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.
That’s a rather standard thing in any country with compulsory military service. Typically you get that done with right when you’re 18-year-old and then you’re free to travel.
In Finland it’s handled so that you cannot get a passport before you either finish your military service or have turned 30. That meant that when I wanted to travel with my brother outside the EU before they were 30, we were limited to countries such as Albania and Georgia that allow entry with just an ID card. (And also, had we wanted to destroy the climate by flying, we would have needed to fly the flight out from the Schengen area from some other country than Finland!)
I think it does. At least I kept hearing “als ich mein Zivi gemacht hab” when I lived there. Most people elect to serve in the form of civil service instead, but civil service is a type of military service (as weird as that sounds).
But maybe it’s very easy avoiding the whole thing altogether? I don’t know all that precisely, really. My “military service” was done in the form of civil service in a children daycare centre by the time I moved to Germany. And I’ve never been a German citizen anyhow.
And that’s how it should be! It should be mandatory, and we should have it in the US too. Two years once you turn 18. Get people out of their local bubbles and show them what the world is like, make them useful citizens.
This seems surreal, is it real?
That’s a rather standard thing in any country with compulsory military service. Typically you get that done with right when you’re 18-year-old and then you’re free to travel.
In Finland it’s handled so that you cannot get a passport before you either finish your military service or have turned 30. That meant that when I wanted to travel with my brother outside the EU before they were 30, we were limited to countries such as Albania and Georgia that allow entry with just an ID card. (And also, had we wanted to destroy the climate by flying, we would have needed to fly the flight out from the Schengen area from some other country than Finland!)
Which makes sense but Germany doesn’t have compulsory mil service. Yet. I guess this is a step in that direction.
I think it does. At least I kept hearing “als ich mein Zivi gemacht hab” when I lived there. Most people elect to serve in the form of civil service instead, but civil service is a type of military service (as weird as that sounds).
But maybe it’s very easy avoiding the whole thing altogether? I don’t know all that precisely, really. My “military service” was done in the form of civil service in a children daycare centre by the time I moved to Germany. And I’ve never been a German citizen anyhow.
And that’s how it should be! It should be mandatory, and we should have it in the US too. Two years once you turn 18. Get people out of their local bubbles and show them what the world is like, make them useful citizens.
Weird how militarized nationalism still has any fans or supporters, but you do you I guess. I hope you’re glad your guy is in office.