BERLIN — As a former marine, my father carried deep scars from World War II. Even as a child, it inspired me to imagine war in all its forms. I prepared myself early on — and not just mentally, for the moment when it might all start again — and armed myself to the teeth.
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It took some coaxing from my kindergarten teacher to get me to leave my cobbled-together wooden sword at the door in the morning, only to reclaim it at lunchtime. As I got older, my arsenal expanded; by the time I was 12, I never ventured into the woods without my sheath knife. Alongside my bow and arrows, I had added a slingshot to the mix. What I did with it, I’d rather not say.
Back then, I had no idea just how complicated and difficult the whole issue of the military would become for me later on.
The “conscience examination”
As a kid, I simply shared my father’s passionate interest in military history. I could recognize almost any German or Austrian march after just three bars. You could have woken me in the middle of the night, and I would have been able to tell you the difference between the helmets of Prussian lancers, dragoons and artillery. I could identify warships, tanks and aircraft just by their silhouettes.
On the living room carpet, I reenacted battle formations from the American Civil War using plastic soldiers my father had brought home from the U.S. garrison. While my friends were flipping through Karl May novels, I was engrossed in my father’s military books, like Word and Custom in the German Army, The Intellectual Culture of the Prussian Officer, and of course, Carl von Clausewitz’s On War. If video war games had existed back then, I’d probably have disappeared into that world entirely.
We believed it was our duty to protect the poor, defenseless Soviet Union.
When I refused compulsory military service in 1976 and opted for civilian service instead, my father wouldn’t even give me a stamp for my letter to the local recruitment office. That letter got me summoned for the notorious “conscience examination,” which in my case dragged on for several hours.
The handbook for conscientious objectors, which supplied us with ideological ammunition, openly called for sabotaging our own state. This radical pamphlet came from a West German communist publisher, itself influenced by the East German regime, just like parts of the peace movement at the time.
Back then, we believed it was our duty to protect the poor, defenseless Soviet Union from the warmongering of the capitalist West and saw West Germany as a lackey of the United States.
Collective guilt
In those days, it was tough for a young man to say out loud that he wanted to join the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces. Nobody like that would have been welcome in my group of friends.
At the time, I even tried writing anti-military songs. That may have helped keep me out of service. They were probably worried I might bring my lyrics into the barracks. Then again, at the end of my hearing, the head of the conscience panel called after me: “Have you thought about becoming a press officer with us? We need critical thinkers exactly like you.” I was taken aback. Even though I had won the war of words, I left feeling lousy.
I would fight to defend a liberal democracy.
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote that young people crave commands so that they have the opportunity to disobey. But he also said that many young people get excited about views they will have in 20 years. For me, it took 50.
Even now, the idea of dying for a homeland without first examining what kind of country it is would never cross my mind. I wouldn’t take up arms for an autocracy, but I would fight to defend a liberal democracy.
This much-discussed turning point, which no longer condemns military buildup on moral grounds but actually considers it necessary, has stirred in me the urge to think more deeply about war. This especially the case now that it has once again become a real possibility. I also see how hard it is to foster a genuine will to defend in a society as thoroughly civilian as ours. Collective guilt for the world wars still runs deep in Germany.
Already at war
Just recently, I bought a book in a secondhand shop that I used to flip through endlessly as a teenager. The worn-out volume, filled with beautiful illustrations of uniforms from every country, organized by conflict, once meant a great deal to me. Now I find myself thumbing through it again.
I also picked up German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s The Outlines of the Present Age. In it, I found a line that still resonates today: “War, however, is not only when war is waged; rather, the general insecurity of all, and the resulting perpetual readiness for war, is also war and has almost the same consequences for the human race as the war actually waged.”
That means we are already in the middle of it. Even if we try to keep our distance. That doesn’t mean I’ve become a warmonger in old age. Thinking about war means neither glorifying it nor pretending it doesn’t exist. We have to grapple with it, spiritually, so we don’t end up being forced to fight it.
