alt Hacker NewsGerman men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
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“ Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/...
So it's a cold war law which is still in place but not being enforced.
Same for conscription laws in the Netherlands, which are also still active. They just don't ask anyone to report for conscription. It was even expanded a couple of years before the Ukraine war to also include women.
Singapore has a similar requirement called an Exit Permit. It may have changed, I don’t really know or care anymore. But the conscription was a huge driver for me to emigrate as soon as I could. I left the country 2 weeks after finishing my military service.
Men are expected to die for their countries that treat them as trash.
Modern Germany will collapse in the face of any war that would justify conscription, so it's all a moot point anyway.
The country is already in a slow burning crisis due to the political and economic results of its demography, and a war coming to its own soil will send the walls tumbling down.
Next step in Germany - from mid-2027, a fitness test for 18 year olds.
"Gradually, then suddenly", as someone once said.
I'm surprised this news is stalling at 24 points. Everybody has to understand that even if this law isn't impacting you; this is a signal in the noise. Germany is a major part of the industrial military complex together with the US and still the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China. This is meaningful as it sets course for war in Europe. And for Germans it means soon to be enforced limitations of civil rights. That fits right in with the surveillance crap that is being attempted to roll out in EU (which is effectively headed and controlled by Germany).
I still cannot understand why and what we are fighting for. Setting aside the wars of the previous decades, Russia was a long term ally with Ukraine, much like the USA and Canada and then out of nowhere they are in a "soft war". Also, after 50 years of the Islamic regime in Iran, we should engage in another soft war, again because of ill defined reasons. The soft is in contrast to regular war which locks down the whole society and has innumerous deaths and pain. I still cannot.
The crazy thing to me is also that they slipped it into the law on January 1st, and our quality journalism (such as OP DW), for which we are forced to pay monthly fees, only reports about it now - and I'm fairly sure they didn't break the story, they caught onto it pretty late.
Almost like by design.
Oh yeah and the obvious discrimination. If you change your gender on paper now you probably won't be affected, but you will be affected if you change it short-term.
I don't think there is any moat here, most European countries have these kind of "deprecated" laws, that are not enforced and just stay there because it's too much of a hassle to remove. In France, I think there are still laws forbidding women to wear jeans, and requiring permission of the husband to work. Still in the text of law, but obviously non enforceable.
A tangent, but I’m interested (as an American) what is the German attitude towards laws that have no enforcement or penalty? Do most people feel an obligation to observe them? Is there any social cost for disregarding them?
Question for German friends: What do you think about the production level of military equipment? If Russia does move (which I think is unlikely in the near future), how many days does the ammo last?
It is wonderful to see this much-needed discussion on HN. There is a strong argument to be made for that we need to recalibrate rights and responsibilities of men and women. Especially since women have largely abandoned their traditional duties and still kinda expect men to hold their end of the bargain. All while constantly degrading, offending, and calling men's nature toxic. Men essentially get nothing in return for doing these deadly jobs. So let's make it truely equal as everybody wanted and conscript everyone. No sugarcoating either, equality starts from the front line.
It’s interesting to read the discussion here through the lens of obligations vs rights. It would seem the rights are definitely winning.
Not all men, but all men over 17 and under the age of 45. This still seems draconian, though.
Why does it exclude women? War is not just physical strength, but also logistics, operating vehicles, operating drones, nursing, and so on. All tasks that women are well capable of.
How does feminism survive if this becomes the norm? If young men feel like they're expected to give more to their society it's natural to expect renumeration financial, socially or politically. Nordic countries don't seem to have this problem, but their conscription laws are quite relaxed compared to what the future will likely hold. A declining youth population almost certainly means greater youth repression (higher taxes for pensions, conscription, etc.)
Press gangs are back
So are you also not allowed to move away or? I find it pretty messed up that your life as a man is literally owned by the government.
The older I get the more I can't stand "countries" as a concept. Especially this notion that somehow countries own their citizens. It's quite gross to me...
Countries do not own their citizens, citizens own their countries. Countries are a technology - albeit an old and sometimes useful technology, but a technology. This is like an iPhone requiring your permission to leave it on the counter for a day.
This idea that you're not allowed to travel without a permit is a perverse inversion of reality. People are not property and the idea that a "country" can feed human beings into one meat-grinder or another at will in order to preserve itself is the very thing that the AI safety people are panicked about. It's the paperclip maximizer, but instead of making paperclips it tries to grow and expand it's influence into all aspects of the human experience. Increasingly this disgusts me at a cellular level.
Owned like a slave to the government.
time to emigrate
If the U.S. implements a draft, would we first implement exit visas?
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights quoth:
Article 20 Everyone is equal before the law.
Article 21 1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”
The famed German rule-following in action. This kind of routine violation of regulation is what led to Dieselgate. Social norms in places like this rarely support rule of law. There's a reason the EPA was the one which blew this wide open. Local regulators follow these norms because that's what German cultural norms are.
Welcome to Dubai, German habibis, you can join all the Russians fleeing their draft here. Still a lot less likely to get hit by a drone here than to die when fighting on the frontlines in Europe.
I remember people in Germany who had to go underground to evade the draft, even as recently as the early 2000s.
Here's a story from 2002 about how the supreme court there upheld the legality of a military draft:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-apr-11-mn-37321...
anyway, if you refused to be drafted and did not want to go to jail, you had to more-or-less stop using any government services, rent with roommates, avoid using a credit card etc. until you've reached some age, and then you could emerge again because the duty to serve expires at that certain (not very high) age. It was cuh-razy.
Being 46 (and quite an active 46 year old, just finished a Skitour), am curious why the cutoff for these things tends to be 45?
That seems more “oh we fucked up and didn’t realize our changes to the law imply this” than “Germany forces men to request permission to leave”.
Note that this law still exists because it requires a constitutional change to include women (well, or to be abandoned). A constitutional change of the Grundgesetzbuch requires a 2/3rd majority in the parliament. That almost never happens these days, especially with green/left/social party being not really united anymore in their votes and the conservatives allying themselves with the far right.
The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.
Bundestag seats (from 2002 onwards):
2002 (15): https://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/html/pressemitteilungen1.ht...
2005 (16): https://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/html/presse_lwl_bw2005.html
2008 (17): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung17-2...
2013 (18): https://www.bundestag.de/webarchiv/textarchiv/2013/sitzvert_...
2017 (19): https://www.bundestag.de/278118-278118
2020 (20): https://web.archive.org/web/20211102103524/https://www.bunde... (couldn't find an article on the Bundestag website, got deleted. Web archive version is a little broken)
2025 (21): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung
for the risk of getting downvoted:
why only locals, but no migrants?
"Free world"
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes says this:
> (2) Männliche Personen haben nach Vollendung des 17. Lebensjahres eine Genehmigung des zuständigen Karrierecenters der Bundeswehr einzuholen, wenn sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland länger als drei Monate verlassen wollen, ohne dass die Voraussetzungen des § 1 Absatz 2 bereits vorliegen. Das Gleiche gilt, wenn sie über einen genehmigten Zeitraum hinaus außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verbleiben wollen oder einen nicht genehmigungspflichtigen Aufenthalt außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland über drei Monate ausdehnen wollen. Die Genehmigung ist für den Zeitraum zu erteilen, in dem die männliche Person für eine Einberufung zum Wehrdienst nicht heransteht. Über diesen Zeitraum hinaus ist sie zu erteilen, soweit die Versagung für die männliche Person eine besondere – im Bereitschafts-, Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall eine unzumutbare – Härte bedeuten würde; § 12 Absatz 6 ist entsprechend anzuwenden. Das Bundesministerium der Verteidigung kann Ausnahmen von der Genehmigungspflicht zulassen.
See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html
This was not changed.
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes was previously only active in a war or close to war situation (Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall). Article 2 said this before:
> § 2 Geltung der folgenden Vorschriften
> Die §§ 3 bis 53 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
See: https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze/blob/master/w/wehrpflg/...
Now it says this:
> § 2 Anwendung dieses Gesetzes
> (1) Die nachfolgenden Vorschriften gelten nach Maßgabe der folgenden Absätze.
> (2) Die §§ 3 bis 52 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
> (4) Die §§ 15a und 16 sind nur auf Betroffene anzuwenden, die nach dem 31. Dezember 2007 geboren sind. Satz 1 gilt nicht im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__2.html
This law changed it: https://www.recht.bund.de/bgbl/1/2025/370/VO
Is the a up to date git repository with all German law changes? The one I found was last updated 4 years ago.
This headline is kind of misleading.
First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.
And to be completely honest, if more people made use of registering for the damn ELEFAND emergency contact list, this rule wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.
So, men are kind of responsible for this themselves by being lazy.
I had to help exfil Germans in Kabul when the US decided to pull out without telling all of their partners in time.
Everyone wanted to be rescued, but you have no idea how many German idiots travel to foreign countries, not even taking five minutes to let their own government know how to reach them and where they went in case of an emergency.
It’s super fun to drive around Kabul and pick up 55 years old complaining male Germans yelling at me because I told them I transport people, not their fucking luggage. Two even sued me afterwards for leaving their expensive camera equipment behind. A dozen complaints about my behavior.
Sometimes it’s really annoying to protect the average citizen. Luckily, I understand that it is an extreme situation for them. Just like some people sue nurses after they broke their ribs reviving their dead ass.
It’s a good thing all these idiots now have to ask for permission in the future and likely need to leave the data necessary so it’s known where they are, for how long and how to reach them.
Those governments are totally inept.
For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.
Think about it, Trump approval rating fell sharply but is still at about 40%. Merz is at 15% and most of those 15% are probably boomers in a nursing home. He is probably closer to 0% within the demographic he is trying to conscript.
The only war you're gonna get in Europe is a civil war.
This is only for citizen not refugees/immigrants so both MEA and NA folks can chill.
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> While the law requires men to request the permit, the spokesperson clarified, it also obliges the military career center to issue it, if "no specific military service is expected during the period in question.”
> "Since military service under current law is based exclusively on voluntary participation, such permissions must generally be granted,” the official added.
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”