Parliament's special commissioner for the Bundeswehr military, Henning Otte, lobbied for a rapid recruitment drive in the army in the coming years in his annual report published on Tuesday. 

"The issues of personnel and its expansion remain the central challenges for the Bundeswehr, if it is to further strengthen its capabilities," the report said. 

Germany has been trying to boost its defense spending and its military recruitment in light of various factors, but most notably Russia's invasion of Ukraine and appeals from the US for Europe to do more as part of the NATO alliance.

Otte wrote that given elevated threat levels, and in order to meet the government's stated target of having 260,000 active soldiers and another 200,000 reservists by the mid-2030s, plans to reintroduce some kind of military service would need to be a success. 

Otte recommended that if voluntary service proved insufficient, the next step should be a return to some form of compulsory service. 

And yet in one area, the CDU politician appealed for streamlining: saying that the administrative bodies of the military and Defense Ministry were in dire need of reform. 

"The current structures of the Bundeswehr and the Defense Ministry are too top-heavy, too complicated, and in large part ineffective," his report warned. 

Otte's role is to lead the parliamentary oversight and assistance of the military, in a job that is often euphemistically referred to in German politics as being "the Bundeswehr's advocate." 

How many troops are available at present? 

For now troops numbers fall well short of the almost half a million desired within the next decade or so. 

According to Bundeswehr data, the military currently has around 186,000 active troops, either on limited or permanent contracts or in voluntary service. Another roughly 60,000 reservists were on call last year, although technically Germany counts all roughly 860,000 of its military veterans as theoretical reservists who could be called on in an emergency.

Under orders to ramp up hiring, how well did the Bundeswehr recruit in 2025?

Some progress was evident in Tuesday's report, however, with the Bundeswehr hiring 25,000 personnel in 2025. That's the highest figure in a single year since 2011, when Germany abolished its previous national service model. 

But Otte warned that the number of recruits who dropped out before becoming a fully fledged member of the army's ranks remained too high, at roughly 20%.

He said the public expected the military to be equal to its tasks, which seem set to expand in the coming years. 

"In order to continue to achieve this at a high level in the future, it needs reliable basic conditions and, above all, more staff," he said. 

Call for clarity on national service reintroduction

Otte appealed to the German government to come up with a clearer plan and more concrete conditions for its reintroduction of some form of military service. This policy proposal is threatening to divide the coalition government and has been the subject of several about-faces in the planning phase. 

Currently, young people are being sent a questionnaire seeking to gauge their availability for and interest in military service, in hopes that this will organically drum up more interest in voluntary enlistment.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats briefly touted a plan to add some kind of compulsory component to this, but Defense Minister Boris Pistorius' Social Democrats objected and for the moment the original approach stands.

German law could in theory enable the temporary conscription of many young men, as the previous national service was technically frozen, rather than being abolished or struck from the statutes. But constitutional change would be required to extend it to young women. 

Shortfalls in infrastructure, digitization, hiring speed, physical standards

At present, the plan foresees basic pay of at least €2,600 (around $3,000) per month before tax — a low salary by German standards for full-time work but very high compensation by the standards of apprenticeship payment schemes. The package also includes noteworthy fringe benefits in areas like accommodation, meals, training and further education. 

Otte warned that for such bonuses to be credible, it was necessary to build new recruitment centers and to expand barracks and training capacities, so that it's possible for more people to join the military.

He said that many barracks were in a dilapidated condition and in urgent need of renovation. He also called for faster progress in digitization, for instance of soldiers' medical records, to prevent frustration among troops. 

Otte also complained of sluggish recruitment, saying it took an average of 112 days — two weeks longer than in 2024 — to progress from an application to a hiring. He said this was too slow in a competitive jobs market. 

He noted complaints from troops that physical standards were falling amid the recruitment drive. He said that soldiers warned that the motto "quantity over quality" was starting to take hold.  

He told the government that equipment and gear shortfalls persisted, saying there was now no financial excuse for this seeing as defense spending has been made an exception to the government's debt brake. 

In other matters, Otte warned of increased external threats to the armed forces domestically. He said the number of crimes targeting the military rose in 2025, to 112 cases. These included six arson attacks and 10 cases of sabotage. 

Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher

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