A couple of years after Germany got an army ('cause the US and UK thought Europe would be easier to defend against the bad bad Communists with Germany having own armed forces; that's somewhat ridiculous since according to most scenarios back then, Germany was more likely to become a nuclear battlefield than a conventional one; France opposed a german army - after all, France had been invaded thrice in 70 years by Germany), the Draft (every male German has to serve) was amended to the "Grundgesetz" (basically like a constitution but it's not supposed to be one).
40 years ago, it was very hard to be recognized as conscious objector, the few people who tried to avoid armed service had to appear in person in front of a tribunal; nowadays the german social system is based on about 200,000 men (out of a total population of 82 million and about 800,000 people graduating from schools each year) refusing to join the army and some thousand women applying to do voluntary service.
-- end of legal overview --
I got recognized as conscious objector in late 2004 (reasons, among others I did not tell them because they would be kept in my file until I'm 60 and thereby considered too old to serve in case Germany is being attacked: I don't want to kill, I don't want to support people killing other people, I don't think Germany needs an army at all, if I'm not recognized as conscious objector, I will be forced to get trained in violence anyway so it's okay to destroy german military material before we join yet another illegal war --Germany has been involved in Kosovo, Afghanistan (special forces used there, the german government knows only that they're there, noone except the military knows what they do there), Iraq) and I received a letter that I'll have to begin my service on April 3rd 2006 at Christmas 2005, that really spoiled it for me since one of the things I did not tell the agency was that I oppose the Draft as a whole.
My working week is somewhat bad since I've got to work on Monday and Wednesday-Saturday, therefore I don't get two days off in a row (I'd prefer the weekend
) like most people do which makes it hard for me to drive home on my free days since I'd be sitting in the train 5 hours on these days and spend another hour on the way home from the station/vice versa, that's 6 hours off I can't enjoy since the trains are usually crowded and ... well, I can imagine nicer things than sitting in a car.The first week, I got a room in a youth hostel since the place where I'm serving was not able to get me a place to stay anywhere else (don't worry, I was not the one who had to pay for that), I received keys for my room and the front door. I had to take special holidays from Thursday to Sunday that week since I've been sent to the state's Rescue Swimming Championships as kind of referee (I've only got the basic training, level Ia out of IV so I didn't get to decide anything but was doing stuff like watching the swimmers and carry water for those who did that while I was off duty);
on Sunday (April 9th) I took the trains to get back to my Community Service place without stopping at home and walked about 2km from the station to the youth hostel (some guy picked me up for the third km, thanks dude
) with something like 50-60kg (about 100-120lbs) in bags on my shoulders to find my room occupied by a bunch of children.When I called him, the hostel's director told me that there was no free room anymore and that he told my service place that I could only stick around there for the first week of service. First I tried to get some sleep in the reception but the Director came over, took the keys and kicked me out, leaving me on the street in the middle of the night (I arrived at the station at about 10 pm).
After that, against all my instincts and bad experiences with the police, I called the cops to pick me up since I only knew three basic places and how to get from one to the other then: the station (it's officially illegal to "sit or lay on the floor" there), the youth hostel (I got kicked out of that) and my service place (I didn't have keys for these rooms then, I received them on Monday, April 10th). They refused to do so and since I only found where they're based yesterday, I was unable to show up with my baggage there - what should they have done? put me into a cell? that would have been a heated room with a place to sleep, exactly what I was looking for...
...at this time, it was already 11:30 pm and the last train I could have gotten into to get home had left, so I decided it was time for drastic action, the one point where the bunch of tools you carry just about everywhere comes in handy: I went to my Service Place, got a screwdriver out of my pocket and forced a window open at something like half past midnight (funny: I learned how to do that when some cops where standing in the middle of my home city with a mobile window to show people how easy it is to open normal windows using only a screwdriver...), stupid me chose a window which led into the main hall which is not heated and definitely not warm in the middle of the night ... well, at least there's no wind in there and no people who could stumble upon you while you're asleep). After some searching, I finally found a couch beneath a pile of junk (filthy but softer than the floor...) and finally I had a place to sleep.
Due to unlucky circumstances during the Rescue Swimming Championship (parts of Germany flooded, half the staff had to leave on Saturday morning to fill sandbags and do stuff like that), I've slept 3 hours in the night from Thursday to Friday (we slept with 15 people in one room ... some of those snored very, very loud...), another 3 hours from Friday to Saturday (for some reason I didn't get into my sleeping bag earlier and well, when the news arrived that half of the staff was going to leave in the morning, we felt the urge to discuss how to go on; even though there was a strict hierarchy in that place without any of the helpers having more contact to the administration more than twice in four days), no sleep from Saturday to Sunday (big party for all the 2,000 people participating in the Championship, I did not want to miss that and it would have been foolish to go for sleep at half past 4am since I would have had to get up at half past 5am anyway), one hour of sleep next to the swimming pool (when I nearly fell asleep while stopping a swimmer's time, I was entitled to an extra break
that hour of sleep really helped me I did not dare to go back to taking time for another two hours but some excercising AKA carrying water an snacks woke me up and hey, I expected to be able to sleep the through the entire night from Sunday to Monday...). Sorry, I kinda lost track of my sentences in this paragraph Even though I had only 7 hours of sleep during the last four days, I awoke at around half past 5 on Monday, making it a total of 12 hours of sleep for five days (Thursday morning - Monday evening), I usually get that within one and a half night.
At some minutes past 9am, when work begins at my Service Place, I heard my boss come in through the front door but for some reason, he decided that he had to get into his office first instead of unlocking all the inner doors like the first to come in is supposed to; I hammered my fists against the door but he didn't hear that.
Within the next five minutes, the other people come in as well but they decided not to hear me as well.
At half past nine, my mobile phone rang - it was my boss wondering where I am since I am supposed to appear at 9 as well. I simply told him to begin unlocking the inner doors and I would tell him where I am then, and closed the connection.
A minute or something later, I heard him rant in the main hall about my behavior and using lots of bad words but after he opened the door to the hall I was in, I could tell by the look of his face that he really did not expect me to be in there. When I told him my story, he just grabbed his jacket, promised to find me a room at once and jumped into his car ... now the city's paying me a huge 2 rooms/kitchen/bath/garden-flat ranged in the 30 bucks per day-class since it's the only thing they could get their hands on within half a day but I'll have to move again once the city finds a cheaper flat for me. On Monday evening I was left with a huge flat but an empty fridge (I went out and got something from a restaurant ... that really hurt, people serving to comply with the Draft receive only 7,41 Euros per day, I left nearly a day's wage at that restaurant), on Tuesday (April 11th, the day I wrote this) I went shopping to fill the fridge and spent two day's wages on 6 eggs, some ham, some cheese, pepper (I will not go without any spices, no way) a bottle of water and 100g chocolate.
I'll probably make some calls to the Federal Agency for Community Service to inquire whether I can do anything to make the City where my service place is in bleed for this action (after all, I am legally required to live in the flat provided to me by the Service Place and am supposed to have meals at my Service Place; my Service Place is run by the City so the City's responsible for getting me a place to sleep and food. From Sunday evening until Wednesday morning, I lived on my own budget which is rather short anyway) just like they're going to let me bleed if I don't meet the legal requirements. I've been at the city administration on Monday to hand in some paper stuff (like ... bank account details so I get my money; social security number etc) and that person working next door, responsible for checking whether everyone employed by the city works enough came running in a minute later to yell at me that I haven't been at work Thursday, Friday and Saturday (I had to take holiday for the Championship, remember?), aparrently the news that I've been on vacation these days took way longer than one week to get from my service place up the chain of command...
anyways, I hope I get to a place with an internet connection somewhen soon so I can post this, there's a WiFi network in range when I'm in this 30 bucks-flat but it is secured and I don't know who's running that one... I'll be home for the Easter Feastso I'll be able to post this then at latest ... and I fear I'm running short on hosting credits now, I've been at something like 10 on Wednesday evening and it's Wednesday morning a week later in a couple of hours...
