Young people want to live in peace
German high school students demonstrate against conscription and war
by Karl-Jürgen Müller
On 5 December, tens of thousands of high school students demonstrated against conscription and war in around 90 German cities. On the same day, the German Bundestag passed a law on military service that moves towards conscription and ignores the concerns of schoolchildren.
Many German media outlets reported on the demonstrations. Short excerpts from students’ statements were often quoted. These quotes and the videos available on the internet with various student statements, but also a look at the many posters carried by the students, show that the demonstrations were coordinated and that party slogans could be heard and seen. However, most participants were independent-minded, unorganised young people who also had their say. Microphones were passed around, and anyone who wanted to say something could do so. The statements were refreshingly unpolished and elaborate.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the state’s student representation has also spoken out – with a statement that I would like to see from German politicians. It criticises the federal government’s security policy, warns of “increasing attacks on democracy and society” and sees “exaggerated portrayals of a Russian threat as a form of media manipulation designed to stir up social fear and justify military measures”.1 [emphasis km]
Chancellor Friedrich Merz set an example of this in his speech at the CSU party conference on 13 December. Contrary to the facts, he once again painted a picture of a Russian threat: Russia wanted to (forcibly) restore the Soviet Union within its old borders. Peace in Ukraine respecting Russian interests was a new “Munich Agreement” of 1938. Germany gave young people “many opportunities […], but then we also want you to make a contribution […] We are doing this on a voluntary basis now, and if necessary, we will make it mandatory before the end of this legislative period.”
Other politicians had tried to curry favour with the students, Boris Pistorius taking the cake. On 5 December, tagesschau.de wrote: “Defence Minister Boris Pistorius himself did not take offence at the strikes in his speech to the Bundestag. He described them as ‘great’. They showed the interest and commitment of the students – and that they ‘know what is at stake’.” Pistorius is the minister who is at the forefront of making Germany “fit for war” and reintroducing conscription.
On 5 December, the German website NachDenkSeiten published a lengthy text by a young man of about 30 who commented on conscription (see box). I find this text very worth reading and I was also pleased about the demonstrations. It may be that the students who stayed away from school on the morning of 5 December violated school rules.
But I also had to think of Wolfgang Borchert.
He began his short story “On this Tuesday” with a description of a school lesson during dying in war:
“On this Tuesday,
they practised writing capital letters at school. The teacher wore thick glasses. They had no rims. They were so thick that her eyes looked very quiet. Forty-two girls sat in front of their blackboards, writing in capital letters:
OLD FRITZ HAD A TIN DRINKING CUP. BIG BERTHA [howitzer; heavy gun] SHOT ALL THE WAY TO PARIS. IN WAR, ALL FATHERS ARE SOLDIERS.
Ulla reached her nose with the tip of her tongue. Then the teacher nudged her. You spelled war without the ‘r’, Ulla. War is spelled with an ‘r’. ‘R’ as in rim. How many times have I said that? The teacher took a book and put a tick next to Ulla’s name. Tomorrow you will copy the sentence ten times – neatly – understood? Yes, said Ulla, thinking: She with her glasses.”
So what matters?
Or should today’s young people wait until, after another big war, the voices of the young victims of war have to be read again – as was the case after the First and Second World Wars: “All Quiet on the Western Front”2, “War Letters of Fallen Students”3 or the memories of a young German soldier of the exterminatory war against the Soviet Union in 1941–1945: “Strangely foreign to myself”4.
A coordination centre for the student protests has announced on the internet5 that the nationwide demonstrations are to continue on 5 March 2026.
It also states:
“Conscription is to be reintroduced. Initially as ‘voluntary military service’, but one thing is already certain: if not enough of us sign up, lots will be drawn and then it will become compulsory for everyone. The argument is that we should be able to wage war for Germany.
But what about our right to live in peace and decide for ourselves how we want to live our lives? What about Article 4, para 3 of the Grundgesetz (German basic law), according to which no one may be forced to serve in the armed forces? We do not want to be locked up in barracks for six months of our lives, trained in drill and obedience, and taught to kill. War is not a prospect for the future and is destroying our livelihoods.
Whether it’s the news or talk shows, almost everyone is talking and discussing it. Politicians, the armed forces and various presenters are arguing that we should reintroduce conscription.
But no one is talking to us.
No one asks us what we want.
No one wants to know what we think about it.
But we are the ones affected! It is our lives they want to discuss and decide on! That is why we are forcing them to listen to why we are against conscription!”
Time and again, there have been young people who have had a particular sensitivity to right and wrong. In a time of war and pure power politics – only for one’s own “interests” and no longer for the good of all people – in which the powerful and the “clever” of the world lose all sense of right and wrong, power takes precedence over justice and this is even embellished with propaganda, for example as “realpolitik”, this sensitivity is a valuable treasure.
Supporting young people in following their sensitivity to right and wrong and not allowing themselves to be swayed is a major task. •
1 Quoted from https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/nordrheinwestfalen/wdr-schulstreik-gegen-wehrdienst-aenderungen-demos-am-freitag-in-nrw-100.html vom 5.12.2025 of 5 December 2025
2 Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front, first edition 1929; film 2022 (English)
3 Witkop, Philipp (ed.). Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten. [War letters from fallen students]. With a foreword by Wolfgang Helbich, Weltbild-Verlag 2013
4 Schmitz, Stefan (ed.). Willy Peter Reese. Mir selber seltsam fremd. Russland 1941–44 [Strangely alien to myself. The inhumanity of war. Russia 1941–44], Claasen-Verlag 2003
5 https://schulstreikgegenwehrpflicht.com/
What comes next?
by Nicolas Riedl
And then? What comes next? After all 18-year-olds have been mustered? After “human resources” have been mustered out or deemed fit for service based on combat effectiveness criteria? Then... we’ll probably be ready for war in two to three years.
And then? What comes next? A current poster campaign by the German Armed Forces, which looks as if Orwell himself had written it, lists 70 reasons for the existence of the German Armed Forces on the occasion of its 70th anniversary [in 2025]. Several times, peace of whatever kind is used here as a sales pitch for war. So we should join the largest peace movement – according to the German Armed Forces’ latest self-description – heavily armed and... yes... and then what?
What would happen in the event of a so-called state of tension? Which might be declared if another Media Markt drone strayed into the vicinity of an airport. And then? Would it still be permissible to criticise the army in public? Or would that fall under Section 89 of the Criminal Code [“Anti-constitutional influence on the Bundeswehr and public security organs”]? Would the German Armed Forces still fight for my right to oppose them? As one of the 70 posters promises. I’m asking for a friend, of course.
Now suppose we had this crisis and the whole country switched to war mode... yes... and then what?
Would peace come? Eventually? Would that be the darkest hour before the dawn? But when exactly would this peace come? And above all – how? By young men... and women... shooting, bombing and sniping the young men and women of another nation? More specifically, young Russian women and young Russian men. Let’s assume that our uniformed and armed peace activists did this. Let’s assume that they made their visions of bringing Russia to its knees come true. Then I ask again: and then what?
What comes next? What would come next? I’d rather speak in the subjunctive. Would we then have peace? Does the key to peace lie in a bombed-out Russia? In a Russia in which, once again, every family would have at least one death to mourn? Let us assume that this would be the accomplished work of the federal peace movement, a defeated Russia in which Putin has been removed from power or even killed outright – then the question arises again: and then?
Would we then live in peace? Would we then live in good neighbourliness with this huge country, which has been relieved of its diabolical leader? Would we be certain that the bereaved families of the Russians killed would not seek revenge, that they would not harbour hatred towards Germans or the West in general? Would we be certain that in this case no power vacuum would form in Russia and that the country would not fall back into the chaotic state of the 1990s?
And then? ... Then I ask myself what it would our own backyard look like. Would we then have the freedom again that – according to the German Armed Forces – does not come for free? And what freedom exactly? The freedom we were all allowed to enjoy between 2020 and 2022? When you weren’t even allowed to sit alone on a park bench and read a book? Is that the freedom we need to defend? To be honest, I’d rather be a real hero – the kind of real hero the Federal Government outlined in 2020: a real hero who stays at home. On the sofa. From there, after the war is over, I can look out of the window when our service women und servicemen return, our peace activists. The peace activists who, after their peace movement, their peace march movement, are probably no longer quite so mobile – I mean... without legs and so on. Then, moving, mobility in general, is rather difficult. Older people still remember the sight of wounded and crippled people from the war, moving along the streets with severed limbs. When we see this sight ubiquitously again, then we can talk about it once more... about hashtag cityscape. Provided, of course, that there is still such a thing as a city, because – a quick reminder – Russia is a nuclear power. And if a nuclear war broke out, then... well... then there would be no more “then” for me to ask.
But even if not a single nuclear bomb left its hangar and the war were fought purely conventionally … yes … and then what? How can there be peace when Generation Z is physically and mentally reduced to a state similar to that of the war generation? How should peace emerge when this vicious circle starts all over again? The vicious circle that begins with mothers and fathers traumatised by war, who are once again emotionally absent from their children and even become violent towards them? The baby boomer generation can tell you a sad thing or two about this, with the sound of slaps serving as the snare drum.
So, what vision of the future do all those who are so fervently calling for military readiness have in mind?
The answer to this question is quite simple. These people have no vision, no answer to the question: what next? They have no ideas, no plans, not even sketches for a world worth living in. It is this war fever that prevents them from thinking about the morning after. The focus is on letting a genie out of the bottle that will be extremely difficult to recapture, and only after many years.
Everything that people are supposed to risk their lives for is a complete farce. Ostensibly, it is the fight for a supposedly prosperous and free country, but one in which bridges collapse, pensioners collect deposit bottles and critics need bathrobes. In 1999, former NATO commander Wesley Clark mused in an interview with “The New Yorker” (2003): “I mean, what if we find out one day that America is just a land of hamburger stands? What have we got to defend?“ This thought can be applied to Germany in the medium term or even today.
The intertwining of high finance and political office is more obvious than ever, and the sell-off is in full swing. Against this backdrop, if you still feel compelled to do what really matters – go ahead! Just be clear about one thing: You are not fighting for the FRG, for the Federal Republic of Germany. No. At best, you are fighting for the BRD – for BlackRock Deutschland.
And then?
First published as a podcast on Radio München: https://www.radiomuenchen.net/de/podcast-archiv/radiomuenchen-themen/2013-04-04-17-32-41/2994-und-dann-von-nicolas-riedl.html; Reproduced as written text: https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=143175
(Translation Current Concerns)