Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Students strike across Germany in protest against military service
BBC ^ | 09/24/2026 | Bethany Bell

Posted on 09/26/2026 11:52:07 AM PDT by DFG

School strikes are taking place across Germany to protest against the possible reintroduction of compulsory military service.

One of the organisers of the strike, Bela Breitner, from School Strike Against Compulsory Military Service said the federal government was "serious about gradually reintroducing compulsory military service".

At one protest in Hamburg, demonstrators waved flags and held up banners emblazoned with the words "We won't take part in your wars".

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made boosting Germany's military a priority following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A new law introducing voluntary military service came into force in January, with the aim of recruiting volunteers to increase the number of soldiers.

However, if the security situation worsens or if too few volunteers come forward, a form of compulsory military service could be considered by Germany's Parliament, the Bundestag.

Under the law, all 18-year-olds in Germany are being sent a questionnaire asking if they are interested and willing to join the armed forces.

One protester, 16-year-old Elias Bernhard, from Hamburg, said that the responses to the questionnaires "show that young people do not want to join the Bundeswehr [Germany's armed forces]".

"That is why I am out on the streets today. That is why we are serious about striking until compulsory military service is off the table. We will carry on."

The questionnaire is mandatory for men and voluntary for women. All 18-year-old men will have to take a medical exam to assess their fitness for possible military service.

The organisers of the protests, say the trigger came after some 18-year-olds in the northern German towns of Kiel and Flensburg, were sent official invitations for medical exams, even though they expressed no interest in joining the army on their registration forms.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Germany
KEYWORDS: belabreitner; germany; hamburg; militaryservice; worldwareleven
Message from Jim Robinson:

Dear FRiends,

We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.

If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you,

Jim


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-20, 21-31 next last

1 posted on 09/26/2026 11:52:07 AM PDT by DFG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: DFG

Great idea....start with a new law: no service; no citizenship. Then boot them all.


2 posted on 09/26/2026 11:54:59 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DFG

What, exactly, does it mean for students to “strike?”

They won’t go to class to better themselves? That’s okay, because we always need people to fill roles that don’t need higher education.


3 posted on 09/26/2026 11:56:21 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: If You Want It Fixed - Fix It

Why would they sign up to fight for a country that hates them?


4 posted on 09/26/2026 11:57:54 AM PDT by nonliberal (Pinochet did nothing wrong.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DFG

The masses that enjoy their liberty and freedom are always so opinionated when it is because somebody else’s butt is on the line.


5 posted on 09/26/2026 11:59:13 AM PDT by pfflier
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DFG

Globalists’ Great Reset by WW III comin’ right up.


6 posted on 09/26/2026 12:03:38 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (The right of the Democrats to embezzle elections shall not be infringed. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nonliberal

It is interesting that government policy not only gives extra benefits to women that it denies to men—but then wants men to do the fighting to preserve that system.

Someone once said something like: “War is when the government gets to choose your enemies. Revolution is when you get to choose your enemies.”


7 posted on 09/26/2026 12:08:11 PM PDT by cgbg (Four seconds is all it takes to beat the brainwashing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: DFG

Yeah. Why aren’t the Americans gonna defend us anymore? They owe us.


8 posted on 09/26/2026 12:10:11 PM PDT by stanne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DFG

The linked article uses a photo employing ‘tight-shot’ journalism where eleven people now represent all of Germany’s youth.


9 posted on 09/26/2026 12:12:19 PM PDT by SpaceBar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DFG

Good luck in drafting the new migrants into the military
First of all, they won’t go. They are there for the benefit buffet

Second of all, you don’t want them in your military because then the indigenous Germans in the military will not only have to fight what is in front of them but also guard against the recruited goat brigade to their rear


10 posted on 09/26/2026 12:23:27 PM PDT by chuckee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DFG

They will not fight for a ruling class whose primary war aim is simply to kill them.


11 posted on 09/26/2026 12:23:50 PM PDT by Salman (US out of NATO or we might find ourselves fighting the next world war on the side of the Germans. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wouldn’t be necessary, if Russia hadn’t invaded several sovereign countries (Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine) with NO provocations.

But as long as malicious entities like Pootin’s Russia exist and continue to threaten their neighbors, defensive measures must be taken.

“Better safe than sorry”


12 posted on 09/26/2026 12:25:02 PM PDT by canuck_conservative (Russia lies all the time)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: DFG

In the US in the 1960s the student strikes and sitdowns at major universities were supposed to end the war. It was said the countries in Europe and elsewhere would face a government collapse and change of rulers if there were a student strike across their country.

In the US the “hardhats” and “law and order” Americans including the Archie Bunker types just said: “Good. Throw ‘em in jail. Stop wasting money on colleges.”

Ahead of the times.


13 posted on 09/26/2026 12:26:25 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: canuck_conservative
with NO provocations

Your eyes just turned brown.

History does not begin on a day of your choosing, no matter how much you pretend.

14 posted on 09/26/2026 12:27:18 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (The right of the Democrats to embezzle elections shall not be infringed. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: stanne

Well said.


15 posted on 09/26/2026 12:27:50 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

And your imaginary bogeymen “Globalists” don’t control armies or invade countries, no matter how much YOU pretend.

Monsters like Pootin do.

That why defensive preparations are necessary.


16 posted on 09/26/2026 12:31:11 PM PDT by canuck_conservative (Russia lies all the time)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

More than likely


17 posted on 09/26/2026 12:34:37 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They Did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: canuck_conservative
And your imaginary bogeymen “Globalists” don’t control armies or invade countries, no matter how much YOU pretend.

  1. They just fund them.
  2. Both sides.
  3. Profit!

18 posted on 09/26/2026 12:34:48 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (The right of the Democrats to embezzle elections shall not be infringed. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: canuck_conservative

“1 May 2021”

“Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones destroyed 114 Armenian tanks, i.e. more than three battalions, 43 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 141 artillery installation and MLRS, as well as a bunch of other military equipment of the Armenian army, and this is only in 24 days. The military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia lasted 44 days”

“Even loitering ammunition purchased from Israel hit fewer armored vehicles than Turkish drones.”

“It is possible that this infographic is actually part of an information war, which was supposed to show Armenia that Azerbaijan is armed with “the most reliable attack drone” capable of destroying a bunch of enemy weapons without losing a single UAV.”

https://en.topwar.ru/182593-tureckomu-bespilotniku-bayraktar-tb2-pripisali-unichtozhenie-treh-batalonov-armjanskih-tankov-v-karabahe.html

Moscow Times [10/27/2021]

The neighboring separatist-held Luhansk People’s Republic accused Kiev of using the Bayraktar in violation of ceasefire agreements that ban the deployment of foreign drones on the front line.

The Kremlin said Wednesday that Turkey’s supply of drones to Ukraine risks destabilizing the eastern Ukraine conflict

The Ukrainian army has been locked in a long-running conflict with separatist fighters in Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014 after Moscow annexed the peninsula of Crimea from Kiev. The conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of sending troops and arms to support the separatists, which Moscow denies.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/10/27/ukraine-destroys-pro-russian-artillery-in-its-first-use-of-turkish-drones-a75420

Warsaw Institute [27 October 2021]

“The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drone has been deployed at Donbas by the Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation for the first time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement. The drone targeted the positions of pro-Russian insurgents on October 26. The incident has been met with criticism from Moscow.”

“The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that the unmanned aerial vehicle was used to attack a battery of howitzers that fired Ukrainian positions in Hranitne on the southern part of the line of contact. One Ukrainian soldier was killed and the other was wounded. Despite calls for a ceasefire from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, “Russian-terrorist” forces did not stop the fire. The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces ordered the drone strike to “force the ceasefire.”

“The Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation said on October 26 that separatists made thirteen breaches to the ceasefire”

https://warsawinstitute.org/ukraine-uses-bayraktar-tb2-first-time-donbas/

New York Times [Nov. 15, 2021]

How a Dispute Over Groceries Led to Artillery Strikes in Ukraine

Deployed for the first time in combat by Ukraine and provided by a country that is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the drone hit a howitzer operated by the separatists. Things quickly escalated.

Across the border, Russia scrambled jets. The next day, Russian tanks mounted on rail cars rumbled toward the Ukrainian border.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-putin.html

BBC [26 November 2021]

they see the Kremlin sending a message that it’s ready to defend its “red lines” on Ukraine: above all, that it must not join Nato.

“I think for Putin it’s really important. He thinks the West has begun giving Ukraine’s elite hope about joining Nato,” political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya at R.Politik told the BBC.

“The training, the weapons and so on are like a red rag to a bull for Putin and he thinks if he doesn’t act today, then tomorrow there will be Nato bases in Ukraine. He needs to put a stop to that.”

Ukraine’s desire to join the security bloc is nothing new, nor is Russia’s insistence on vetoing that ambition in what it sees as its own “back yard”.

But Moscow has been rattled recently by the Ukrainian military using Turkish drones against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine; the flight near Crimea of two nuclear-capable US bombers was an extra irritant.

“At a meeting between Putin and Biden, neither will give clear commitments but there may be some tacit understanding on how far the US is ready to go in increasing its military support to Ukraine,” Mr Kortunov argues. “That’s not impossible.”

“Whilst Putin has a flicker of hope that he can do a deal with Biden, he won’t take any rash steps. But if he thinks it’s all doomed, he could do the worst things we can imagine,” Tatiana Stanovaya warns.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59415885

Guardian [December 16, 2021]

“With tensions escalating along the border with Russia, Luke Harding visits troops in Ukraine’s Donbas region to gauge the mood ahead of a possible invasion. The war here has continued since 2014, when pro-Russian separatists seized Ukrainian cities.”

There’s a video I didn’t watch:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/dec/16/on-the-ukraine-frontline-only-the-dead-arent-afraid-video


19 posted on 09/26/2026 12:38:19 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: nonliberal

Nothing would please the globalists in their government more than rounding up all the young German men and send them off to be shot, droned and immolated by fuel air bombs.

Then their replacement “migrants” can have their way with the wives, girlfriends and daughters who were left behind.


20 posted on 09/26/2026 12:49:49 PM PDT by packagingguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-20, 21-31 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson