Germany’s armed forces are facing major problems in attracting new recruits, the defence minister said Wednesday, as Berlin seeks to overhaul its creaking military following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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The Bundeswehr has long suffered from a lack of resources and funding but the start of the Ukraine war prompted Chancellor Olaf Scholz to pledge to boost spending.

However, a central challenge is recruiting the next generation of soldiers, admitted Defence Minister Boris Pistorius during a visit to an armed forces career centre in Stuttgart.

“Everyone is talking about a shortage of personnel in the Bundeswehr — and no one knows this better than I,” he told reporters.

“We have seven percent fewer applicants this year compared to the same period last year.”
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During training in the army, there is a dropout rate of about 30 percent, he said.

The acute problems facing the Bundeswehr were laid bare in March when a top MP said the military had “too little of everything” and its barracks were in a pitiful state.

Some troops’ living quarters were lacking Wi-Fi and even working toilets, said Eva Hoegl, a German parliamentary commissioner tasked with scrutinising the military.

The centrepiece of Berlin’s efforts to overhaul the military is a special 100-billion-euro ($110 billion) fund — but Hoegl said that none of this was spent in 2022 amid sluggish bureaucratic decision-making.
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When it came to recruitment, Pistorius said the younger generation had greater concerns about work-life balance than in the past, which were hard to reconcile with a military career.

And the fact German society was ageing — leading to shortages of workers across many industries — meant military recruitment was particularly difficult.

“By 2050, we will have 12 percent fewer people in the 15-24 age group,” he said.

The Bundeswehr currently has a target to boost the number of soldiers to 203,000 by 2031, from around 180,000 currently, although Pistorius stressed that figure was being reviewed.
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