Recruitment and retention in the Bundeswehr

There has been a lot of dissent to and even protest against the personnel policies of the Bundeswehr. The recruitment appears to aim at young people who don't want to leave their comfort zone and don't want any martial-ish job. Retention policies appear to focus on on-base luxuries in the era von der Leyen (=minister of defence) while lots and lots of problems that are most detrimental for retention are unsolved.

And then there's the issue that "retention" is almost a misnomer in regard to the Bundeswehr; the career models are still mostly about young people joining as "Soldat auf Zeit" (soldier for a fixed time period), with NCOs and officers maybe becoming career soldiers until retirement afterwards.

Here are my thoughts on the personnel system. I held them (mostly) back for a really, really long time because I actually haven't  had an insider experience in a long time.

In general:

Recruitment for air force and navy security unit personnel and army should be through a militia-ish system. Every German gets the invitation to join the militia for half a year and earn a really good pay there (easily squeezed between school and university, or a temporary gap filler after job training when the employer didn't keep the trainee employed). These six months would give a general military education and basic infantry skills to everyone. This pool of trained reservists would greatly accelerate a military expansion if there's a two-year arms race or even a war in the future. The training would be designed to be militarily worthwhile and individually attractive. It would typically begin in summertime a month after the end of the school year, and end early enough to allow them to join university at the following summer semester with a vacation before and after the militia service.

Some of those who do this would volunteer for another short period for reserve NCO training while others would join the regular army (which then doesn't need to bother with basic training and automatically has an "everyone a rifleman" ethos).

The recruitment for this militia should follow the "masculine" attraction of the job; it's better for their recruitment videos to show stuff blowing up and camouflaged bivouacs in snowy woodland than a daycare centre on the base.

The number one priority should be that the armed services are fit enough that their personnel is proud to serve in them.

Soldiers should not serve on a base where almost nothing is newer than their own age. No cheating about readiness - be ready! De facto 100% of nominal equipment strength should be achieved and maintained. Obsolete equipment is tolerable only for an at most three years long period when the successor hardware gets phased in. Red tape needs to be limited, and superiors who obsess about protecting themselves from consequences of mishaps need to be removed. Officers and NCOs who were promoted beyond their ability need to be demoted. Disaffected personnel that really wants out should be allowed to leave (with some financial disadvantages).

Recruitment for medical services should be cut severely. The military should not have any physicians other than general practitioners and surgeons with focus on trauma patients. The military could use conscription to get other needed specialists in times of war.

Job security after the military service is important; so far you better jump the ship soon enough, or you might end up being unemployed without a decent pension later in your life. So anyone who leaves the armed services after 20 years of service should have a job guarantee with at least 90% of the last military service monthly income in the civilian bureaucracy.

Army:

Some physically demanding jobs should be done at age 20-35, and the limits of acceptable ages are 18-38 for these jobs. These physically demanding jobs (infantry, scouts, many engineer jobs) make up less than one quarter of all army personnel, and likely less than half of the army personnel ever had or will have the physique potential to be good at those jobs for several years.

I would thus divide the army into those who have a career involving such physically demanding jobs and those who go through the others (office jobs, mechanics, drivers and so on). The former should stay in the physically demanding jobs (and militia leadership positions) till age 35 or till they really, really want a more comfortable assignment at least for a while. The more of these are in "cushy" jobs at age 24-38, the more internal reserves the army will have for the demanding jobs. The more of them are in "cushy" jobs at age 39-50 the more of an internal trainer reserve for basic and militia training the army will have. These men (yes, "men") would help to make non-combat, non-scout units more robust in combat situations.

The other (bigger) share of army personnel could be hired approximately the conventional way; the prospect of getting a not too stressful job and possibly some training such as mechanic, paramedic or electrician (or a qualification to join a civilian bureaucracy afterwards) would serve as effective incentives. Decent pay, not too many relocations to different bases, not too many off-base courses away from family, climate-controlled office spaces and driver cabs et cetera can make such jobs an attractive career option till retirement. That is, if one gets away from the "soldier for a few years" model and also makes the hierarchy less depressing for the lower ranks (it sucks if 90+% of the troops at your base are authorised to give you orders).

Navy:

I'm not in favour of the continued existence of the German navy, but I won't have it my way, so here are my 2 Euro cents for personnel affairs of a not-disbanded German navy:

The pre-1900 recruitment appeal of the navy was enormous; join the navy and you'll see the world. Nowadays we can do so by flying, but hardly anyone can afford to travel past the Mediterranean before age 25. So let's exploit this for recruitment.

Build two dedicated training ships (NOT a refurbished sailing vessel!) with good accommodations (compact, but well-designed cabins), training facilities including a movie theatre and a gym. These two ships could cruise once around the world per year, completing the training from basic to sonar operator/administrator/cook/whatever in one year. Dozens of ports all around the world would be visited with long port call periods where the trainees could leave the ship for the evening or for several days.

That should do the trick of recruiting if combined with a four year total voluntary service. There will then be the need to achieve good retention rates with those troops who served well and showed potential.  This should be achieved by a combination of good pay, motivating service and concentration of the whole navy in  one Baltic Sea port (warships and boats could cruise to some saltwater port as a temporary base for saltwater training - the difference does matter for mine countermeasures and ASW).

Warships should be operated by 'seamen for life'; men and women who intend to and usually do serve on board of ships till age 50 if not beyond. Personnel turnover per year should be much less than 10% per year on a warship. Smaller units such as minehunters could be used for the start of a career at sea (to identify those suitable for a 'seaman for life' career), and the rather uncomfortable submarines could have the conventional personnel rotation.

Warships (other than training ships) should never be sent farther than Arctic and Mediterranean waters, and crews should be rotated every couple weeks between sister ships if there's a multi-month mission for a warship in the Mediterranean.

Air force:

Just about every air force world-wide has a reputation for a relatively comfortable service, save for the quasi-infantry security units.

The air force can thus do its recruitment and retention approximately as done or mentioned before. It has no special attraction other than the very small quantity of pilot jobs. Aircraft mechanics are special in my opinion; aircraft mechanic should be a job for life, with retirement at about age 60. The security units could recruit through the militia and rotate personnel with air defence batteries.*

The air force is a branch where attractive barracks features (yes, including daycare, but also a free gym), good pay, pride in functional and purposeful units and a decent work experience (no harassment, no feeling of being at the bottom of the barrel as enlisted personnel) could be the pillars for recruitment (partially through word of mouth) and retention. Over 90% of air force jobs could be done by women at age 50, so there's no need for a particularly young personnel force. A career at the air force could and should typically be a career for age 18-60.

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The lack of details and detailed accusations and ranting about specific problems betrays my lack of detailed knowledge of post-2000 Bundeswehr personnel affairs.

This was thus rather an appeal to look at not utterly conventional approaches, farther away than today's approaches from the Cold War's Bundeswehr which rested on short-serving conscripts, recruitment in part through retention of conscripts as volunteers and generally very high personnel turnover in all units.

S O

P.S.: I'd like to fire off ONE very specific rant and complaint, though: "Leichte Sprache" (simplified language for retards) and "Gebärdensprache" (sign language for deaf people) features are 100% unnecessary and indeed most embarrassing on a Bundeswehr recruiting website! WTF!?

*: Air defence small units and units often need to deploy far away from the protection of air base security units, and should be as capable of self-defence as "rear" field army units. Many NCOs in the air force security units appear to (in my experience) overcompensate and can be unnecessarily uncomfortable superiors. Periods of service away from such an environment could be welcome relaxation, so a rotation to units with rather technically-minded NCOs and officers as in air defence units makes sense.