Over half of Germans would not fight for their country

In a survey carried out for RND, a German broadcaster, 59 per cent of respondents said they were “probably” or “definitely” unwilling to defend the country from an attack.

Only 16 per cent of Germans were “definitely” willing to take up arms to defend Germany, while 22 per cent said they would “probably” do it.

Bundeswehr officials say that the overall size of the army needs to grow from 182,000 soldiers to at least 260,000 by 2035. The Bundeswehr reserve forces also need to be increased from 60,000 to 200,000 people.

The German military has struggled for decades with recruitment, partly due to Germans’ wartime guilt and a widely held view that their country no longer needed an army. Conscription in Germany, which was deeply unpopular, ended in 2011.

But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted a major rethink on security in Berlin, known as the “Zeitenwende”, or turning of the times.

Germany is not the only country having difficulties drumming up recruits: in Italy, a similar survey also found that only 16 per cent of citizens were willing to defend their nation – despite defence spending increasing by 46 per cent over the past decade.

In Britain, the army and navy have missed nearly every annual recruitment target since 2010, according to government statistics. The shortfall has been blamed on stagnant pay, poor military housing, a wider downward trend in young people being interested in fighting for their country.