Solemn pledge
At the solemn pledge of the Bundeswehr , soldiers who do voluntary military service or military service in accordance with the conscription law acknowledge their duties by the words:
"I vow to serve the Federal Republic of Germany faithfully and to bravely defend the rights and freedom of the German people."
Temporary soldiers and professional soldiers doing military service do not pledge, but have to take an oath of service. This corresponds to the vow formula, whereby the word “vow” is replaced by “swear” and, at the option of the soldier, “... as well as help me God” can be added. The swearing-in and oath of soldiers of the Bundeswehr are mostly solemn ceremonies at the beginning of their service life.
Basics
The vow is regulated by Section 9 (2) Soldiers Act (SG). If the soldier refuses to take the vow, he is in principle excluded from promotions and other beneficial measures for the remainder of the service period; he does not suffer any further disadvantages. The process is comparable to the swearing in of regular and professional soldiers.
Public pledge
During the 1980s, the vows took place almost exclusively in the barracks , where only invited guests and the relatives of the recruits were allowed to participate. In 1980, for the first time after the end of the war, a public vow was made outside the barracks area. At the vow ceremony in Bremen in 1980 at the Weser Stadium , 260 people were injured and many company vehicles went up in flames. The property damage was estimated at one million DM. The riots were directed against the Bundeswehr and armed forces in general. In addition, the demonstrators assumed militarization of public space .
Since 1996 the Federal Ministry of Defense has also been making public vows in Berlin . With the aim of demonstrating the Bundeswehr's closeness to the citizens, the then Defense Minister Volker Rühe launched an “offensive of public vows” in 1998, which the recruits were supposed to make public when they made their vows. According to information from left-wing critics of the Bundeswehr and peace movements, 100 public vows were made in 1998 and 150 in 1999. According to the Federal Government for the years 2008 and 2009, the number of vows in public remains largely constant at just under 150, often publicly on sports or marketplaces of sponsored communities of a participating company.
On the anniversary of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , vows are often made at historical sites. Since 1999 this has been the Berlin Bendlerblock or the Reichstag building several times . With the link to the anniversary of the assassination attempt, the Bundeswehr is underlining the resistance to National Socialism as one of its main lines of tradition. The vows were public, but only previously registered relatives and invited guests were allowed to participate. For most years the vow was televised live.
At the public vows on July 20, the Bundeswehr tries every year to win a different prominent representative of public life or a friendly country as the main speaker. So previously spoke u. a. Former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski .
Protests and disruptions
Protests by groups from the peace movement and left-wing groups against public vows have been taking place in Berlin for years under the catchphrase “ Gelöbnix ” . The implementation of the registered demonstrations against the vow in Berlin was restricted in 2009 by the Berlin administrative court to Potsdamer Platz (outside the earshot of the vow).
See also
- Swearing-in and pledge by soldiers of the Bundeswehr
- Oath of allegiance
- Swearing in in the Swiss Army
- Swearing in by the Austrian Armed Forces
literature
- Markus Euskirchen: Military rituals. Analysis and criticism of an instrument of rule (= PapyRossa-Hochschulschriften. Vol. 59). Papyrossa Verlag , Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-89438-329-1 (also: Berlin, FU, dissertation, 2004).
- Central guideline A2-2630 / 0-0-3 "Military forms and celebrations of the Bundeswehr" (formerly ZDv 10/8, publisher BMVg , Bonn 1983).
Web links
- Solemn pledge on the official Bundeswehr website
Individual evidence
- ^ Deutsche Welle : Riot at the Bundeswehr celebration on May 6, 2015, accessed on July 7, 2015
- ↑ Vows ( Memento of the original dated May 10, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Michael Behrendt, accessed July 19, 2009
- ↑ Hesse, Dieter: Public vows of the Bundeswehr ... and what to think of it, v. September 23, 1999, published on World Socialist Web Site, International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) , accessed July 19, 2009
- ↑ Answer of the federal government to a small question of the parliamentary group DIE LINKE, German Bundestag: Drucksache 16 12038 v. February 24, 2009 (PDF; 2.1 MB) accessed July 19, 2009
- ↑ Andreas Speck, Graswurzelrevolution May 1998: GelöbNIX! ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ July 17, 2009: Administrative court complains about the peace of the cemetery for the Bundeswehr ( memento of the original from May 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release, accessed July 21, 2011
