Backing the Bundeswehr: A Research Note Regarding the State of German Civil-Military Affairs

摘要

Along with Germany's suspension of the Wehrpflicht (mandatory service requirement) in 2011, the Bundeswehr has been reformed to accommodate an all-volunteer force. In the years that followed, studies were conducted to determine the state of civil-military relations in Germany via the opinions of military leadership regarding the reforms and via the opinions of civilians on their perspective of the military in general. This study provides additional data from the perspective of young soldiers (n = 347) at the Universitat der Bundeswehr Munchen and the Helmut Schmidt Universitat in Hamburg regarding the civil-military relationship in Germany as of early 2014. The results indicate that the majority of these young soldiers are satisfied with their decision to join the Bundeswehr, yet they feel unsupported and underappreciated by the society they serve.