. Here we find that people who have completed military service (and those who served in an alternative service within disaster and civil defence, or in the police) have a particularly positive attitude toward compulsory service. This finding is surprising insofar that especially among those who served in the military as conscripts, a large proportion consider their service to have been of little use for their further lives. One possible explanation may be that there is at least an implicit fairness argument here, along the lines of: Even if my service at the time was a waste of time, I had to do it – so young people today should do so as well. Furthermore, those respondents who retrospectively regard their service as a good and meaningful experience are more more positively inclined towards compulsory service. It is also interesting to note that men are more in favour of compulsory service than women, and that non-binary persons reject it the most. Since compulsory service is also seen in many cases as a possible replacement option for voluntary commitments, which has been in decline for decades, the finding that those respondents who do volunteer are clearly in favour of compulsory service is also telling. It seems that those who currently volunteer for society assume that a purely voluntary solution will no longer be sufficient in the future to master the ever-increasing workload, whether in care, integration work with refugees, and so on.

In any case, the analysis has shown that the mostly reserved or oppositional position of the majority of German politicians to the discussion initiated by the Federal President (with the exception of the CDU/CSU, which has positioned itself comparatively uniformly in favour of compulsory service) does not correspond to the attitudes of the population on this issue. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the associated need to restructure the Bundeswehr, as well as the increasingly serious shortage of personnel in the social and nursing sectors, it would not be surprising if the debate on compulsory service won’t simply disappear this time as it has on previous occasions, but instead give rise to a serious political debate in parliament. Whether or not compulsory service will actually be introduced depends not only on political majorities, but also on legal issues that have not yet been clarified. Currently, a general compulsory service for all persons would be compatible neither with the Basic Law nor with the European Convention on Human Rights.