Discussion

German men need military permit for extended stays abroad

legitster: > While the law requires men to request the permit, the spokesperson clarified, it also obliges the military career center to issue it, if "no specific military service is expected during the period in question.”> "Since military service under current law is based exclusively on voluntary participation, such permissions must generally be granted,” the official added.> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”

sergiotapia: If men are owned like this by the government, they should have infinitely more rights and voting power than women.

dmitrygr: No no no, you don’t understand. Everyone is equal. It is just that some are more equal than others.

webnrrd2k: Press gangs are back

trvz: As a German citizen, this’ll certainly make me thoroughly uninterested in the gender pay gap for the rest of my life.

sergiotapia: It is quite simple isn't it. It's over.

askonomm: So are you also not allowed to move away or? I find it pretty messed up that your life as a man is literally owned by the government.

trvz: Read the article, it answers that.

aziaziazi: With all your respects the guidelines also mention this:> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jsiepkes: So it's a cold war law which is still in place but not being enforced.Same for conscription laws in the Netherlands, which are also still active. They just don't ask anyone to report for conscription. It was even expanded a couple of years before the Ukraine war to also include women.

jasonvorhe: > The new military service law requires all men under 45 to seek approval from the Bundeswehr to leave the country for longer than three months. It also obliges the military career center to issue it.New. Not cold war. This didn't exist before.

MichaelDickens: Rather than curtailing women's right to vote, my preferred solution would be to increase men's right to not be conscripted.

landl0rd: You can't have a country that doesn't have conscription in time of war. For example if Russia were to attack which is unlikely but plausible. I don't like conscription at all and it's necessary but still an evil.

mhitza: You are, but it's a shit law and surprising to still exist in Germany. Per the article it's not a new law, has been in effect since the 80s, and there have been no repercussions for violating this law.Instead, my 2c, should have changed it to a notice you have to send the military, at most.

rvz: You are owned by the government, own nothing yourself and very happy that the taxes you're paying to are for buying the energy from another country that is funding a war in east Europe and also making a lot of money out of that.And then wondering why energy is very expensive.

victorbjorklund: No, it literally says the law says you must seek permission if you wanna leave for more than 3 months and the govt must always grant you this if not in a war. And if you fail to seek permission nothing happens. You can ignore it without consequence.

coldtea: >And if you fail to seek permission nothing happens. You can ignore it without consequenceThe consequence is you violated the law, and they can have you at any time, even retroactively, for that.That they don't is merely a detail. If it really has "no consequence" they should remove it.

Galanwe: I don't think there is any moat here, most European countries have these kind of "deprecated" laws, that are not enforced and just stay there because it's too much of a hassle to remove. In France, I think there are still laws forbidding women to wear jeans, and requiring permission of the husband to work. Still in the text of law, but obviously non enforceable.

lazide: Ah, invasive extra paperwork (enforced by criminal penalties, at least in theory) for something they say on the surface they won’t actually need. So very german (hah)

nine_k: I suppose it's only a boring piece of extra paperwork until at some moment the permit stops being automatically issued.

ph4rsikal: Funny how the calls for equality and feminism always quickly end when it comes to civil duties. Equal rights should mean also equal duties.

LadyCailin: Sorry to burst your strawman argument, but I would support the same draft mechanism for women, as it is in Norway.But sure, continue to rail against equality and feminism for no reason.

cocodill: Busification, when?

bagels: I guess this is a new word basically meaning conscription by force.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busification

ben_w: > conscription by forceIs there any unforced conscription? By definition conscription is compulsory.

jhrmnn: It’s interesting to read the discussion here through the lens of obligations vs rights. It would seem the rights are definitely winning.

diath: Why does it exclude women? War is not just physical strength, but also logistics, operating vehicles, operating drones, nursing, and so on. All tasks that women are well capable of.

Betelbuddy: The gender pay gap only comes up for women in the boardroom and the tennis competition circuit...not in the job queue for bricklayers, roofers and garbage removers...

sunshine-o: Those governments are totally inept.For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.Think about it, Trump approval rating fell sharply but is still at about 40%. Merz is at 15% and most of those 15% are probably boomers in a nursing home. He is probably closer to 0% within the demographic he is trying to conscript.The only war you're gonna get in Europe is a civil war.

cookiengineer: Note that this law still exists because it requires a constitutional change to include women (well, or to be abandoned). A constitutional change of the Grundgesetzbuch requires a 2/3rd majority in the parliament. That almost never happens these days, especially with green/left/social party being not really united anymore in their votes and the conservatives allying themselves with the far right.The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.You can see that in the web archive if you're curious, for that URL here:https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung

bigfudge: This comment doesn't make much sense. Are you implying German taxes are buying Russian oil and so funding the war in Ukraine? If so, that's a very partial reading of what's happened in recent years. Europe went through a huge and very painful transition away from Russian oil and gas. Germany in particular found this very difficult, but AFAICT it's mostly complete and Germany has prioritised renewables.Energy is currently expensive because an orange maniac has started a war that only seems to benefit Russia.

eigenspace: It's a re-instatement of a cold war era law that was suspended in 2011.

petcat: Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.

umanwizard: [delayed]

dwedge: A lot of laws head this way. Sweeping chances but not enforced so people ignore it, then later there's nothing stopping the government going back 7 years after select individuals. Just because it wasn't ever enforced doesn't mean it isn't illegal. An example is disguised employment laws for contractors in the UK (IR35)

wat10000: Civilized countries don’t allow retroactively increasing the penalty for breaking a law. Does Germany allow that?

DiscourseFan: I agree but in countries with larger populations, there are two reasons:1) Women can have children, and after a major war a large section of the population may be killed, and its better to have more women than men, since you can repopulate faster.2) Women take over a large share of industrial labor during wartime. This was a mistake the Germans made in WW2, because they were so mystified by Nazism. But in the US, women basically took over all the manufacturing jobs that men left when they went to war, and it helped shore up the industrial base and, in the end, helped lead to an allied victory.In a place like Israel, there are so few people that it doesn't make a massive difference. If half the men get taken out, its not like the 2-3 million remaining women are going to be able or even want to "repopulate" so rapidly (not to mention that Israel has an interesting setup where a small section of the women make up the majority of the births--the ultra-orthodox--and the majority probably aren't having kids anyway).

diath: Easier to repopulate... at the expense of men being considered essentially disposable by the society. I should have as much right to not being forcefully sent to my death to wage billionaires' wars as the other half of population.

aleph_minus_one: > For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.In particular concerning the military conscription (laws), there exists a cross-generational opposition to these.I just post two famous songs concerning this topic (if you know German):Franz Josef Degenhardt - Befragung eines Kriegsdienstverweigerers [40 Interrogation of a conscientious objector] (1972)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDTtMTcj8X0--Reinhard Mey - Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht (1986)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0qPsYTBCtQReinhard Mey & Freunde [Reinhard Mey & friends] - Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht [No, I won't give my sons] (new recording; 2020)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-Ga3myTP4See also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nein,_meine_S%C3%B6hne_geb%E2%...

orange_joe: How does feminism survive if this becomes the norm? If young men feel like they're expected to give more to their society it's natural to expect renumeration financial, socially or politically. Nordic countries don't seem to have this problem, but their conscription laws are quite relaxed compared to what the future will likely hold. A declining youth population almost certainly means greater youth repression (higher taxes for pensions, conscription, etc.)

dwedge: Why would this affect feminism? If they want to fight for equal rights to conscription nobody is stopping them, and if they don't nobody is going to force them to. These gotchas don't really have any reflection on reality.

mikkupikku: You should know why. Feminism is great for making the point that women should be treated with dignity and respect, but as soon as you start using it as a pretext for the argument that women too should be disposable pawns of the state you dun jumped the shark badly.

MrsPeaches: > For women, answering the questions is voluntary, as they cannot be required to perform military service under the Constitution.Specially article 12a Paragraph 4: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...

shin_lao: Look at the Ukraine war. Who is being drafted against their will?

brobdingnagians: As a thought experiment, I would expect any society to collapse quickly where women were being grabbed off the street in large numbers and sent to the front lines to die. It wouldn't even be a debate whether such a society would be worth defending. Men are more tolerant of being sent to the front lines to die, they can at least rationalize that it is for their women and children.

einpoklum: I remember people in Germany who had to go underground to evade the draft, even as recently as the early 2000s.Here's a story from 2002 about how the supreme court there upheld the legality of a military draft:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-apr-11-mn-37321...anyway, if you refused to be drafted and did not want to go to jail, you had to more-or-less stop using any government services, rent with roommates, avoid using a credit card etc. until you've reached some age, and then you could emerge again because the duty to serve expires at that certain (not very high) age. It was cuh-razy.

ck45: I'm not sure how credible it is, conscientious objection is literally in the German constitution: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...

itsyonas: As you said, you can only object if it goes against your conscience, but if you are against it for political reasons (e.g. you don't think its worth it to die for Germany), that's not a valid reason and your objection will be denied. They were also incredibly strict during the Cold War, only easing off a bit afterwards when they wanted a smaller military.

fabian2k: Because it would take a change to the constitution to do that while reinstating the old draft laws only takes a regular majority in parliament. The draft is a severe limitation of personal freedom, so you can't just do that by law. The draft for men is already enabled in the constitution, the draft for woman isn't.At this moment, changing the constitution is not possible, there is no majority for this. So that pretty much took the option to change the broader parameters out of the discussion entirely.

EA-3167: Unsurprisingly when people here engage in serious politics beyond a desire to enrich themselves, those politics tend to take on a distinctly libertarian bent. I’m not sure what else people expect though, this is a very sheltered group with relatively limited skills outside of specific technical areas.To put it another way this forum skews selfish.

believme1123e4: Even among the teststerone-deficit typescript and node js developers, the soul always wants freedom from the longhouse.

itsyonas: Honestly, I don't think the problem with war is that not enough women die in it. It makes more sense to argue against forcing anyone against their will to fight in a war.

throwatdem12311: You might not want to fight in the war but eventually the war might fight you whether you like it or not.

mikkupikku: How can a state survive if this weren't the norm? Why would men fight and die for a government that views their own wives and daughters as cannon fodder? If the government is conscripting men's wives to war, is it really in the interest of men to risk their own lives to protect that government? If the government took my wife and sent her to war, I'd sooner firebomb a government office than join up to fight for the government.If a woman wants to fight, that's another story entirely. But conscripting women? That's poison.

xandrius: And what about a government which sends sons? Your point makes absolutely no sense, especially in relation to feminism. Equal rights and equal duties.

t0bia_s: [delayed]

lifestyleguru: If you ever wonder what is the role of professional army in case of any serious invasion or war. Their role is to hunt for conscripts, kidnap them, and transport them to the army recruitment centers.

agrishin: Well, you see, if men stay alive, but women are killed, society collapses eventually as not enough new people are born. It sucks being a man in this scenario, but it is what it is.

baxtr: You’ve never been to Germany, have you?

unsupp0rted: That's a non-sequitur to the question.And the answer is that women are equal to men in all things, except when things get serious, and then all of a sudden biology matters again

stickfigure: > women are equal to men in all things, except in extreme circumstances when violence is required on a mass scaleFixed that for you.

cubefox: It doesn't even exclude just biological women but everyone who has either "female" or "diverse" in their passport, which, according to current law, can both be biologically male.

believme1123e4: passwordless sudo kind of stuff.

missedthecue: Most young men don't have wives or daughters. It's not 1850 anymore.I would rather both genders get drafted than be in a Ukraine situation where millions of women leave for richer countries while I pulled off the street to go eat FPV drones. What's even the point? Why not surrender? What am I protecting or preserving?

im3w1l: I think it's like they want to have it on the books now so they can use it later. If they try to emergency legislate during wartime people will protest and/or flee the country the day before it starts applying.

rvnx: It's not the same, read the law, they changed it so instead of being activated during crisis now it applies anytime, including in peacetime.

renewiltord: > When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”The famed German rule-following in action. This kind of routine violation of regulation is what led to Dieselgate. Social norms in places like this rarely support rule of law. There's a reason the EPA was the one which blew this wide open. Local regulators follow these norms because that's what German cultural norms are.

analog31: Can it be challenged under the European constitution?

almokhtar: IT funny how limited people freewill in this era you can't travel except with permission and you should pay half of salary as taxes some countries you can't visit and if your passport are from 3rd world you can't visit any anyway lol slavery in it finest .the irony is those same people when a religion tell them don't drink or kill or still they say they have no freedom

dmurray: It's an important distinction because it prevents the defence of "oh it's just an old law, there are lots of old laws on the books that everyone knows aren't relevant, they can't be tidied up for political reasons".It was suspended for the last 15 years! Surely it was easier to leave it suspended and unsuspending it is a conscious choice.

mothballed: Well women are the rate limiting factor in having more men produced for war fodder.It probably makes more sense to ban birth control at the same time men are required to die for the war machine as both would then be playing out their slavery-induced biological role in ensuring survival of the nation. That is if you're down with the whole slavery for war thing.

missedthecue: Biologically true, but probably not in practice. Do we think Ukraine will compell women to repopulate postwar? It won't happen.

stephbook: According to the constitution, women can be drafted into hospitals.Look at $$4. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_12a.htmlYou could of course require women to register, too. In case of war, they'll be drafted into hospitals. They just don't want to.

itsyonas: In the case of a typical war of conquest, fighting pretty much stops as soon as one nation surrenders. However, no nation state in the world asks, 'How can we save the most lives?', instead asking, 'Do we have enough people to send to their deaths to potentially preserve our monopoly of power?'Of course, at the beginning of every war, some people genuinely believe that joining and defending the nation they live in is in their best interests, but these numbers quickly drop over time. As history and current events show, states start to use forced conscription in every prolonged war at some point.

PeterStuer: Not sure about constitution, but it is clearly discrimination based on sex, which violates plenty of EU laws and regulations.

rvnx: If anything, the European Union is thinking to unify this among all countries so there is a unified permit to prove you registered for mobilization (like there was with the EU Digital COVID certificate).So, EU is an enemy that pretends to be a friend there.

mytailorisrich: That's interesting because on the face of it this none of the EU's business... but also typical of the EU and EU governments to expand what is thr EU's business little by little.

markus_zhang: Question for German friends: What do you think about the production level of military equipment? If Russia does move (which I think is unlikely in the near future), how many days does the ammo last?

TheOtherHobbes: NATO has days/weeks of ammunition, so it's woefully under-resourced.NATO doctrine is basically air superiority against any invading force, with the ability to wreak destruction far behind the front lines.Conveniently the Iran war has depleted stockpiles of almost everything.The reality is NATO is vulnerable on two fronts.The first is that NATO has no defences against the kind of drone and missile waves Russia has been using against Ukraine. A surprise attack could easily take out a large part of NATO's air superiority and do significant damage to arms factories.The second is more serious - capture of the independent nuclear deterrent. The US is clearly giving up on defending Europe, the UK's deterrent is barely functional, and only France has a truly independent deterrent.Russia has spent a lot of time and money trying to get a puppet government elected on France, along the lines of the governments in Hungary, Slovakia, and the US.If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender.The question is really whether Russia can hold on until the French elections next year.

parchley: And if you include women (well, all genders) directly in the war efforts you double the amount of soldiers you have, which would increase your chance of winning and not needing to repopulate.

rvnx: If you refuse to fight, you lose.If you all agree to refuse to fight, you win.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemmaThe key here is to refuse fighting. Nobody becomes a hero by becoming a murderer whose goal is to defend the political power of Stalin, Napoleon, Bush, or whoever.

itsyonas: All nation states are like that. They monopolise power and violence, and will defend that monopoly by sacrificing their citizens' lives if another state tries to infringe upon it.I think it's clear that the interests of citizens and their state typically do not align. Unfortunately, most states have cultivated and propagated a different idea for decades, which is why so many people have a different perception of their state than the reality.

HappyPanacea: No idea why you single out nation states, all states are similar.

logicchains: Nation state is just another word for state, no? What state is not a nation state?

lokar: A tangent, but I’m interested (as an American) what is the German attitude towards laws that have no enforcement or penalty? Do most people feel an obligation to observe them? Is there any social cost for disregarding them?

missedthecue: I would define feminism as the belief that on balance and in aggregate, there is a difference in the fairness that society accords to the genders and it's in favor of men.The risk to feminism would be that this becomes so blatantly and obviously not true that no one can take it seriously. I don't think the continued draft of men would impact this because it's not a change to the status quo, and it isn't changing opinion in Ukraine.

eigenspace: No, the one that said it was only activated during crisis was the post 2011 version.

rvnx: Saved, can freely enjoy cocktails on the beach.The registered gender is the one that counts.

gertop: Most of the opposition to women in the army comes from conservatives, not from feminists. They imagine themselves injured in the trenches in need of being carried by a fellow soldier, and they conclude that women are too weak.

cjbgkagh: In measuring grips strength, which is a good proxy for general strength, 90% of females producing less force than 95% of males. In other words almost all men are stronger than almost all women.

eesmith: If that factoid were at all important then the military should use grip strength to determine who to draft, not gender.

cjbgkagh: I’m vehemently against the draft in general. I saw this war coming over a decade ago and live as an expat in part to avoid being press ganged into drone target duty.Grip strength is a proxy for general strength, and I think it’s safe to assume strength is important to combat.

pj_mukh: How does a government express "anti-feminism". Surely you're not suggesting a reduction in voting power for women. So what else would make it seem "fair" to men in your mind?

surgical_fire: Are you surprised that a forum full of people all-in hustle culture and the whole VC-startup grift is extremely selfish?This is not to say that the government should get blind faith, but some notions that the collective good has any value is alien to many people here.Libertarianism is a societal disease. "Fuck you got mine".

lmf4lol: over and over again, we see that governments are pretty bad at doing their job. over and over again, they prove to us that they cant handle money, that they are corrupt, that they put the interest of their political class above that of the people.so are you surprised?id rather be left alone as much as possible in my pursuit of happiness. On my own terms!

whynotmaybe: Yes, but in 12 month, 1 man and 20 women can produce the 20 kids.It's not the case with 1 woman and 20 men.

mikkupikku: We're not having this conversation in a cultural vacuum; men figure out at a young age that if things go to shit, their lives become expendable for the sake of the community. I view conscription as a form of slavery; something that I hope never happens to me or anybody, but could conceivably happen. That's the way the world has worked for thousands of years, and the Bayesian meme asks me to therefore bet on it continuing to be this way. But it doesn't have to be this way for women too. Why should it be, misery loves company? If men are going to be dying, we should draft women to die too? That's not feminism, that's insanity.

ck45: What's a reason that is politically and not against one's conscience? I assumed that one's political beliefs would also manifest in conscience.The cold war has been over for a very long time. The whole process was reformed in 1984 by removing the mandatory oral hearing. Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995. That's not good enough (should be 100%), but not terrible either.

itsyonas: > What's a reason that is politically and not against one's conscience? I assumed that one's political beliefs would also manifest in conscience.For example, I don't think it's in my interest to defend or die for the German state. However, I would use violence to protect my life if someone tried to kill me or threatened my life directly. The German state would interpret this as a political objection rather than a conscientious one, since I am willing to use violence in principle. If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.> Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995.Yes, as I said, after the Cold War, Germany no longer wanted to maintain such a large army, so they started accepting any reasonably well-written argument. But in any war, you can see that nation states will start struggling to recruit new soldiers as it becomes obvious to the population that it's a rather pointless endeavour to die for their state. So, they start forcing people. We've seen that in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, USA, etc.

tokai: >If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.That is a complete fantasy of yours. Political convictions are explicitly stated as a valid type of justification for conscientious objection by the Act on Conscientious Objection to Military Service. It even states the reasons do not have to be logical or objectively comprehensible, which easily covers your "I'm not opposed to all violence in all theoretically cases, but I fundamentally reject service for the German state".

juujian: IIRC there is actually a practice of nullifying laws that cannot be enforced (Vollzugsdefizit). One example I remember is that the enforcement of minor drug possession charges was declared unconstitutional because that law was only selectively enforced.

fabian2k: It probably could be challenged under the German constitution, but nobody knows if that would be successful. The draft for men is set up in the constitution, but there is also an explicit equality for men and women in there. In the past any challenge would almost certainly have been denied, but it's a different time now.In practice, this draft is not a real draft yet. Nobody is actually drafted, so there are almost no practical consequences. If there was an actual draft, I'd expect to see a challenge to this.

hulitu: Everybody. Do you have some statistics ?

throw_m239339: > Everybody. Do you have some statistics ?This is false, overwhelmingly MALES. For a time, men couldn't leave Ukraine, while women could. Those who go to die on the front in all wars are mostly males. Doesn't mean that women aren't casualties as well, they are.

atomicnumber3: A lot of draft laws haven't been touched in a long time and aren't updated for modern gender politics. Though I do wonder if they'll actually get updated ever - no politician wants to touch it and it's not like anyone is screaming for the right to be forced to go die in war.It's always weird to me how surprised women are that every single man they know has had to specifically, actually physically ink paper to sign up for the draft. It definitely feels weird/spooky when you do it, given the implications and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.

hallh: Denmark made drafts mandatory for women last year.

lysace: Sweden in 2017.

oreally: I'm in a country ~5mil population (less than israel's) where men are conscripted and there is a fair amount of angst regarding their sacrifice. IMO, the cause is a mix of patriarchy and voteshare.Factor #2 is no longer true, nowadays more and more stuff is being produced by machines. Moreover women can pick up guns. Drones can be piloted. Lethality is only going to go up.No one sane would want to go fight in a war where lethality is high. Nor train for something that requires looming, recurring obligations for a good 10-20 years of their life. This is real sacrifce. If you want respect, at some point you have to put skin in the game.

rvnx: Guess what, many jews self-reported themselves to the authorities just to follow the process and that led directly to their death.https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/source_view.php?SourceId=42...Of course, this is old times now, but here is the same, there is no benefit to register, and you increase your risk to die.Don't do it.

bilsbie: Seems crazy that women can vote to send men to war.

logicchains: No crazier than that the old can vote to send the young to war.

machinekob: This is only for citizen not refugees/immigrants so both MEA and NA folks can chill.

huggerl88: They really really hate Germans for some reason. Not even genocide is sufficient, it must be humiliating.

QuantumNomad_: The whole existence of the EU has its background in the end of WWII.> 18 April 1951 – European Coal and Steel Community> Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past. The six are Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The European Coal and Steel Community comes into being in 1952.https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...Why wouldn’t a unified permit to prove you registered for mobilization be relevant to what the EU is for?

softskunk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state

SauntSolaire: You can lose a war, yet still keep your country. You can also win a war, yet still need to repopulate.

tokai: Don't post made up lies here.

rvnx: https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-indus...There is a new military Schengen project to make troops and unified military documentation across whole EU.Obviously there will need to be a registry of personnel there (including conscripts).

fabian2k: Nothing in there is anywhere close to the claim you made.

logicchains: That's not true. When France surrendered in WW2 most French men didn't have to fight or die (unless they were Jewish).

mothballed: That was also true of much of the feudal or monarchist European wars in the centuries before WWI. In the near term before the "democratic" era around WWI wars war largely seen as wars of the aristocracy and armed forces. Merchants could usually ~freely come and go between countries at war and you could generally pass to a country you were at war with without common people seeing you as an enemy. Wars also tended to be less "all or nothing" where the other side was evil and had to be destroyed and were seen more as property and rights disputes of the elite where armed force was a negotiating tactic or strategic use to assert some particular right.It wasn't until the scam of 'democracy' fooled people into thinking war was against the actual people of the other country that they not only scammed everyone into having such buy-in and stakes for the war but also to view the other countrymen themselves as the enemy. People started viewing the nation of themselves because their laughable miniscule influence of their vote somehow means the government is of them. (Note this was a resurface of course, there were times in history where war was seen as against a peoples rather than of the elite).

suddenlybananas: Stop reading Curtis Yarvin's pseudo-history. Like 8 million people died in the Thirty Years War before modern democratic states, and there's plenty of other examples.

gmadsen: We already have data on one of those…Pragmatically, the main reason that has been true throughout all of history is that women are more valuable reproductively. A country can lose half its men in a war and still recover. The same is not true if it loses half its women.

throw-the-towel: However, with birth rates plummeting -- is this even true any more?

ck45: Thanks for clarifying! I did some own research and apparaently in those oral hearings, objectors were often tricked into contradicting themselves with quite absurd scenarios.

mikkupikku: If a woman wants to join the army, that's great, let her and let her do the job she's best at. Even combat, I fully believe that some women can excel with unequaled merit.I'm talking about conscription. The state grabbing women who want nothing to do with war and forcing them into the army. That's what happens to men. They say it's necessary, I guess they're probably right in various contrived scenarios, but historically it has very often not been necessary and a lot of good men were murdered by politicians for no good reason. I don't know how to fix this problem, but why would you ever advocate for deliberately dragging more women into it?

HappyPanacea: Finland?

nick486: its a question of degree. going to the barracks when you get called up by mail vs getting grabbed off the street, punched in the face and shoved into a bus headed for the training center.

mothballed: Yes the US has a more insidious "hidden" law that I'm amazed Trump has not used to his advantage. It's a felony for the younger illegal immigrants males who are eligible to not register for the draft (most visa and legally visa exempt tourists are exempt, but the exemption falls off if you fall out of status). Almost none of them do, meaning almost all undocumented military-age-males are actively committing a serious crime.

logicchains: Welcome to Dubai, German habibis, you can join all the Russians fleeing their draft here. Still a lot less likely to get hit by a drone here than to die when fighting on the frontlines in Europe.

SauntSolaire: They might, if they had a national registry of grip strength. Until then I suppose they'll stick with using the nearest proxy.

lrasinen: If there were one. The closest thing is the Treaty of Lisbon, which in turn was an update on the Treaties of Maastricht and Rome.However, the matter has been heard in the European Court of Justice in 2002, and the short version is "Community law does not preclude compulsory military service being reserved to men."For more details, feel free to study the legal opinion behind the ruling: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

grigio: Damn climate change! /s

bilsbie: “ Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”- Universal Declaration of Human Rightshttps://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/...

qayxc: And this regulation violates this how exactly?

Lucasoato: Because if you need a written confirmation that may conditionally not be given, you don’t actually have the right.

mytailorisrich: Absolutely not. What you quote is besides the point and irrelevant.Defence and the military is a sovereign matter that has nothing to do with the EU... except we are seeing that this is changing without democratic national mandates.

QuantumNomad_: How can it be irrelevant when the quoted text is from a website about the EU, written by the EU itself?This is the EU describing its own history and beginnings.

Krasnol: I wonder why it is so trendy to want that.Yeah, the law is unjust but spare even this part of the population this unnecessary risk. It's not like they can't join if they want to but why put force on it? So everybody feels miserable? What's the point?And yeah, ich habe treu und tapfer verteidigt...

lrasinen: Humbug. Defence policy, especially how the EU member states choose to organize their military forces, is very much in the hands of the individual countries. A majority of the member states don't even have conscription anymore.Yes, there is the common security and defence policy, and the Article 42 of Lisbon and all that, but it all still relies on national systems.

mikkupikku: Some of the best pilots ever have been women. Whatever the population distributions are, if a woman wants to join she should be permitted to, with no presumptions about her limits. You risk never finding some of the best talent if you shut out women.

BoredPositron: You are misinformed and it is pretty much because of the CDU/CSU. There was a chance to change it with the help of the CDU just after the election but before the last government got dissolved the CDU objected...

umanwizard: Can you give a link to what you’re talking about?

dataviz1000: Most of the feminists I know want conscription for both men and women to be the norm. Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decades. The people who are trying to make young men only doing the killing the norm are the same people trying to end feminism. Therefore, there is some logic in your question.When I was in Asia two years ago, as an American, every time I met a young Russian man escaping conscription, drinks were on me as appreciation to their commitment to world peace. I'm in South America now and it is being inundated with young Israeli men running like the Russians were. Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.

ngruhn: > Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decadesNot heard anyone fight for that once. The more pressing issues seem to he "mansplaining" and men being shirtless in the summer.> Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.Why?

Caius-Cosades: Why are those women then allowed to have vote in matters if they are not forced to carry responsibility for their voting behaviour?

mytailorisrich: How does that make it relevant? Is this a wind-up?

jbm: Dunno how it is in Germany but quite a few of my non white friends wound up in the Canadian Army.I don't know why immigration is brought up in this conversation at all.

AdrianB1: It is about citizenship, not race.

gmueckl: No, Germany punishes according to the laws at the time of the crime. It is not possible to retroactively enforce new criminal statutes.

SenHeng: Singapore has a similar requirement called an Exit Permit. It may have changed, I don’t really know or care anymore. But the conscription was a huge driver for me to emigrate as soon as I could. I left the country 2 weeks after finishing my military service.

Ylpertnodi: > What's even the point? Rich people staying in power is the point.> Why not surrender? Surrendering is not always practicable. You will get killed if you're a liability to your captors.> What am I protecting or preserving? That's really only yours, and yours alone, to consider.

umanwizard: There are a lot of non-white citizens of Canada (and Germany) whereas the comment you’re replying to is about non-citizens. Also Canada hasn’t had conscription for a long time as far as I know, the friends you refer to were volunteers.

dmitrygr: Tie draft registration to voting registration. Equality before law, and all that

overfeed: Service guarantees citizenship (rights). I am doing my part!https://youtu.be/jO1vWxUqpFI

AdrianB1: Some countries in the EU, like mine, have funny discrimination laws that say a positive discrimination is not considered a discrimination under the law, so it cannot be challenged. It is used as the basis for all women-favoring regulations.

tasuki: It's either generousness or incompetence.

qayxc: First of all you don't need it. Secondly, the regulation even states that the right is granted automatically anyway. Technically, the rule had been in place for the past 45+ years anyway - even when there was mandatory military service! - so it doesn't make any practical difference.

SauntSolaire: A little crazier — the old were once young, and could have been voted into a war themselves.

Ylpertnodi: And yet the vast majority of combat veterarans are very anti-war.

AdrianB1: Because of the equality implementation.

SenHeng: Could also be Singapore or Taiwan.

throw-the-towel: Taiwan has waaaay more people, like 20ish million I think?

logicchains: "Fuck you got mine" is the attitude of the boomers expecting young people to die for a country that the boomers left economically and demographically ruined. Young Germans have the worst life prospects of any generation in the past fifty years.

Ylpertnodi: You're discussing boomers in the context of an awful lot of history.

fhdkweig: In the United States, adult males have to sign up for the Selective Service for the same reason even though we haven't had conscription since the Vietnam War in the late 1970s(?).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System

lifestyleguru: We are indeed evolving into a situation where Islamic monarchies not only sound reasonable but start to look like a viable option.

baxtr: Starting 2026, Ukraine at least has restrictions on women leaving the country as well.Women in the civil service, law enforcement agencies, or those registered in the military and serving under contract may face restrictions on traveling abroad, particularly for non-official purposes.

AdrianB1: You mean "some women in specific situations", not women in general. 2 weeks ago my cousin's wife and her 2 daughters got in an out for my aunt's funeral, in Ukraine. She is 50 years old, former teacher, no restrictions, the daughters are in the early 20, no restrictions either.

KellyCriterion: for the risk of getting downvoted:why only locals, but no migrants?

itsyonas: ? This includes all male citizens aged 18 - 45.

fhdkweig: > and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.I though it was weird that the United States had a requirement for people to physically sign a paper to do it. It looks like only this year they made it automated.> Beginning on December 18, 2026, the Selective Service System will be required to identify, locate, and register all male (as assigned at birth) U.S. residents 18 to 26 years old on the basis of other existing federal databases. Men will no longer be required to register themselves or be subject to penalties for failing to do so. This was noted to be the most significant change to Selective Service since the self-registration system began in 1980.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System

Ms-J: Owned like a slave to the government.

baal80spam: > Being able to serve is something the feminists have been fighting for the hardest over decades.If any claim ever required "citation needed", this one is the biggest.I've never seen feminists fight for duties, only for privileges.

breppp: I don't know where you are getting this, but this is very much not the role of professional armies in most invasions historicallyUsually when your country is invaded you don't stay in your silicon valley privileged mindset and you go to conscription willingly

rvnx: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busification - the definition of consent is very stretched.

machomaster: There is a birth crisis. Modern, liberal women are not actually reproducing, they are not keeping their end of the evolutionary bargain (men protecting, sacrificing and dying, while women giving birth). Therefore, there is no need to maintain the old-fashioned, patriarchal system with women as a more protected group. Everyone should contribute equally, pull their own weight. Equal rights, equal lefts (responsibilities).

carlosjobim: Millions of people enjoy great lives today because at least one of their ancestors were smart enough to not go to the meat grinder. While millions of young men became genetic dead ends dead in a ditch for no reason at all. Even their names forgotten forever.

Ms-J: It is very true. Look at the Ukraine war for a current example.

baxtr: Yes, you’re right. I could have been more specificI thought it was obvious with the second paragraph

mikrl: Posted previously:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626116

dang: Comments moved thither. Thanks!

roshin: Ukraine has been violating that for young men since the start of its war.

lpcvoid: And russia has been violating this too, along with other much worse things, as usual.

nubg: > Surely you're not suggesting a reduction in voting power for women.Why not? If the male side has "getting droned your legs off and people watching it in 4k", surely everything less than that has to be on the table for the female side. Not being able to vote physically yourself (you can still influence public opinion, eg through social media, imo a far more effective action than casting 1 vote)

benj111: How does the concept of the global citizen survive?You have a group of citizens who are expected to perform military service, and another group who aren't really invested in the country and don't have to serve.

throw-the-towel: This concept never existed, it was always an illusion.

Izikiel43: Yeah, those are just pretty words without the power to enforce them, like everything else the UN does

petre: Chill, they will soon send robots because everybody else is going to give'em the finger or they're too slow and hard to replace. Look at Russia/Ukraine. Russia is sending minorities and North Koreans to war and they get blown up by drones assembled and flown by Ukrainians. I would totally assemble drones rather than dig trenches or crawl through mud infested with mines. Guess what the North Koreans are now doing in Kursk? De-mining.

ihsw: Why aren't refugees/immigrants conscripted over citizens?

jltsiren: Because citizenship is a commitment, not merely a set of privileges. If you obtain a citizenship (or have it imposed on you upon birth), it comes with a set of duties other residents and visitors do not have. The duty to defend your country is a traditional one.Some countries may conscript non-citizens or allow them to serve voluntarily. Often because they are more likely to use the military as an extension of foreign policy rather than for defense. Others may see it a waste of effort, as those people are probably not sufficiently committed to the continued existence of the country.

throw-the-towel: Factually untrue, Russian men can and do leave the country. Also, nice whataboutism bro.

yolo3000: How about Russians from abroad, do they often go back to Russia?

cedws: Hard to feel the same sympathy for Russian men to be honest, I've seen many gallivanting abroad, whilst majority of Ukrainian men are stuck either in hiding in their own country or have been sent to the front lines. Only a few got out early or by paying bribes.

saidnooneever: honestly i am happy for the russian and ukranian young men and women i meet here in NL each day. Glad for them they can dodge the draft. most simply drove out, some had more hastle than others.war is shit on all sides and thinking one or the other suffers less because you dont like their colours is very short sighted.... i think we had enough time by now to realise it.and dont call it cowardice if someone doesnt want to fight for a bunch of 'rich pricks' playin with their money while normal people get to die in the streets. It has never been good or normal and should never be.

ihsw: How does a state survive if refugees/immigrants are imported en masse and then the state becomes so dysfunctional to such a degree that its male citizens must be conscripted to fight and die for it? Surely this is a recipe for disaster.I would sooner die for my family and my country but I wouldn't lift a finger to save the lives of refugees/immigrants.

petre: You die for your country and the refugees make the state survive, Germany becomes Deutschstan and the women are required to wear hijabs, that's how.

vimbtw: It seems like the purpose is to have the law and all the paperwork set up as a precaution for the future. Sure, right now it’s all voluntary and just rubber stamping, but if in the future they need to do something like Ukraine and lock down travel for military aged men, it’s much easier to flip a switch and start denying travel permits rather than having to set up and fund an entirely new system for requiring travel permits.

nickdothutton: "Gradually, then suddenly", as someone once said.

rustyhancock: Then they should remove the law this weekend. Apparently it is bureaucracy without purpose after all?

voisin: > Annual budget $31.3 million (FY 2024)If it hasn’t been used in 50 years, is there some other use for the registry or the organization or why hasn’t this been cut yet?

delecti: Nobody wants to be the guy who got the nation caught with its pants down if conscription needs to come back in a hurry. The same reason the military budget always ratchets upwards.

braabe: I think it varies. I suspect in most common cases the lack of enforcement results from the rest of society not having an appetite to punish it. No harm done, no need to punish.I believe jaywalking (or crossing a red light as a pedestrian) is prohibited, but you would have to do it in front of a really motivated cop (or cause an accident) to actually get a ticket for it. It is common and no one really cares - but if you were to do it in front of children or a school you will probably get disapproving looks or a somewhat stern talking to from others around you.I think the image of the "order-loving german" is a bit of a stereotype. Some people overdo it (Calling the police for noise harassment if you still mow your lawn at 20:01), but they are generally not popular with their neighbors (or the police...)

lokar: Any idea how the attitude compares to the Swiss?

fhdkweig: Keeping it around just in case the US encounters an existential threat. You never know when it may happen.

dataviz1000: I need to revise what I wrote. The protests and stance have all been against selective service for both men and woman. However, on the flip side, the stance for enlisting and volunteering are opposite. I'll let you Google that one to see if you think if "citation needed".

breppp: Millions of people were not burned to death due to not living under Nazi rule you mean.Most of our ancestors did join a draft, as it was universal, be it the Napoleon wars, WW1 or WW2. This interpretation of history is highly creative I will give you that

lpcvoid: You started with bringing Ukraine up under an article about Germany, so how is your comment any less a whataboutism than mine?

raffael_de: I'm surprised this news is stalling at 24 points. Everybody has to understand that even if this law isn't impacting you; this is a signal in the noise. Germany is a major part of the industrial military complex together with the US and still the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China. This is meaningful as it sets course for war in Europe. And for Germans it means soon to be enforced limitations of civil rights. That fits right in with the surveillance crap that is being attempted to roll out in EU (which is effectively headed and controlled by Germany).

layer8: The law was the status quo from the 1950s up to 2011. This is reverting to that era, for good reasons, given the state of the world.

kingleopold: Eur0peans have been supporting it too with money and military so they are completely ok with it :) Nobody even questions why men in UKR. cannot leave the country. Gender equality is just a lie.Usually Eur0peans point out x people in y country are oppressed and don't have freedom etc. How about UKRAINIAN men right now and for years? Literally all of them support what's happening there in terms of gender equality, wtf!

wolvesechoes: > Nobody even questions why men in UKR. cannot leave the countryBecause the answer is obvious - Ukraine fights war.

kingleopold: Why is it only *forced for men? Does that sound equal and civil to you? note we are not living in middle ages and there is no world war.

The_suffocated: Not all men, but all men over 17 and under the age of 45. This still seems draconian, though.

raffael_de: Number of characters for the title is limited. And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my country; it in deed comes as a shock. And it is also shocking that I just randomly stumbled over this news article when this law is in effect already for 3 months. How is it possible that our news talk about all sorts of nonsense but not about something as fundamentally relevant as this ... this is the real shock.

uyzstvqs: > And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my countryThe ends don't justify the means. Conscription has no place in the free world. It's slavery, plain and simple. Going into the military should be an appealing career choice. Our soldiers are supposed to be highly skilled professionals, not cannon fodder in large quantities.

raffael_de: So, if some other country with different value system attacks your homeland with intention to effectively colonize it then you'd be okay with just letting it happen?

mrob: Any country that contains millionaires while using military slaves ("conscripts") is evil. If there is clear existential risk then the state should implement wealth taxes to pay volunteer troops instead of enslaving people. And if literally everybody outside the military has been taxed down to the poverty line, and there are still not enough volunteers, it's time to surrender.

layer8: And "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person." Military service also serves the purpose to defend that right when the country is attacked. Rights aren't absolute, they have to be traded off against each other.

chromacity: Every single country has countless carve-outs to that. To give you a trivial example: in the US, you can't get a passport if you owe more than $2,500 in child support.

fph: Writing prompt: On June 1, the ministry for defense stops issuing these permits. No one knows why, but wild speculation ensues.

wat10000: I miss the days when hackerdom reliably skewed selfish instead of fascist.

surgical_fire: Those ideas tend to go hand in hand.

wat10000: So I am slowly learning!

randomNumber7: Every law is just words unless there is a power that can enforce it.

EA-3167: I miss the days when such people lacked the power to turn their half-baked fantasies into a broken reality for the rest of us. Alas.

breppp: Thats not how most of the manpower gets there, without even knowing the Ukraine example, I venture to guess based on the superior morale of Ukrainian forces, that most are drafted willingly.This still does not prove the very general statement GP made, which doesn't align with draft reality in historical wars

ryandrake: But if you don't do #1, then #2 will happen involuntarily, right? So conscription ultimately = physically forced.

jltsiren: They will probably go to prison instead, like some of my friends did. Giving military training to people who definitely don't want it can be a bad idea for many reasons.

IncreasePosts: Just because some people write some words doesn't mean they have any relevance to any society.

randomNumber7: The population is very diverse about this I would say. Some people would stand at a red light as pedestrians until they starve to death while others don't give a fuck about anything.

carlosjobim: Name 10 common soldiers who liberated a concentration camp , from the top of your head. If you care so much about that as you give the impression of doing.

randomNumber7: Because we saw what men do in the last thousand years and if women would be in charge everything would be like the paradise /S

1over137: It has a purpose: to be ready when/if needed.

randomNumber7: I think it's misleading to credit what is happening in germany to feminism. It's a very toxic ideology and the best thing is to leave if you are discriminated by this (e.g. as young white heterosexual male).

Qem: Wouldn't make more sense instead of make conscription mandatory only for men, to make it mandatory for all childless people then?

orange_joe: I am wondering if the affected men will demand preferential treatment as a consequence of service. Women currently benefit from disproportionate employment in the social safety net, affirmative action in German government hiring, etc. I would imagine that this would be essentially offensive to the men who are required to stay in the country, or face (potential future) conscription. I suspect the demands of European governments will increase as countries continue to age.

randomNumber7: > I am wondering if the affected men will demand preferential treatment as a consequence of service.I'm more thinking about leaving asap.

englishrookie: Almost everything about societies except cities is just pretty words. Countries and most borders are just an abstraction. We fight for them because someone convinces us with words to do so. We could do the same for the UN and it would be a much nobler cause in most cases.

nubg: It doesn't, only German citizens

randomNumber7: Why not just leave for another more sane country before that happens? It's for sure what I will do.

frodowtf2: Military service in the west is not for defence. Irak, Iran, Syria, Vietnam...

watwut: Germany was one of the least militarized countries after WWII. They were kind of scared of themselves.

throw-the-towel: Arguably, not enough people are being born as it stands. We're already in your collapse scenario.

Qem: I suspect one tool governments across the world will resort to when they get desperate about sub-replacement fertility is changing mandatory conscription from males to the childless. Quite strong incentive, not be sent to the meatgrinder.

randomNumber7: I had to go to the draft office in that time and behaved so badly that they didn't want to take me.Also at that time only some people had to go to the draft, because they had not the capacity to take everyone. That made it likely easy for them to let go of suboptimal candidates.

watwut: It is not like they had a choice. The article is about 1939, the events were well progressed then. Only very few were able to hide themselves and stay hidden for years.

RandomLensman: Germany participated how there?

atmavatar: > That's not feminism, that's insanity.No, it's equality.Taken to its logical conclusion, you cannot have gender equality without either making the draft cover everyone or abolishing it entirely.The fact that women losing their lives is so much larger a risk for the nation only serves to test the resolve of those people claiming to want gender equality, but this is not the only time you'll find a conflict between idealism and reality, even within the scope of gender equality.

snovymgodym: It would be equality if there were a law forcing women to have children during a war. Which is insane and no one would support it.But young men maybe dying after being forced to fight against their will? Completely fine.It's honestly just very telling how in modern Western egalitarianism, gender essentialism is factually wrong and evil unless we're explaining why men need to die for their country.

RandomLensman: The Army of the United States has also not been used in over 50 years,but does that mean it couldn't be used again?