On Thursday 5th March, 50,000 school children throughout Germany skipped school to demonstrate against conscription. This is the second school strike against Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s gradual introduction of compulsory military service. During Merz’s recent White House visit he promised to support Donald Trump’s wars and made it clear what increased German militarism really means.
Following a law passed last year, all Germans are now sent an “invitation” to join the army on their 18th birthday. It is widely believed that this is being used as a stepping stone towards full conscription. The German military is already sending soldiers into schools to spread propaganda for joining the army.
Young Germans, however, are resisting – speaking on the Left Berlin radio show, school pupil Carla said: “people my age – students, young people, children, feel that this decision has been made above their heads. We haven’t had the chance to vote yet … People are just frustrated because a decision which forms our future has been made completely without us.”
In Berlin, between 6,000 and 10,000 demonstrated. A group of parents carried a banner from Eltern gegen Wehrpflicht (parents against conscription) and some teachers wore jackets from the GEW (Education and Science Workers’) union. Clara, a teacher, told The Left Berlin that she was demonstrating “because the government is spending billions on more weapons at the same time they are cutting education. This means that we are unable to serve our students, and then they are sent to the military to shoot at other people. I am proud that my union is supporting the strikes.”
The bulk of the demonstrators were young, often very young. Many wore keffiyahs and Palestinian flags were dotted throughout the demo – a sign that even in Germany, movements are mobilising and standing up for Gaza. After police banned the chant “Merz, leck mein Eier” (Merz, lick my balls), chants against the police followed. Other home-made placards attacked both Merz’s support for Trump’s wars and the fascist AfD. While some called for peace, others said: “No war but class war.”
Iranian demonstrator Chapoole was worried about Merz’s support for the bombing of her country, saying: “There’s nothing more colonizer-like than to force your own version of a ‘dream-like country to escape to’ on 90 million people by supporting bombing them and destroying the infrastructure they stayed behind to build despite all odds, while you and your family line escaped.”
Ferat Koçak, a Linke MP who was at the demo, said: “It was a very powerful school strike and many young people who were not all politicised came together and actively confronted conscription, against war crimes worldwide and against wars worldwide. When the police ban a chant which uses teenage slang, this is the authoritarian politics which we know and is part of the move to the right in society.”
The next school strike will be on the 8th of May – the 81st anniversary since the liberation of Europe from Nazi fascism. Nessa, from the No to Military Conscription alliance and one of the organisers of the strikes, stated: “We want to connect it to anti-fascism and the rise of right-wing extremism. We want to remind everybody how you can fight back. Everything is connected”.
Nessa hopes that on the 8th of May, parallel school strikes will be taking place in other countries. This is hopefully the start of a new international movement which fights both conscription and militarism in general.
All photos: Guy Smallman www.guysmallman.com
