Comments on: German Soldiers Fat – Even Compared to Civilians

By: JB

JB — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:06:13 +0000

in my opinon this is due to a lack of purpose in the german army. physical exercise is rarely enforced at company level for most of the conscripts the army is more of a burden than a duty, especially considering the low wages (roughly 300€/month for 9-month conscripts)
furthermore, i resent your comment to 'get over it' with regard to ww2 as being somewhat ill conceived. a nationalist germany would probably endanger the stability in central europe. passions are still running high in poland and the czech republic concerning former german displaced persons. nationalist tendencies not really an issue in german politics, save for the extreme right wing.

By: KB

KB — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:33:14 +0000

Given that around 20% of the german army is made up of conscripts, how many of these overweight soldiers are in the first few months of their service?

And how many are still overweight when their term is over,or after a few months in the army?

I suspect this isn't a case of the german army being full of lazy fat people but simply a reflection that most modern western countries have a lot of lazy fat people.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:43:30 +0000

James,
You are right about keeping in overweight soldiers who normally would be chaptered out if it weren't for the fact that a body is better than nobody due to the personnel shortage - the wastelines I see on a daily basis at my installation seem to get bigger and bigger - it seems like more and more new soldiers begin their career overweight - you also are now seeing folks put on a lot of weight on deployments

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:12:13 +0000

A 5% difference between civilians and military sounds like margin of error to me.

That's probably true. But, certainly, relatively few active duty soldiers in the American military would be considered overweight. And it would have been a much smaller number than that if we weren't so desperate to keep people now that we're at war.

By: DC Loser

DC Loser — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:02:00 +0000

I believe the German-Polish border has indeed been resolved at the current position on the Oder-Neisse line. Germany no longer has any claims to its former territory on Polish soil.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:10:04 +0000

A 5% difference between civilians and military sounds like margin of error to me. I'd also be interested in how they define overweight.

The number of Americans in that age group who are obese or overweight is about 2/3's compared to the 2/5's for the German military. I wonder if we and the Germans are defining it in the same way.

By: jc

jc — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:46:11 +0000

It was only 19 years ago that the (west) German Defence Minister said "After Reunification the first question is the Polish border".
So how fit should they be?