Overview

• Unionsfraktionsvize Sepp Müller proposes allowing willing former NVA soldiers to join the reserve for Heimatschutz roles after retraining and a new oath to the Basic Law.
• Current law bars ex‑NVA personnel from reserve duty unless they were integrated after 1990, so any change would require revisiting provisions of the Einigungsvertrag.
• SPD voices caution and urges focus on new recruits, while the Greens call the idea misplaced, pointing to limited capacity to train and absorb reservists; an NVA veterans’ group is skeptical.
• Family Minister Karin Prien says conscientious-objector applications have risen sharply, topping 1,500 in the year’s first half, as her ministry and the BAFzA ready for a potential Zivildienst restart.
• Germany is pursuing a voluntary-first service model, with questionnaires to the 2008 cohort from 2026 and medical screenings from 2027, as planners aim for about 260,000 active troops and 200,000 ready reservists versus roughly 51,000 today.