Overview

• Families Minister Karin Prien said the government must ready the administration for a potential Zivildienst, citing more than 1,500 conscientious‑objection applications in the first half of the year and the need to scale the BAFzA.
• In August the cabinet approved Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ volunteer‑first Wehrdienst, with online questionnaires to the 2008 cohort beginning in 2026 and medical screening planned from 2027, with responses mandatory for young men but voluntary for young women under the proposal.
• CDU deputy Sepp Müller proposed allowing former NVA soldiers to volunteer as Bundeswehr reservists with tailored ‘Heimatschützer’ training and a pledge to the Basic Law, a step currently blocked by the Unification Treaty except for those who later served in the Bundeswehr.
• Planning benchmarks call for roughly 260,000 active troops and about 200,000 reservists, yet reports put the current reservist pool at around 51,000, underscoring the scale of the shortfall.
• The government maintains a voluntary‑first approach with a conscription fallback if recruitment goals are not met, while legal and constitutional hurdles continue to shape the pace and scope of any reintroduction of mandatory service.