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Ringo Ehlert
23. August 2001
Hereby I declare, that I object totally to the
military service in the Bundeswehr with and without weapon, I object to the
civil service and to all other war-supporting institutions of the Federal
Republic of Germany because of my conscience and because of my political
world view and I delare that I will not turn up to start the service on the
2nd September 2001. In this matter I refer to the basic right to freedom of
conscience and of the world view, as to Article 4 Paragraph 1 of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
I have grown up in the German Democratic Republic When I was 12 years old,
the FRG took over my home country - as I learned later it took it over in an
act of calculating and unlawful annexation.
My mother has worked in the GDR as a professional medical laboratory
assistant in a policlinic. Her professional qualification was not recognized
by the FRG institutions. The policlinic she worked in was closed, she was
fired and could not find an adequate job any more. First she was unemployed
and today she is working for a low wage as a cashier at the drugstore
Schlecker.
The factory my father used to work in as a highly-qualified metal worker and
fitter for medical furniture was also closed in the beginning of the
Nineties. He was fired as well and to this day he could not find any work in
a new job.
Myself, I have looked for an apprenticeship in the information technology
area after my finishing secondary school. Regarding the high rate of
unemployment among the youth in the annexed GDR I had to be glad to get just
any kind of apprenticeship and so I finished my apprenticeship as a
bricklayer and today I am a qualified bricklayer. After my apprenticeship I
was not taken over by my training company because of a lack of task. After
eight months of unemployment, I have tried my luck to find a job in the
West. At the companies there I got a job, but I never got any written work
treaty, nor money on a regular basis and I was treated like shit. I did not
get any help from the job center, but a stop of unemployment money after I
had quit my job. Today as a qualified worker I am forced to be an unskilled
worker and be away on the job. This means to be at home for three days a
month and the way to work is unbelievably far. In my home region it is not
possible on all accounts to find any work. The unemployment rate in
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is now at 40 to 50 percent.
For 11 years now, my country is being systematically destroyed and plundered
by the FRG. The German Army, the Bundeswehr, is by fact an occupation army
on the territory of the annexed GDR since the annexation, on the territory
of the country that I still feel citizen of. Looking at the word annexation,
there cannot be a difference between an annexation by war and one conducted
by lies and false promises by a government of liars, a system built on lies.
The system of the FRG has covered my country with a wave of poverty, mass
unemployment, cultural barabrity and axing of social security - not only in
the area of youth.
On behalf of the initiatives taken by the Treuhand - an institution for the
liquidation of the GDR as to the interests of the FRG - the industry
production rate sank between 1990 and 1991 alone to a third of the rate of
the year 1989. 95 percent of the capital of the GDR ended up in the hands of
the Western German Finance Capital. Between 1990 and 1995 over 3 million of
the jobs were destroyed by the Treuhand. At the and of Treuhand's activities,
of the property of my country a mere mountain of debts was left, 275 billion
D-Mark of debts. So the activities of the Treuhand led to a deficit of 1475
billion and by that to the greatest destruction of social property in times
of peace ever. With the robbery of the financial property of the GDR came an
uprise of the FRG's economic power and also a doubling of the financial
property of the FRG within ten years to an amount of a gigantic 6,75
trillion D-Mark.
The Bundeswehr represents and supports the interests of the annector FRG.
For me it is not possible to do service in an army that has the status of a
foreign occupation force in my country.
A service in the Bundeswehr is also not possible for me, because I am not
willing and ready to do service in an army of aggression. Not only has the
war of aggression against Yugoslavia that was conducted against
international law shown in a shocking way that the Bundeswehr is a blind
tool to conduct and fight for the interests of the FRG. There was clearly no
right or lawful basis to this act of aggression. Whoever breaks the law in a
serious way is a criminal. An army that breaks law in a serious way is a
criminal army and I cannot do service there. International solidarity and
friendship of the peoples are for me the inalienable basis for a peaceful
living together of the peoples in Europe and in the world. Wars of
aggression against international law are incompatible with these my
fundamental values.
The service in the Bundeswehr is also impossible for me because of that army
being more and more taken over by neo-fascist elements. I have a radical
antifascist position. For a start, I cannot stand the fact that the barracks
of the Bundeswehr have the names of Nazi-Generals. The Bundeswehr sees
itself as the successor and inheritor of the German Wehrmacht, a criminal
organisation that has destroyed the whole of Europe and burnt it to ashes in
the name of the German Fascists and the German Capital. A service in an army
that makes this mask of terror more vivid the more the far-right and fascist
events and actions occur in the barracks more and more often is not possible
for me.
People might tell me I should have filled out a form for a lawful objection
and civil service. I have not done that, I am no pacifist. If I were, I
would have only been permitted to object to the military service with weapon.
But if I were a pacifist, I could also neither do service in the army nor
civil service. The civil service is no alternative for a pacifist because of
the closely-linked civil-military colaboration and because by doing civil
service one is also fulfilling the task of military service according to
paragraph 3 of the Law for the Duty of Military Service.
I am no pacifist. I could imagine fighting for a country whose aims are my
aims and whose army is not an army of aggression for fulfilling the
strategic and economical interests of the Capital at power. I can imagine
having done my service in the GDR's National People's Army (NVA). And this
not because I like being a soldier, but because that Army was not only
defending a country but also values that could not survive any longer after
the annexation of the GDR: the support for peace and friendship between the
peoples.
Ringo Ehlert
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Free German Youth