National Youth Service :
A Global Perspective
Contents
Introduction
1: National Service Programs and Proposals
Profiles of National Service
2: Aspects of National Youth Service
Appendix A: Global Conference Participants, June 18-21, 1992
Appendix B: Annotated Bibliography
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1. National service programs and proposals
Germany
Dr. Jurgen Kuhlmann
Senior Research Fellow, German Armed Forces Institute for Social Research
In West Germany until October 1990 and since that time in unified Germany, there has never been a large-scale, government-operated, program in which young people could engage in a period of voluntary service to their communities or the nation. Two factors contribute to what might be called national service in Germany: 1) the responsibility of the state for public welfare and 2) how the system of conscription has evolved in recent years. As a result of these factors, more than 100,000 young men are engaged today in civilian activities in "national service." These activities fall under three major headings: 1) Civil Defense, which protects the civilian population in case of war and provides disaster relief; 2) Development Aid, which is carried on overseas by certain organizations vested with public authority; 3) Zivildienst, an obligatory alternative civilian service for those who object to compulsory military service. Each of these three services is organized either completely or predominantly by the government.
Civil Defense. A young man who volunteers to serve part-time for 10 years in civil defense is exempted from military service. Civil defense is staffed primarily by citizens who serve voluntarily in fire brigades, in private welfare organizations, and in the Federal Technical Aid Service, and by full-time employees working for the federal, state, and local authorities. About 20,000 men now are performing Civil Defense as alternative service. If the Civil Defense had not been an attractive alternative to compulsory military service, the brigades would not have had the manpower to survive.
Development Aid. A young man who contracts for at least two years of overseas service and completes the contract is exempt from military service. Service in Development Aid may be performed either with the government-sponsored German Volunteer Service or with one of six private organizations. Thus, service is highly selective. In 1990, 1,530 trained persons were sent overseas; since its founding in 1963, the German Volunteer Service alone has employed about 11,000 qualified helpers in more than 50 countries. About 20 percent of these people have served overseas to gain an exemption from military service.
Zivildienst. A young man who objects to military service for reasons of conscience may be classified as a Conscientious Objector (CO). He then enters Zivildienst and is considered to have completed his "compulsory military service with other means and without arms" when he has completed a period of full-time civilian service that is one-third longer than compulsory military service. Currently, conscripts serve 12 months in military service and 15 months in Zivildienst. Some 90,000 COs are now in Zivildienst, although in 1991 some 151,000 young men (including 4,500 active soldiers and persons living in the former German Democratic Republic) applied for CO status. Another 21,000 are in service positions that exempt them from the requirement to perform military service. Zivildienst has become indispensable for voluntary welfare work because it is no longer possible to finance professional staff members in place of COs.
The Future. One can imagine what troubles welfare organizations would encounter if Zivildienst had to be discontinued together with compulsory military service. Persons entrusted to the care of young men performing Zivildienst would no longer be served. Critics suspect that compulsory military service must be maintained -- although there are no conclusive military, economic, and social reasons to continue it -- to supply an adequate number of young men for Zivildienst in order to make up for the shortages of workers in nursing and welfare work.
Currently, the German public is debating a Community Service that would replace compulsory military service, and thus automatically Zivildienst. Community Service would be optional: any young man or woman could decide which branch to choose. The point at issue in the current debate is not so much that society expects service from its young people. Rather, it is the sobering fact that German society will depend to an ever-increasing extent on the social services now being rendered by Zivildienst, and the recognition that these services would not be provided if performed at market prices. Public budgets have not been adequate to cover these services in recent years; this situation surely will continue because of the immense costs of unification.
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