44 pointsby raffael_de3 hours ago11 comments
  • raffael_de2 hours ago
    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).
  • 2 hours ago
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  • The_suffocated3 hours ago
    Not all men, but all men over 17 and under the age of 45. This still seems draconian, though.
    • jalapenoj7 minutes ago
      Drafts seem like an outdated pre-globalist concept. Die for the borders nobody respects anyway. You need to be nationalistic when it’s useful to your leaders that hate you. Of course just the natives need to die, all the immigrants won’t be doing that.
    • raffael_de3 hours ago
      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.
      • uyzstvqs2 hours ago
        > And while I wouldn't necessarily call it draconian because after all somebody has to defend my country

        The 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_de2 hours ago
          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?
          • uyzstvqsan hour ago
            No. I support a strong, volunteer military force of highly trained professionals (AVF). For example, how the US Army works today.

            It's not only moral and compatible with human rights in the free world, it's also far more effective.

          • kiviuqan hour ago
            I believe it is up to the free individual to make that decision. I'm not saving the slave ship when I'm treated like one.

            ps: There are 8 billion people on this planet, and I've never had any serious issues with any of them, much less a reason to start a war. Governments are always the cause of everyone's misery. Beware of yours!

            • IAmBroom25 minutes ago
              We now know for certain you don't live in Ukraine, nor any other country that has been invaded in your lifetime.
      • haukem2 hours ago
        I am also surprised that I haven't read about this in German news before. I am following the news. If Trump would have signed an executive order with a similar content affecting US citizen, German media would probably report about this multiple days long with many articles.

        I was looking in Google news for other reports about this, but only found an article from Berliner Zeitung published 5 hours after this article from Frankfurter Rundschau.

        I am worried about what other information which could be important to me, the news did not report on.

        As far as I understood the law the article from FR is correct: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html

      • mnmalst3 hours ago
        I agree in general. One reason we haven't heard anything about it might be that the administration already admitted that this legislation needs correction or at least clarification, as mentioned in the article.
        • raffael_de3 hours ago
          No, that is not mentioned in the article. The correction and clarification is regarding how exactly this is being implemented. The law is there ... don't think this is a mistake. And there should be serious discussions in a society before something like that is made a law.
          • mnmalst2 hours ago
            Fair, yes I agree. Didn't mean to excuse anything they introduced.
        • kristianc2 hours ago
          Draconian law gets introduced, public outcry ensues. Oh okay we will make it six months then. This is how civil liberties get eroded.
    • nwellnhof2 hours ago
      The law says all men aged 17 and older, not military-aged.

      https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html

  • i_have_to_speak2 hours ago
    Are homo sapiens the only species that organizes themselves into tribes and work towards the destruction of other tribes of same species?
    • delecti2 hours ago
      Not even close. Territorial disputes are incredibly common in nature. Humans are relatively rare in that we're capable of understanding that depriving competitors of resources will eventually lead to their deaths, but that is the ultimate result of winning a territory dispute in nature too.
    • rement2 hours ago
      No, Chimpanzees also have tribes and fight over territory

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

      • i_have_to_speak2 hours ago
        TBF that is an isolated incident, not a distinguishing trait of a species.
        • 9 minutes ago
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    • raffael_de2 hours ago
      That is how some people make a lot of money.
    • Simulacra2 hours ago
      Weaver ants
  • mcculley2 hours ago
    If the U.S. implements a draft, would we first implement exit visas?
    • 5555624an hour ago
      If the U.S. implements a draft, will women be required to register? Right now, only men are required to register with the Selected Service when they turn 18. Would Congress amend the Military Selective Service Act?
  • keysersoze332 hours ago
    Being 46 (and quite an active 46 year old, just finished a Skitour), am curious why the cutoff for these things tends to be 45?
    • Yizahi32 minutes ago
      I'm pretty sure it's politics. The reason is a potential draft, but it is also very potential for now and may never happen. So this message signalizes to the older and/or richer population two messages - "you will be protected by the mobilized army in the worst case" and "you personally will be exempt from the need to sit in a freezing trench for multiple years" (which is not true in reality, if the draft will be needed, higher age will be increased to 60 most likely). So the older and conservative population is appeased this way.

      CDU are losing popularity if we are to believe press, so that is one of the populist ways to boost some numbers for elections.

    • raffael_de2 hours ago
      There has to be some cutoff and I assume it's for law historic reasons, maybe other related laws reference that age.

      Cynically speaking: the people making those laws probably don't want to be impacted by it. And Germany is effectively a gerontocracy.

    • inhumantsar2 hours ago
      diminishing returns. people over 40 heal less quickly, start to run into chronic health issues, and are more likely to have suffered permanent injuries. it's easier to set a global cutoff at an age where the probability that any given person will be unable to do the job safely than it is to assess each person individually.
      • raffael_dean hour ago
        I wouldn't survive a week at the front just because of my back. But I'll happily catch a couple of bullets.
    • spwa42 hours ago
      Let's see ... On December 5, 2025 the German parliament passed a law requiring all men between 18 and 45 years to register "for military service", which everyone should fully understand to mean to register for conscription.

      Oh and they've added a very political clause: the government can activate conscription WITHOUT a parliament vote. So most political parties who have voted in favor of conscription want to be able to claim "it wasn't us, it was Merz" (ie. CDU). In reality CSU and SPD have voted to effectively conscript German men between 18 and 45.

      In other words, Germany expects to be in open war in a matter of months to years. Like every country before them they've decided young men are cheaper than actually investing in military equipment (they're investing in military equipment, but they just won't have it in that time period)

      This probably means that if you can get out, get out, because it's not like being 46 years old will protect you from the impact of that, and yes it's not clear what the timing is going to be, and they're not being very forward about what the reason is for conscription.

      So that's why 45. Because the existing conscription law (1954 + 2025) allows for conscripting every German male between 18 and 45.

      • AnimalMuppet27 minutes ago
        The US has this too. All males register at 18.

        But the US, for all its militarism, and all its military adventures, has not used the draft since Vietnam.

        So I would say that Germany sees the need to be in a position where it can respond quickly if they need it. Well, given current events in their neighborhood, I can see their point. In fact, I would say that they are probably at least three years late in doing this.

  • randomNumber72 hours ago
    I kind of predicted this a long time ago. They way germany is currently run they will need to act like the DDR and force their people to stay.

    Otherwise everyone with good education will leave.

    • raffael_de2 hours ago
      that's a sad fact.
    • raffael_de2 hours ago
      who downvotes has to explain why. should be general requirement in my opinion. no downvotes without a comment explaining why. (@dang)
      • AnimalMuppetan hour ago
        That is not the general policy of HN, nor the general culture here. You may say that you think that should be the culture, but it's not.
  • klausa3 hours ago
    That seems more “oh we fucked up and didn’t realize our changes to the law imply this” than “Germany forces men to request permission to leave”.
    • haukeman hour ago
      It is very likely this was done intentionally. Maybe not all people involved in making this law noticed it, but the person working on article 2 did this intentionally. They explicitly list that this article is always active now:

      > (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.

      https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__2.html

    • raffael_de3 hours ago
      Highly doubt it. This is a very new addition. Their fuck up was to pretend for ideological reasons that a country doesn't need an army. And that the concept of considering a country home and its culture as something worth preserving is just right wing bs. Now they are surprised that only very few men deliberately registered for armed service ...
      • klausa2 hours ago
        We’ll see, I guess.

        The quotes very much read to me like someone realizing what the change of Paragraph 2 means to Paragraph 3 means in real time and having to figure out what to answer to journalists.

        I’m curious how that would work administratively though - would they require you to have that when trying to do Ausmeldung? And what about those who moved out before this law got changed?

        Technically, do I need to go Bundeswehr office when I come back next time, to get the permission?

        I _want_ to believe if this was a deliberate change that someone cared about; we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now because there would be clear answers to the very obvious questions here, but maybe my hope is misplaced.

        • raffael_de2 hours ago
          I'm not sure you understand how laws are made. It's not like "ooops a new law, who did that?" It's going through all sorts of processes with lots of people involved. And even if this is just an "innocent mistake", well, that would mean our government is run by a bunch of incompetent morons ...
  • haukeman hour ago
    The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes says this:

    > (2) Männliche Personen haben nach Vollendung des 17. Lebensjahres eine Genehmigung des zuständigen Karrierecenters der Bundeswehr einzuholen, wenn sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland länger als drei Monate verlassen wollen, ohne dass die Voraussetzungen des § 1 Absatz 2 bereits vorliegen. Das Gleiche gilt, wenn sie über einen genehmigten Zeitraum hinaus außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verbleiben wollen oder einen nicht genehmigungspflichtigen Aufenthalt außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland über drei Monate ausdehnen wollen. Die Genehmigung ist für den Zeitraum zu erteilen, in dem die männliche Person für eine Einberufung zum Wehrdienst nicht heransteht. Über diesen Zeitraum hinaus ist sie zu erteilen, soweit die Versagung für die männliche Person eine besondere – im Bereitschafts-, Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall eine unzumutbare – Härte bedeuten würde; § 12 Absatz 6 ist entsprechend anzuwenden. Das Bundesministerium der Verteidigung kann Ausnahmen von der Genehmigungspflicht zulassen.

    See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html

    This was not changed.

    The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes was previously only active in a war or close to war situation (Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall). Article 2 said this before:

    > § 2 Geltung der folgenden Vorschriften

    > Die §§ 3 bis 53 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.

    See: https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze/blob/master/w/wehrpflg/...

    Now it says this:

    > § 2 Anwendung dieses Gesetzes

    > (1) Die nachfolgenden Vorschriften gelten nach Maßgabe der folgenden Absätze.

    > (2) Die §§ 3 bis 52 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.

    > (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.

    > (4) Die §§ 15a und 16 sind nur auf Betroffene anzuwenden, die nach dem 31. Dezember 2007 geboren sind. Satz 1 gilt nicht im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.

    See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__2.html

    This law changed it: https://www.recht.bund.de/bgbl/1/2025/370/VO

    Is the a up to date git repository with all German law changes? The one I found was last updated 4 years ago.

  • Jamesbeam2 hours ago
    This headline is kind of misleading.

    First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.

    And to be completely honest, if more people made use of registering for the damn ELEFAND emergency contact list, this rule wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.

    So, men are kind of responsible for this themselves by being lazy.

    I had to help exfil Germans in Kabul when the US decided to pull out without telling all of their partners in time.

    Everyone wanted to be rescued, but you have no idea how many German idiots travel to foreign countries, not even taking five minutes to let their own government know how to reach them and where they went in case of an emergency.

    It’s super fun to drive around Kabul and pick up 55 years old complaining male Germans yelling at me because I told them I transport people, not their fucking luggage. Two even sued me afterwards for leaving their expensive camera equipment behind. A dozen complaints about my behavior.

    Sometimes it’s really annoying to protect the average citizen. Luckily, I understand that it is an extreme situation for them. Just like some people sue nurses after they broke their ribs reviving their dead ass.

    It’s a good thing all these idiots now have to ask for permission in the future and likely need to leave the data necessary so it’s known where they are, for how long and how to reach them.

    • raffael_de2 hours ago
      just want to point out you started at this headline is misleading and meandered to agreeing with this being a law now and it was made for a reason and it will be enforced sooner or later. and that's effectively the headline + you think it's a good thing.
      • Jamesbeaman hour ago
        Thank you, I suspect the _de in your username means you are German or German-speaking?

        A friend from the US sent the link to this thread to me, asking about it.

        The source website has no ability to be switched to English language, so all information my friend got was from the headline, which without context was misleading for him. If it was clear people wouldn’t ask German-speaking friends to explain this to them, don’t you think?

        And if we are really precise, right now German men don’t need to request permission, because there is neither a process nor any paperwork in place to request permission.

        Without being able to see and understand the context, the headline on its own is misleading in my opinion.

        Just do an experiment for yourself.

        Take the original transcript from any trump speech during the Iran war and put it in a German translator. You will understand it’s about the Iran war but you will be surprised how insane those speeches sound if you are not able to understand English and rely on Google Translate to understand the context.

        • raffael_dean hour ago
          I get your point, I'm not agreeing ... anyway, there are plenty of tools available to translate text from German to English.
          • Jamesbeaman hour ago
            That’s fine. I don’t want to get into a discussion about how important the accuracy of translation is with topics like law, civil rights, military, etc.

            I trust humans. I don’t trust machines. You do you.

            Thank you for the exchange and pointing out my inaccuracy. I will try to do better next time.

            Have a good day and enjoy your Easter holidays if you’re Christian.

    • haukeman hour ago
      > First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.

      Previously this article 3 was only active in the "Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall" which the Parliament has to declare. The law was extended with: "Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45." so this article is always active now.