Protests are being held in around 90 towns and cities across Germany. According to Berlin police, around 800 people gathered to protest the reform in the morning, with several thousand expected in Germany’s capital by the end of the day.
The initiative behind the protest, Schulstreik gegen Wehrpflicht (school strike against conscription), said on its website: “Politicians [and] Bundeswehr … argue how we should reintroduce conscription. But no one talks to us. No one asks us what we want.”
Martin, a high school student from a town in Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin, was among the students who skipped school to object.
“Why resolve wars by arming up? That’s just repeating what happened before the First and Second World Wars,” the 16-year-old, who only gave his first name due to privacy concerns, told POLITICO in central Berlin.
He had been figuring out how to circumvent the draft, he said, for example by going to a psychologist or being declared ill. “Why should I do what old men tell me to do?” he asked. “I’d be actively doing training that doesn’t help me in life except to learn how to kill people.”
Nils, a 17-year-old high school student who also only provided his first name, argued he had nothing against peers joining the armed forces per se, but that the compulsory aspect of the law had prompted him to attend the demonstration.