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East Germany ARMED FORCES
In 1987 East Germany maintained a regular military
establishment with a strength of 175,300, about 1 percent of the
population. Conscripts totaled about 95,000, or approximately 54
percent of the armed forces.
The ground, air/air defense, and naval forces were included
in the NVA, which had grown out of the police units created under
the Soviet occupation after World War II. The close association
thus established with the Soviet Army continued to exist in 1987
and was reflected in the missions and roles of the NVA. Even the
military oath of allegiance taken by all NVA service personnel
refers to the alliance with the Soviet Army
(see
fig. 11).
Since the mid-1970s, East Germany has had three military
districts--I, III, and V--defined as higher militaryadministrative groupings of formations, units, and military
facilities in a certain area
(see
fig. 12). Until the mid-1970s,
the People's Navy had constituted Military District IV, while the
Air Force/Air Defense Force had formed Military District II;
these two districts as such were abolished in the mid-1970s. In
1987 the air/air defense and naval forces were under the orders
of their respective commands. The military districts were also
separate from the fifteen districts of the civil administration
and from the air defense districts, which were part of the Warsaw
Pact air defense system. Within the NVA's system of military
justice, each military district constituted a judicial district
for a military high court.
In 1987 Military District I, headquartered at Strausberg--a
small town near Brandenburg, thirty-five kilometers west of
Berlin--was essentially the capital district. The district
included the Ministry of Defense, the Border Troops, and Civil
Defense. Military District III and Military District V--the two
ground force districts--have been subordinate to the Ground
Forces Command in Potsdam since 1972. The head of each district
was supported by a staff and an advisory military council.
Military District III, embracing the southern half of the
country, was headquartered in Leipzig; Military District V, which
included the northern half of East Germany, had its headquarters
in Neubrandenburg.
The decline in East Germany's population from a high of 18.4
million in 1950 to the 1987 figure of 16.7 million, caused
serious manpower problems for the armed forces. The Military
Service Law contained several measures designed to increase the
pool of potential service personnel, including a provision for
mandatory premilitary training for all young men and women. As of
1987, women were not subject to compulsory military service, but
they were permitted to volunteer and were doing so in increasing
numbers. For the most part, women served as temporary NCOs,
career NCOs, or warrant officers in the NVA and the Border
Troops. Typically, they worked in the administrative service as
secretaries, in stationary communications centers as telephone
and teletype operators, and in the medical service as nurses.
More and more women displayed interest in becoming officers, and
in September 1985 the Franz Mehring Officer School of the Air
Force/Air Defense Force for the first time admitted women for
education as political officers or technicians. Women were not
assigned to line units in mid-1987, although official
publications contained discussions of the possibility of a combat
role for women.
During mobilization and in a national defense emergency, East
German women between the ages of eighteen and fifty (through
December 31 of the year in which they turned fifty) might be
included in the general draft. Since appropriate peacetime
preparation was a prerequisite, they might at any time receive an
order to report for induction for training purposes. One source
estimated that in the mid-1980s women accounted for as much as
one-third of the country's active civil defense forces. Socialist
military education stressed women's important contribution to
national defense, and in January 1983 the magazine Sport und
Technik, an official GST publication, appealed to young women
to volunteer for service in the NVA, since the mission of the
armed forces--the prevention of war--is not men's concern
exclusively.
For the fiscal year ending on December 31, 1986, the sum of
14.1 billion GDR marks--5.8 percent of the total budget--was
earmarked for national defense and security (for value of the
GDR mark--see Glossary).
The figures published may have little
indicative value, however, since East Germany does not fully
disclose defense expenditures. Many Western experts agree that
economic problems apparently have resulted in a trend toward
negative real growth in defense spending. Numerous economy
measures have been instituted in the armed forces, particularly
in regard to consumption of petroleum, oil, and lubricants.
Data as of July 1987
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