Bundeswehr advertising “increasingly unscrupulous”: How the army is luring new recruits with TikTok and pizza boxes
With a budget of millions, TikTok influencers, and school visits, the army is struggling to recruit new recruits—in light of the recruitment crisis, even conscription is back on the table. Critics are sounding the alarm.
Germany is in the midst of the largest rearmament effort since the end of World War II. According to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the Bundeswehr is to become the "strongest army in Europe," and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius wants to make the country "war-ready" for war with Russia by 2029. But personnel are the problem.
As the German editorial network reported on Friday, the number of conscientious objectors has continued to rise. The Federal Office for Family and Civil Society Affairs received almost 1,400 applications in the first half of the year. Last year as a whole, there were just over 2,200 conscientious objectors; in 2022, the number was around 950.
According to Pistorius, the Bundeswehr needs around 460,000 soldiers and reservists in an emergency to ensure its defense capability. Currently, however, only about 182,000 active soldiers and 49,000 reservists are available. Pistorius is now aiming for at least 60,000 additional active soldiers and a total of 200,000 reservists.
To counteract the personnel crisis in the Bundeswehr , the government is increasingly promoting military service in public spaces and on social media. In 2024, the federal budget allocated €58 million for recruiting new members for the Bundeswehr—more than ever before. By comparison, from 2019 to 2023, annual expenditures remained constant at around €35 million. This represents a 65 percent increase in this amount within a single year. The budget for 2025 has not yet been announced.
Like other large organizations and companies, the Ministry of Defense is also affected by the shortage of skilled workers and demographic trends, the Ministry explained in response to an inquiry from the Berliner Zeitung. The goal is to present the Bundeswehr as an "attractive employer" and thus attract the interest of young people.
The aim is to meet personnel needs and thus "ensure the Bundeswehr's personnel readiness." To do so, the organization relies on a cross-media approach: "With contemporary and innovative formats, we are present wherever young people are: in public spaces at train stations, bus stops, on public transport, pedestrian zones, or shopping centers—but also on social media or the internet, for example, at bundeswehrkarriere.de."
The largest portion of the budget for recruiting young people goes to formats in public spaces. In 2023, around 41 percent of all advertising funds were spent on posters at bus stops, pizza boxes with the Bundeswehr logo, or camouflaged trams. Digital recruitment is also taking place in parallel. On Instagram, TikTok , and YouTube, the Bundeswehr advertises with clips in which soldiers talk about their everyday lives. 18 percent of the advertising budget went to these digital channels in 2023.
In addition, soldiers are increasingly present in classrooms. Many schools use the information offered by the Bundeswehr's youth officers to impart learning content on the security and defense policy of the Federal Republic of Germany and NATO . The youth officers are supposed to "educate about security policy," as they say.
German Peace Society criticizes advertising campaignThe German Peace Society – United War Resisters (DFG-VK), Germany's oldest peace organization, has sharply criticized the Bundeswehr's recruitment drive. "Since the suspension of conscription in 2011, the Bundeswehr has been recruiting more and more intensively – and more unscrupulously – than ever before," Michael Schulze von Glaßer, political director of the DFG-VK, told the Berliner Zeitung. Since 2015, one advertising campaign has followed another. "Despite an advertising budget totaling tens of millions of euros, the Bundeswehr has not been able to increase the number of soldiers since then – it currently stands at around 180,000," Schulze von Glaßer says.
He warns that advertising will now be intensified even further, and that coercion in the form of a new military service will increasingly be used to ensure enough soldiers for the military buildup desired by the federal government. The army is advertising primarily where young people are: in schools and on social media. Furthermore, the Bundeswehr's sports sponsorship is increasing dramatically. "Ice hockey clubs, soccer and football clubs, as well as car races are sponsored by the army," criticizes Schulze von Glaßer.
One example of the Bundeswehr's new recruitment strategy is Captain David Matei, who has more than 372,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. At the beginning of the year, he gained considerable attention with his appearance on the ARD talk show "Hart aber Fair." There, he stated that Germany was "worth fighting for." He received praise from the Springer press for this "very clear statement" (Bild).
Matei served in the mountain infantry for ten years and has been working as a youth officer in the Stuttgart area since 2021. He describes his goal as follows: He wants to be "where the young people are" – that is, in classrooms and social networks. He doesn't want to "leave the digital space to extreme, ideological, or anti-democratic groups," he explained to the Süddeutsche Zeitung at the end of 2024. The goal is to talk humorously and funally about security policy issues and to provide insights into the Bundeswehr.
In his videos, for example, he talks to a general who is currently repairing an armored vehicle, or he lets "experts" from defense companies like Airbus explain how powerful their fighter jets are. Matei also visited the Munich Security Conference for his followers.
The Bundeswehr influencer also frequently speaks with Ukrainian soldiers. In a video from March 22, he meets a 25-year-old Ukrainian at a British military training center who had been working in IT a few months ago. The Ukrainian explains that he is only completing 50 days of training in Great Britain before being sent to the front and that he doesn't really want to be here. In the video, Matei laughs several times. He comes across as relaxed and entertaining. This creates the impression that war is an adventure or a cool backdrop rather than a gruesome reality full of suffering and human tragedy. The fact that the young Ukrainian may soon have to face death is not addressed in the video.
Such an online presence of soldiers is expressly encouraged. The Bundeswehr's corresponding guidelines state: "Contribute to further improving the Bundeswehr's image as an employer and promoting its integration into society."
Officially, however, Matei operates his account privately. In response to a request from the Berliner Zeitung, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that no direct payments are made to him. However, the agency acknowledges that his content is being reviewed for official purposes.
The ministry also explained to the Berliner Zeitung that rules apply to all Bundeswehr members, including Captain Matei, when private social media presences have official relevance. These rules are listed in the Soldiers Act and are further specified in the Bundeswehr's social media guidelines. The Bundeswehr Information Center is in close contact with all youth officers on this matter. The goal of this consultation is to clearly separate the professional function of a youth officer from the private activity as a content creator. However, it is "not excluded (...) that official impressions and encounters may also influence private content creation."
Federal government brings conscription into playDespite all the campaigns, the number of applicants remains low. Defense Minister Pistorius therefore wants to reform military service and presented a corresponding draft law this week, as reported by Der Spiegel. According to this bill, mandatory conscription should be possible for the first time even without a declared state of tension or conflict if not enough volunteers can be found. According to the draft, the Federal Cabinet, with the approval of the Bundestag, should be able to decide on this if the security situation requires it.
In addition, conscripts will be enlisted as temporary soldiers in the future – with significantly better pay. According to Spiegel, net earnings could rise to more than €2,000, which would represent an increase of around 80 percent over current earnings. Will that be enough to put tens of thousands of additional young people into uniforms, armed with a killing machine, as planned? Probably not.
Berliner-zeitung
