Since Germany's military service reform came into effect on January 1, around a quarter of young men and women have responded to the Bundeswehr's new mandatory questionnaire. Response rates among men, who are legally required to reply, have recently reached approximately 50 percent, according to reporting by newspapers in the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) citing coalition sources in their Tuesday editions.
Among women, who face no legal obligation to respond, the figure stands at just 6%. Notably, the data does not reveal how many of those who responded expressed a willingness to actually serve in the Bundeswehr.
Under the Wehrdienstreform, Germany's military service reformthat took effect at the start of 2025, all 18-year-old men are required to complete a mandatory questionnaire and subsequently present themselves for a military fitness assessment. The decision on whether to actually serve in the Bundeswehr, however, remains entirely voluntary. Male 18-year-olds are given a four-week window in which to respond. The Federal Ministry of Defence did not initially comment when approached by RND.
Should the voluntary model fail to meet recruitment targets, a so-called Bedarfswehrpflicht, a needs-based conscription model, could be introduced to close the gap between the Bundeswehr's personnel requirements and the actual number of soldiers available for service. The law on voluntary military service sets a defined target corridor for personnel numbers for each year leading up to 2035, but leaves open exactly when it will be reviewed whether these annual milestones have been met.
The reform is a central pillar of Germany's broader military expansion strategy, aiming to grow active Bundeswehr personnel from just over 184,000 today to between 255,000 and 270,000 by 2035.
At the beginning of February, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) confirmed that around 40,000 questionnaires had been sent out. While acknowledging it would likely take another two or three months before meaningful conclusions could be drawn about the willingness of young Germans to serve, he remained optimistic.
"I am nevertheless confident that we will also in the future be able to do without general conscription," Pistorius said. Many experts and defence policy lawmakers within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, however, remain skeptical of that assessment.
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