Germany is spending more on defence than at any time since World War II. Yet the country cannot find enough young people willing to join the armed forces.
At the same time, its economy is barely growing, pension costs are surging, and employers warn of a shortage of skilled workers.
Politicians talk about reviving military conscription, but the numbers show that doing so could impose a massive cost on an already strained economy.
The question is whether Germany can rearm without undermining the very system it seeks to defend.
Can money buy soldiers?
Germany has lifted its defence budget from $66.8 billion in 2023 to $109 billion in 2025.
The government has pledged €649 billion through 2029 to meet NATO’s goal of spending 3.5% of GDP on defence.
One of Germany’s largest arm manufacturers, Rheinmetall, has a €63 billion backlog for tanks and ammunition.
Airbus has secured an €8 billion contract for F-35 fighter jets.
Even Deutsche Bahn, the state rail operator, is expected to receive €150 billion to modernise lines that would double as military transport corridors.
The industrial build-up is clear. What is missing is manpower. The Bundeswehr currently has about 181,000 active soldiers, far below the level NATO expects.
Germany needs 50,000 to 60,000 more troops by the end of the decade. Recruitment campaigns at gaming fairs, fitness expos and even bakeries have brought in more volunteers, but not nearly enough.
The situation has worsened in recent years. In fact, throughout 2024, the dropout rate among new entrants was around 27%.
High salaries have not solved the problem. Pay for new recruits is set to rise by a third to more than 2,300 euros a month, often double what vocational trainees earn.
Nonetheless, willingness to serve remains weak. A Forsa survey in August showed that only 16% of Germans would definitely defend the country if it were attacked. By global standards, that is among the lowest levels of military commitment.
A Gallup survey placed Germany among the five countries least willing to fight for their nation, with 57% of respondents saying they would refuse.
What conscription would really cost
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government has put forward a draft law to restore elements of compulsory service.
From January 2026, all 18-year-old men will be required to complete a questionnaire about their health, skills and willingness to serve.
From 2027, medical checks will be mandatory. Parliament would still have to vote before full conscription is reintroduced, but the trigger is there.
Supporters argue that only a draft can close the manpower gap. Critics point to the bill for the wider economy.
The ifo Institute in Munich calculates that universal conscription would cost about €70 billion per year, equal to roughly 1.6% of Germany’s gross national income.
The losses come from delayed workforce entry, foregone wages and reduced productivity.
That cost would come on top of already heavy pension spending. Federal transfers to the state pension system stand at €122.6 billion in 2025 and are projected to rise further.
Contribution rates, fixed at 18.6% today, are expected to pass 20 percent by 2028. The German Court of Auditors has warned that recent reforms will add almost four billion euros to the annual bill.
In other words, the state is already spending more each year to support retirees than it does on defence.
To add a new 70 billion euro liability in the form of conscription would stretch finances to the limit.
Why young Germans are saying no
The bigger problem is political rather than fiscal. For many young Germans, the military is not an attractive employer but a symbol of a system they do not trust.
Housing is expensive, real wages are stagnant, and pensions appear secure only for older generations. Climate change weighs heavily, and democracy itself feels fragile.
In Germany’s 2025 election, more than one in five under-25 voters backed the far-right AfD, now classified as extremist by domestic intelligence.
Many others moved to the far left.
The Bundeswehr’s reputation is also weak. Scandals involving far-right networks, equipment shortages and procurement delays have fed the perception of a dysfunctional institution.
Despite image campaigns, web series and generous pay, recruitment still falls short.
The irony is that for those who do join, the military can be a rare source of stability.
New recruits receive free accommodation, food and public transport, alongside access to sports facilities and career training.
Some see it as a way out of precarious jobs. But these individual stories do not change the wider reluctance.
A system out of balance
Germany’s economic stagnation makes the manpower problem sharper. GDP shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter of 2025.
Industrial production fell 1.9% in June to its lowest level since 2020. Corporate insolvencies are at a decade high, with nearly 12,000 companies failing in the first half of the year.
The ifo business climate index has ticked up slightly but still signals weakness.
An ageing society is pushing pension transfers higher every year. A labour market already short of nurses, engineers and teachers is now asked to supply tens of thousands of soldiers.
The result is a direct conflict between the fiscal arithmetic of defence spending and the demographic arithmetic of the welfare state.
Germany’s partners welcome its rearmament. For the first time since the war, the country is positioning itself as a military power in Europe.
But the scale of spending hides the reality that people, not money, are the true bottleneck.
Without a credible plan to close the troop gap, the billions flowing into industry and infrastructure will not translate into a usable force.
What could be done differently?
Germany does not lack resources. It lacks a model that converts spending into manpower without crippling the economy.
One option is to build a market for what might be called “national readiness hours.”
Instead of pulling young people into compulsory service, the state would set an annual quota of hours in training, logistics, cyber exercises and civil defence that must be delivered.
Large employers, universities and public institutions would be required to supply these hours or buy credits from others.
This would make readiness a measurable commodity. Firms with spare capacity in depots, hospitals or data centres could deliver cheaply. Others could buy credits on the open market.
At a clearing price of perhaps 25 euros per hour, a national target of 80 million hours would cost less than two billion euros a year, far below the ifo’s estimate for universal conscription.
More importantly, it would raise the number of certified training hours and improve retention by focusing on supervision and skills rather than raw headcount.
Another option is to mobilise older cohorts rather than the youngest. A senior reserve corps paying stipends and pension top-ups could draw on the skills of tens of thousands of experienced trainers and logisticians in their fifties and sixties.
This would raise training quality and free young recruits for frontline roles, without dragging teenagers away from apprenticeships and universities.
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