As Germany’s Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, prepare for a comprehensive war against Russia through the reintroduction of conscription, and seek to militarise society as a whole, anyone who opposes this right-wing policy is dealt with brutal severity. In mid-December, 19-year-old former Freiburg pupil Bentik was sentenced to 15 hours of community service for allegedly insulting an officer.
In February 2025, a youth officer gave a presentation at the Angell-Gymnasium high school in Freiburg as part of a so-called “democracy project day.” The slogan was: “Defending democracy—but how?” focusing on alleged “foreign threats.”
One week later, Bentik posted on his Instagram account two edited images of the officer, which were later circulated by a student newspaper. In the first meme, the youth officer stands in front of a blackboard bearing the words: “Burning young people at the Eastern Front—but how?” Underneath it reads: “So children, who among you would like to die at the Eastern Front?” The second meme shows the youth officer receiving a call from a so-called “SS-Siggi.”
Extensive investigations were launched against Bentik. The files show that the police requested data from the US corporation Meta to identify the user of the Instagram account. In addition, the Bundeswehr department responsible for military security and protection dealt with the case. This department normally handles the defence and security of the armed forces, protecting against threats, espionage and sabotage, and safeguarding military facilities and personnel.
The school management threatened the pupil with disciplinary measures, including expulsion.
The treatment of a 19-year-old student whose only “crime” was to satirically express his opinion shows how the ruling class is nervously reacting to the growing movement against conscription and the militarisation of education with police-state methods.
In autumn 2024, there had already been a Bundeswehr visit that was compulsory for pupils to attend. At that time, Bentik interrupted the presentation with an anti-militarist speech.
Afterwards, a political student newspaper was distributed covertly, because previous political discussions had been banned. Even then, Bentik was threatened with expulsion if the paper continued to circulate.
Shortly before the 2025 presentation, Bentik was taken out of class and warned not to disrupt the talk—otherwise “there would be consequences.”
Young people and young adults cannot escape military propaganda in schools. They are not allowed to express criticism without risking penalties to their grades, disciplinary action or even criminal measures, up to and including confrontation with the public prosecutor.
The court argued that the edited images placed the officer in the vicinity of the SS. It also claimed that the soldier was being accused of a “contempt for humanity.” This, it said, was no longer protected by freedom of expression. The defence countered that the officer appeared publicly in uniform and represented the Bundeswehr, and that the images constituted satire protected by freedom of expression.
Bentik rejects the court’s reasoning. “I found the ruling partly factually incorrect,” the former pupil told broadcaster SWR. The aim had not been to attack the officer personally, but to criticise the Bundeswehr as an institution. The 19-year-old pointed to the numerous neo-Nazi networks within and around the Bundeswehr.
According to media reports and information provided by the Bundeswehr, youth officers have delivered several thousand lectures at schools and universities every year for some time. In 2022, more than 4,000 lectures were held; in 2023, around 3,600 were held at schools alone. Bundeswehr stands are also increasingly present at career fairs.
This propaganda and recruitment campaign aims to expand the armed forces to 480,000 soldiers and reservists in the coming years.
The fact that the Bundeswehr is taking legal action against a pupil’s satirical criticism illustrates the severity with which it is responding to the growing resistance of young people to militarism and conscription.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of 18- to 26-year-olds reject conscription. The Bundeswehr is trying to make it more “palatable” by deploying youth officers as figures of identification. They are presented as neutral experts who want to defend security and democracy. Their appearances in schools, however, are part of a systematic recruitment strategy. Such manipulation has already led in the past to youth dying as “cannon fodder.”
One is reminded of the famous scene in the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front, in which a teacher, in a patriotic speech, urges his class to sacrifice their “personal desires on the altar of the fatherland” and volunteer for the front. He lures them with promises of heroism and denounces opponents of war as cowards. Almost the entire class lose their lives to German great-power ambitions.
Today, however, the horrors of two world wars are deeply ingrained in public consciousness, and opposition to war is widespread. Through their protest and rejection of war, young people threaten the Bundeswehr’s plans to once again sacrifice them for the predatory interests of German imperialism. To intimidate and discipline youth, the state is responding with repression.
In October 2024, a 16-year-old pupil in Leipzig was threatened with expulsion after staging a “die-in” protest in the schoolyard. During the protest, he spoke out against recruitment in schools by the Bundeswehr, and the interests behind it.
At the same time, since the genocide in Gaza, there have been increasing pro-Palestinian protests by pupils, including through the wearing of flags, chains or scarves. In many cases, school administrations have banned and suppressed these—fully in line with the government, which denounces anti-genocide activists as antisemites. Meanwhile, symbolic support for the pro-war policy, such as displaying Ukrainian or Israeli flags, is officially encouraged.
At places of education—where young people should be learning to question power relations and draw historical lessons—the Bundeswehr is invited in and critical discussion suppressed.
Instead of encouraging debate on war and political history, pupils are intimidated, and criticism is punished and banned. Once again, the reactionary spirit of German militarism is to take hold in the minds of a new generation.
While the ruling class is rearming on a scale not seen since Hitler and is systematically attempting to subordinate society to its policies of rearmament and war, schools, colleges and universities are being gutted by austerity measures. Berlin’s universities alone must cut €145 million this year. As a result, around 25,000 study places (10 percent) are being eliminated, expiring professorships are not renewed, and social services for students are being cut.
The Bundeswehr deliberately exploits the material and staffing crisis of educational institutions to gain better access to pupils. It finances projects, internships and paid bus trips for excursions—cooperation agreements that allow it to gain a foothold in political education. Pay is also intended to lure working class youth into the Bundeswehr, as years of cuts in real wages have driven them increasingly into poverty in civilian working life.
Bentik’s conviction is therefore also a message to all young people. Anyone who publicly opposes Bundeswehr visits, rearmament and possible forced recruitment must expect personal consequences. The extent to which schools, police and the Bundeswehr are prepared to access an individual’s personal data is an additional warning.
Yet this must not intimidate us. On the contrary, the actions of officers, judges and politicians only demonstrate how great is their fear of our resistance. But this resistance can only succeed if it is international and based on the working class. In their recently published statement “What next in the school strike against conscription?” the International Youth and Students for Socialist Equality writes:
The movement against conscription must not orient itself towards the capitalist parties and trade unions but must fight for the independent mobilisation of the working class. The strikes and protests by students are very important, but we must not stop there. The school strike movement must be the starting point for igniting a strike movement throughout the entire working class, directed against war and capitalism. Such a movement must be based on the following principles:
• It must be international and counter growing nationalism with the international unity of the working class.
• It must be independent of all capitalist parties and trade unions and rely on the immense power of the working class.
• It must be socialist and directed against the root cause of war: capitalism.
We call on all young people and workers who want to take action against conscription and preparations for war to discuss this perspective with us online on Thursday, 8 January, at 6:30 p.m. Register now to take part.