Germany: Gen Z Against Militarism

{This article is part of a “Special Report” published by the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France (translated from French), published in Revolutionaries No. 66, Nov. 1, 2026}

Since December 2025, Germany has seen a high school student movement against the return of mandatory military service and militarization. While the protests have occurred at intervals, each time tens of thousands of young people have gone on strike and taken to the streets—even in small towns—with local organizing centered around high school strike committees.

Between early and mid-October, a handful of schools—including Franco-German high schools, but not limited to them—were blockaded in Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich. These blockades were followed by demonstrations in solidarity with the high school student movement in France, featuring demands regarding educational conditions but, above all, protests against the dramatic increase in military spending at the expense of education funding.

These initiatives also reflected the desire of certain high school strike committees not to limit themselves to preparing for the next strike— scheduled for a distant date imposed by the central strike committee, which remains rather opaque in its decision-making. The next date for mobilization against militarization—November 20—is being considered as a day for an international high school strike. This prospect is still not fully realized, but it is far less abstract than it was a few weeks ago.

But young people don’t plan to wait until late November: the collective “Gen Z Takes Charge” (Gen Z regelt) is calling for a demonstration on October 31. On the website, more than 135,000 people had announced their intention to attend by October 26, with demonstrations planned in more than twenty cities. A police union representative warned, with unabashed racism, against the danger of “young migrant rioters” joining the protests to confront the police, asserting that there would be “no mercy.” In Stuttgart, the authorities even want to ban the protest.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Austria, significant demonstrations by high school and college students took place against the ban on wearing headscarves in school and budget cuts at universities, and in early September, union protests against layoffs in Germany had shown a certain level of anger; it is quite possible that German youth will follow in the footsteps of their neighbors.

D. R., October 26, 2026