No Need to Look?

Germany's Military Service Modernisation Act reactivated an approval requirement for twenty million men in peacetime — without explaining what that meant for them. Three months until anyone noticed. This was not a drafting error. It was a process.

Twenty million men in Germany need official approval before leaving the country for more than three months. It has been in force since 1 January 2026. The rule is not new. § 3 para. 2 sentence 1 of the Military Service Act (WPflG) was valid law from 1965 to 2011. The Military Service Modernisation Act (WDModG, BGBl. I 2025 No. 370) reinstated it on 1 January 2026 — this time applying outside any state of tension or defence emergency.

The public found out in early April 2026. Three months after it took effect.

The government's explanatory memorandum to the WDModG runs to 93 pages (BT-Drs. 21/1853). It identifies as the legislation's first objective the "achievement of an improved situational picture of the size of the conscript pool." It explicitly lists § 3 in the catalogue of peacetime provisions under the new § 2 para. 3 WPflG. What it does not contain: a single sentence explaining what § 3 para. 2 actually requires of the people it covers. No indication that twenty million men must now obtain official approval before leaving the country. No mention of the three-month threshold. And silence on the offence framework behind it.

What the documents show

The expert hearing before the Defence Committee on 10 November 2025 (minutes of the 12th session, p. 22) shows no discussion of the travel approval requirement. The only question touching on overseas matters concerned the deployment of volunteers abroad — not the freedom of movement of men subject to registration.

The Act passed on 5 December 2025: 323 in favour, 272 against, 1 abstention. CDU/CSU and SPD voted for it; AfD, Greens, and Die Linke against.

Three months after it came into force, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported on the consequences of § 3 para. 2. On 7 April 2026, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced publicly that nothing would change "at present" for the men affected — and said the government would issue an internal administrative directive (Verwaltungsvorschrift) to clarify matters. The same day, Matthias Kneissl, a research associate at Bucerius Law School, published an analysis on Legal Tribune Online: an internal administrative directive has no direct legal effect on citizens. It binds the administration internally. Anyone seeking to rely on it in a dispute would have found little protection. Only a general administrative order (Allgemeinverfügung) or a statutory amendment could provide genuine legal certainty.

The Federal Ministry of Defence switched instruments. On 9 April it issued an Allgemeinverfügung under § 3 para. 2 sentence 5 WPflG, published in the Federal Gazette on 16 April (BAnz AT 16.04.2026 B3), in force from 17 April. Its operative text: "Male persons subject to the approval requirement under § 3 para. 2 sentence 1 WPflG are generally exempted from this requirement."

That switch, made under media pressure, needed no commentary. Regulations introduced transparently, with the full understanding of everyone involved, do not require correction within a week.

What the law says — and what it doesn't

Fabian Endemann made an important qualification on Verfassungsblog (20 April 2026, in German) that I share: the public outrage over an alleged "exit ban" was overblown. § 3 para. 2 sentence 3 WPflG provides that approval must be granted for any period in which no conscription is imminent. As long as military service remains voluntary, there is a legal right to approval. Calling this an exit ban is an exaggeration. The Federal Administrative Court distinguishes in settled case law (6 C 1.04) between the formal approval requirement — the obligation to apply at all — and the substantive entitlement to approval: the right to receive it. These are not the same thing. Leaving without applying is formally unlawful, even if approval would have had to be granted. The administrative fine for that breach was removed in 2005. What consequences remain — a possible passport refusal under § 7 para. 1 no. 7 of the Passport Act — is an open legal question this article cannot resolve. Naming it is enough.

His second objection I find less persuasive. The Federal Ministry of Defence deliberately included § 3 in the peacetime catalogue, he argues; the explanatory memorandum references the situational-picture objective that supports it. The provision is not a drafting error, but a careless modernisation: an existing rule reactivated without adapting its text to the new voluntary-service framework. That is Endemann's position.

Precise — and for exactly that reason, insufficient.

The 323 members who voted yes on 5 December 2025 are not a homogeneous group of legal specialists. They are elected citizens — their mandate derives from Article 38 of the Basic Law, not from a law degree. Among them: teachers, doctors, engineers, business owners. Some with legislative experience, others without. All with equal voting weight.

That a legal scholar can derive the operative consequence for twenty million people from the interaction of § 2 para. 3 WPflG, § 3 para. 2 sentence 1 WPflG, and the legislative history back to 1965 — I do not dispute that. Endemann proves it. But that is precisely what § 43 para. 1 no. 4 of the Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries (GGO) is for. It requires the explanatory memorandum to disclose whether approval requirements are being introduced or extended. Not as general commentary — as a specific disclosure obligation for exactly this type of provision. § 3 para. 2 WPflG is exactly that — reactivated for twenty million men in peacetime. The memorandum does not mention it. Not for lawyers. For the people who vote.

The WDModG's explanatory memorandum explains the objective. It does not explain the consequence. For twenty million people, that difference matters.

If the Federal Ministry of Defence — as Endemann persuasively demonstrates — deliberately activated § 3 to improve the peacetime conscript picture: why was this consequence not explained? The GGO § 43 obligation is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the interface between legal intent and democratic legitimacy. The Ministry met the form — 93 pages — and missed the function.

On the Allgemeinverfügung itself: the correction has its own legal problem. § 3 para. 2 sentence 5 WPflG authorises the Ministry to permit exceptions to the approval requirement. Exception clauses are to be interpreted narrowly. An exception presupposes something atypical — a limited special case, not the wholesale suspension of the rule. The 9 April order removes all persons subject to the rule, indefinitely, regardless of the security situation. That is not an exception. It is the complete suspension of a statutory obligation by executive act. Patrick Heinemann (Legal Tribune Online, 17 April 2026) and Endemann himself both identify this problem. The coalition has a parliamentary majority. It could have amended the statute. It did not.

What remains: § 3 para. 2 sentence 1 WPflG is unchanged law. The Allgemeinverfügung is revocable by executive decision — without a parliamentary vote, without a deadline, without procedure. A revised security assessment by the Federal Ministry of Defence is sufficient to reinstate the full obligation. The question of EU law — Article 21 TFEU protects freedom of movement including travel to other member states — is not resolved by the order. It is deferred.

Why this keeps happening

Endemann calls it careless modernisation. That lands on the craftsmanship failure. It does not reach the structural question.

The Bundestag's legislative process operates with a structural information asymmetry. The ministry that drafts a bill understands it — hopefully fully.

Pistorius proved it.

The parliamentary groups advising on it understand parts of it. The members who vote depend on what the explanatory memorandum tells them. GGO § 43 is the only formal mechanism designed to correct that asymmetry. It has no external legal force. Violations carry no criminal penalty, no fine, no right of challenge. The obligation exists. The teeth do not.

The result is a system that structurally rewards ministries for either not explaining the consequences of a rule, or compressing them to the point where only insiders can read them. Whether Pistorius on 7 April knew what his ministry had decided, or did not — the outcome is the same. If he knew and feigned surprise: the executive deliberately kept parliament in the dark. If he did not know: the asymmetry had reached his own house. In both cases, the system delivered exactly what it was built for.

What now

For the men affected: the Allgemeinverfügung of 17 April 2026 suspends the approval requirement until further notice. Those who want legal certainty should document the current position. The obligation remains in the statute.

What parliament could do without touching the Basic Law: give GGO § 43 external legal force, make violations challengeable in court, make the disclosure requirement for new approval obligations judicially enforceable. The question is not whether that is technically possible. The question is why a coalition that just fell into the same trap is not doing it.

A vague explanatory memorandum is not negligence — it is useful. It preserves room for interpretation, defers costs, maintains flexibility. The cost is borne by those the rule covers.

The outrage was absorbed by the Allgemeinverfügung. The mechanism is unchanged.

Anyone who looked could find it. Those who should have known had no incentive to look. Those who looked had no incentive to say so. The Basic Law calls that representative democracy.

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Published: April 20, 2026