In a ground-breaking move, Germany’s Central Council of Jews (CCJ) has backed mandatory military screening for Jewish men, abandoning a decades-long exemption rooted in the legacy of the Shoah.
The bold announcement came at the Jewish Youth Congress 2026, where more than 400 young Jews gathered following the Bundestag’s reform of Germany’s military service law last December.
Under this new legislation, from July 2027, all 18-year-old men will have to take a medical exam to assess their fitness for possible military service.
Germany has moved to boost its defence capabilities following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and amid concern that the US is no longer a reliable Nato partner.
Since the Holocaust, German Jewish men whose families suffered under the Nazis could claim exemption from serving in the army.
But now the country’s main Jewish organisation has said that historic protection for Jewish men should end.
Daniel Botmann, managing director of the Central Council of Jews (CCJ), said the exemption no longer reflected the reality of Jewish life in modern Germany.
“If we repeatedly demand that we want this normality, then we must also say: yes, conscription should also apply to Jewish men.
“If we speak about belonging to this country, then this must also apply to the responsibilities that come with it.”
Germany introduced compulsory military service – Wehrpflicht – back in 1956, and kept it for more than half a century until it was suspended in 2011.
For decades most young men were either drafted into the Bundeswehr or required to perform civilian service (Zivildienst) in hospitals, emergency services or social care. Military duty initially lasted about 12 months, rose to 18 months in the 1960s, then gradually fell to 15 months, nine to ten months, and finally six months before the system was scrapped.
Today, Berlin is rebuilding parts of the same structure it once dismantled. To this end, lawmakers are reforming military service laws and reintroducing mandatory screening.
Under the screening system, young men have to undergo medical and psychological examinations and are classified as fit, partially fit or unfit. And ending the Jewish exemption means all Jewish men will now undergo the same military health checks as other citizens, regardless of whether their families were victims of Nazi persecution.
Conscription itself has not yet officially returned to Germany, but screening is widely seen as the essential first step towards achieving this.
Meanwhile, the CCJ is stressing that no Jewish men are being compelled to serve, and is pushing for anyone refusing to be able to carry out civilian service instead – and without having to navigate Germany’s notoriously complex red tape.
Estimates discussed at the congress suggested between 8,000 and 10,000 Jews in Germany could be affected if full conscription were to be reinstated.
Before Hitler’s rise, Jewish men played a very significant role in Germany’s military life, including around 100,000 German Jews serving in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. Roughly 12,000 lost their lives here fighting for Germany.
Among these fallen Jewish men was Otto Frank, later known as Anne Frank’s father, who served as a lieutenant. Decorated fighter ace Wilhelm Frankl and politician Ludwig Frank, killed in battle in 1914, were also among thousands of Jewish soldiers who fought for Germany.
When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Jews were expelled Jews from public life, including the armed forces. Despire this, research by historian Bryan Mark Rigg, published in Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, estimates that around 150,000 soldiers of partial Jewish ancestry served in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Some of them had been classified “Deutschblütig” – of German blood – to enable them to serve.
By 2007, estimates suggested around 200 Jewish soldiers were serving in the Bundeswehr. By the early 2020s, that number had risen to roughly 300.
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