First published on Heist Berlin

At 11:00 am, teenagers started flooding Potsdamer Platz. They came from schools around the city, marching in groups of 50 or 100, waving banners and banging drums. “Not one person and not one penny for the Bundeswehr,” they chanted.

“I don’t want to die for a country that doesn’t offer me anything,” said Karl, 18, a student at Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum in Mitte. “They talk about protecting us while cutting funding for education and culture.”

On January 1, Germany’s military began sending out questionnaires to people born in 2008 as they turn 18 this year. Young men are required to fill out the form; it’s voluntary for women. After that, men may be asked to submit to a physical exam. It’s a soft launch for reintroducing conscription, which was paused indefinitely in 2011. Now, claiming that a Russian attack could be imminent, the government wants to expand the Bundeswehr from 184,000 to 270,000 active soldiers in less than a decade.

Since the move was announced last year, they’ve offered all kinds of perks for enlisting: free driving school, free transit, and take-home pay of about €2,300 a month. But reactions nationwide have been meh — with one poll showing 63% of people aged 18-29 opposing the service — and it seems inevitable that people will soon be required to enlist.

So on Thursday, students in 130 cities across Germany went on strike. According to organisers, more than 50,000 teenagers ditched class and hit the streets; around 10,000 of them were in Berlin. (The police counted just 3,000.)

Some students were threatened with a Fehltag in their report card for attending. “I’d rather have a mark for missing a day than be dead in a trench,” Richard, 16, told HEIST.

“People are against military service,” said Karl from the Evangelische Schule. He helped organise a strike committee six weeks ago. On the morning of the strike, they went from room to room reminding fellow students. He estimates 150 joined — more than from almost any other school. This is key to building the mobilization. “We need more activism at the schools,” he said.

The young people who spoke to HEIST want a future without war, without “having to kill other young people who are in the same situation as me”, said 17-year-old Luigi from Kant-Gymnasium in Lichtenberg. “In fact, I probably have more in common with them than I do with German politicians.” Over 30 years of neoliberalism have left their mark; this is the generation that grew up in a state that told them they were on their own. Now they’re supposed to sacrifice for the fatherland?

Militarism carries extra weight in Germany. “We should be careful because of our history,” said Jonah, 18, from the Carl-von-Ossietzky-Gymnasium in Pankow (incidentally, named after a famous pacifist).

The government says this is all voluntary, but that’s not what it feels like. “They’re going after people without money or prospects,” said Locke, also 18. “It’s like in America, with a poverty draft.”

Konrad Kieser, a teacher taking a sabbatical from his job at the Willy-Brandt-Schule in Wedding, had the same impression. “They aren’t finding enough volunteers, and soon they’ll start forcing people.” He sees his students, many with immigrant backgrounds, being enticed by military recruiters promising adventure and a sense of belonging. “In this economic system, is it really voluntary?”

Teachers tend to be a fairly liberal bunch, and a handful were present at the demonstration in the red vests of their union, the Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW), which opposes military service. “Hands off our class!” one banner read. A teacher from the Rosa Luxemburg Oberschule remembered organising his own school strikes for better education 15 years ago, holding sit-ins during recess and marching from one school to another.

At Potsdamer Platz, the police detained one student for what they claimed was an insult worthy of investigation: a cardboard sign with the handwritten phrase“Merz leck eier”. A directive to the Chancellor to lick their eggs (eggs referring to something else in German.) Still, thousands of young people took up the chant. The message was clear: if the man behind remilitarisation is so enthusiastic about war, he can go to the front himself.

The post School Strike in Germany: 50,000 Against Military Service appeared first on Left Voice.

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