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East Germany Conscientious Objection to Military Service
The work of the FDJ, GST, families, and schools was
complemented by vocational counseling centers, parent
associations, and military district commands. The entire
apparatus of socialist military education, in turn, was part of a
sophisticated, comprehensive structure that tied together police,
traditional military, and uniformed as well as plainclothes
security organs in a network of professional services that
blanketed the entire society. The resulting system was so
pervasive that it touched every citizen and every activity in the
country.
As the regime stepped up its efforts in the late 1970s and
the 1980s to militarize society still further, popular resistance
increased as well, despite tightened controls. One source
reported that the number of young men who refused to do any
military service at all had risen from 8 in 1980 to about 150 in
1985. Traditionally such refusal resulted in a prison sentence of
twenty-four months, greater than the length of the military
service obligation. The number of young East Germans choosing to
serve in the NVA's construction units--the only route open to
those who wished to do unarmed service--also was on the rise,
from about 700 a year to approximately 1,000, according to one
source.
Since the autumn of 1964, there have existed NVA engineer
companies that do not bear arms, in accordance with an order of
the National Defense Council. On this basis, in well-founded
exceptional cases, those subject to induction who for religious
or similar reasons refuse to bear arms are permitted to serve as
construction soldiers. The Military Service Law of 1982 did not
permit refusal to serve for reasons of conscience. The new law no
longer used the term "alternative service"
(Wehrersatzdienst).
Beginning in the 1980s, construction soldiers had to take a
vow to increase defense readiness rather than the oath of
allegiance required of other soldiers. They wore gray uniforms
with the design of a spade on the shoulder patch, performed
military construction and rear-guard services as well as some
tasks in the industrial and social-service sectors, were subject
to military law and disciplinary regulations, were commanded by
NVA officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and received
engineer training and political education. In 1983, of the
230,000 soldiers in the NVA, 0.6 percent--about 1,400
persons--were allowed to serve in the construction units.
According to one report, however, the number of persons electing
such service was so high that draft officials claimed the plan
was overfulfilled, and in 1983 young East Germans unwilling to
bear arms had to join the regular troops. In February 1983, in
Schwerin, Dresden, and East Berlin, five young men were sentenced
to eighteen months in prison because they tried to exercise their
right to join the construction units. Service in the construction
troops did, however, have certain consequences. In the 1970s,
East German leaders acknowledged that former construction
soldiers were at a disadvantage when they rejoined the civilian
sphere. They were not allowed to enter certain professions or to
pursue a university education. In 1984, however, Honecker and
Defense Minister Hoffmann asserted that construction soldiers no
longer suffered such discrimination; like others who had
completed their military service, they were given preference in
the university admission process.
Since 1978 the East Germany's Lutheran Church has sought a
liberalization of the system for conscientious objectors, who
have only one option: service as construction soldiers. Reaction
to the 1982 Military Service Law was strong, and the church
advocated a program of social service for peace, that is,
alternative service in hospitals, old-age homes, and the like.
Church leaders also opposed the introduction of compulsory
military education in schools, the practice of teaching hatred of
the foes of socialism, and the SED's emphasis on the image of the
enemy. The church became the focus of a growing independent peace
movement, which expressed its goals in the suggestion that swords
once again be turned into plowshares. After passage of the 1982
law, the East German Roman Catholic Church grew more active as
well. In a pastoral letter in January 1983, Catholic bishops
condemned the militarization of life in East Germany
(see
Religion and Religious Organizations
, ch. 2).
Data as of July 1987
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