Can Germany Have an Army? Basic Law, Treaties, and NATO

Yes, Germany can have an army, and it has one of the largest in Europe. The Bundeswehr was established in 1955 under a constitutional amendment to the Basic Law, and today it fields roughly 184,000 active soldiers — second in the European Union only to France. What makes Germany distinctive is not whether it has a military but the unusually tight legal cage built around it: a defensive-only mandate, parliamentary approval for every foreign deployment, and near-total prohibitions on using troops at home.

How Germany Regained the Legal Right to an Army

After 1945, Germany had no armed forces at all. The Potsdam Agreement required the Allied powers to eliminate all German military and paramilitary forces, dismantle war-related industry, and ban the manufacture of military hardware.¹ When the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) took effect on May 23, 1949, it contained no provision for a federal military.²

The Cold War changed the calculation. On May 6, 1955, West Germany joined NATO as its 15th member.³ That same year, a constitutional amendment inserted Article 87a into the Basic Law, giving the Federation the authority to establish armed forces. The Bundeswehr was created within a framework designed to keep it under democratic control.

What the Basic Law Allows

Article 87a is the core provision. It directs the Federation to establish armed forces “for purposes of defence,” and requires that their strength and structure appear in the federal budget — so the Bundestag holds direct oversight through the money.² Paragraph 2 sets the crucial limit: outside of defense, the armed forces may only be used “to the extent expressly permitted by this Basic Law.”⁴ Any non-defense use needs its own specific constitutional hook. There is no general authority to send in the military.

Article 26 adds a second layer. Acts intended to disturb peaceful relations between nations, and especially preparations for a war of aggression, are unconstitutional and must be criminalized. Weapons designed for warfare may only be manufactured, transported, or marketed with federal government permission. Read together, Articles 87a and 26 lock a defensive orientation into Germany’s constitution.

Treaty Limits on Size and Weapons

International treaties impose the outer boundary. The 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, known as the Two Plus Four Treaty, was signed between the two German states and the four wartime Allied powers. Article 3 contains two commitments that still bind Germany. First, Germany renounces nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, with no expiration date. Second, Germany pledged to cap its armed forces at 370,000 personnel across ground, air, and naval forces.⁵

The cap is not currently a practical constraint. Germany has roughly 184,000 active soldiers and a stated target of 260,000 by 2035, both well under the ceiling. Germany is also a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which the Two Plus Four Treaty explicitly preserved. Germany has not signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Parliament, Not the Chancellor, Approves Deployments

Germany is sometimes called a Parlamentsheer — a parliamentary army — because the Bundestag exercises unusually direct control over military deployments. A landmark 1994 ruling from the Federal Constitutional Court settled a long-running dispute about whether German soldiers could deploy outside NATO territory for UN-authorized operations. The court said yes, but only if the federal government first obtains the Bundestag’s approval for any armed operation abroad.⁶

The Parliamentary Participation Act of 2005 codified that requirement. Foreign deployments of German armed forces — including those under NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause — require a constitutive vote of the Bundestag. The one exception is a formally declared “state of defense” under Article 115a, which itself authorizes deployment at home and abroad without a separate vote.⁷

Command authority follows a two-track structure. In peacetime, the Minister of Defence is commander-in-chief and highest-ranking superior of all soldiers.⁸ If the Bundestag declares a state of defense, command transfers to the Federal Chancellor.⁴ The head of government does not command the military under normal conditions.

Almost No Domestic Deployment

The rules on using the Bundeswehr inside Germany are among the strictest anywhere. Article 87a(2) means the military cannot be deployed domestically unless the Basic Law specifically permits it. The permitted grounds are narrow:

Natural disasters and serious accidents. Under Article 35, a state (Land) may request Bundeswehr help for a natural disaster or grave accident. When a disaster spans multiple states, the federal government can deploy units to support police, but must withdraw them whenever the Bundesrat demands it or the danger passes.⁴
Armed insurgency threatening the constitutional order. Under Article 87a(4), the military may support police in combating organized armed insurgents when civilian law enforcement is insufficient. The Bundestag or Bundesrat can end the deployment at any time.⁴
State of defense or tension. During a declared state of defense, armed forces may protect civilian property and manage traffic as needed for the defense mission, and may support police measures to protect civilian property.⁴

Outside these situations, domestic use of the Bundeswehr is unconstitutional. Germany has no equivalent of a presidential emergency power to deploy troops for law enforcement or crowd control.

Size and Structure of the Bundeswehr Today

As of December 2025, the Bundeswehr had approximately 184,194 active military personnel and 81,958 civilians. The 2026 target range is 186,000 to 190,000 active soldiers under the new Military Service Modernisation Act. France, at around 270,000 active troops, is the only EU member with a larger military.

The force is built around four branches:

Army (Heer), for ground operations and territorial defense.
Navy (Marine), for maritime security and sea-based defense.
Air Force (Luftwaffe), for air defense, transport, and airborne operations.
Cyber and Information Domain Service, established in 2017 and elevated to full branch status in May 2024, which defends Bundeswehr networks, conducts reconnaissance in foreign systems, collects signals intelligence, and provides geospatial data.⁹

Two joint organizations support all four branches: the Bundeswehr Joint Support Command, which handles logistics and military policing, and the Joint Medical Service, which provides healthcare to service members.¹⁰

Is There Still a Draft?

Compulsory military service was suspended on July 1, 2011, but not abolished. Article 12a of the Basic Law, which allows men who have reached 18 to be required to serve in the armed forces, remains in place. The suspension applies only in peacetime; in a state of defense or tension, conscription can be reactivated without amending the constitution.¹¹

The Military Service Modernisation Act, passed by the Bundestag and effective January 1, 2026, creates a new recruitment pipeline aimed at growing the force to over 260,000 active soldiers plus 200,000 reservists by 2035. Starting in 2026, all 18-year-old men must complete a questionnaire assessing their motivation and suitability for military service; for women, the questionnaire is voluntary. From July 1, 2027, all men born in 2008 or later will undergo a mandatory medical evaluation.¹¹

The system is designed to stay voluntary for as long as possible, drawing from a pool of screened candidates rather than drafting people. But the law includes a backstop: if the security situation deteriorates or volunteer targets are not met, the Bundestag can make military service compulsory on demand at the federal government’s request.¹¹

NATO Membership and Nuclear Sharing

NATO membership has anchored German defense policy since 1955. Germany contributes to collective defense, participates in multinational exercises, and helped launch the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) framework alongside France. Since 1991, the Bundeswehr has taken part in 14 UN-led peacekeeping operations, with active contributions to missions including UNIFIL in Lebanon, UNMISS in South Sudan, and MINURSO in Western Sahara.¹²¹³

Germany is also one of five NATO countries that hosts American nuclear weapons on its territory under NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement. The warheads stored in Germany are B61-12 gravity bombs, currently deliverable by aging PA-200 Tornado aircraft, and the 35 F-35A jets Germany has ordered are intended to take over that delivery mission. The arrangement sits in tension with the Two Plus Four Treaty’s renunciation of nuclear weapons: Germany does not own or control the warheads, but its pilots are trained to deliver them in wartime under NATO command. That legal ambiguity has drawn political debate in Germany for decades without changing the operational arrangement.

1
U.S. Department of State. The Potsdam Conference, 1945
2
Codices COE. Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
3
NATO. Germany’s Accession to NATO: 50 Years On
4
Gesetze im Internet. Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
5
PA-X. Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
6
Bundesverfassungsgericht. Statement by the Press Office of the Federal Constitutional Court No. 29/1994
7
Deutscher Bundestag. Parliamentary Authorization of the Deployment of Armed Forces Abroad
8
BMVg.de. Minister of Defence
9
Bundeswehr. Cyber and Information Domain Service
10
Bundeswehr. Organization
11
Federal Government. New Attractive Military Service Plan Passed
12
United Nations Peacekeeping. Contribution of Uniformed Personnel to UN by Country, Mission, and Personnel Type
13
deutschland.de. The German Navy in the UNIFIL Peacekeeping Mission