Germany's Bundeswehr Sends Soldier to Jail--For Refusing to 'Get Jabbed'
Even though the legality of a 'vaccination order' is doubtful, and despite these obligations having been lifted in May 2024, former soldiers are still sent to jail
Today, Camilla Hildebrandt reminds us of what happens if blind obedience is demanded of those in authority. Below, she recounts the incidence of one Jan Reiner, a professional, on-duty German soldier who refused to obey the order to ‘get vaccinated’
The piece was written by radio journalist Camilla Hildebrandt. She has reported for public service media for more than 20 years and has worked for Deutsche Welle-affiliated media in Brazil, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Mexico.
By way of full disclosure, I once had a longer chat with Ms. Hildebrandt in the alt-talk radio Kontrafunk and spoke about the menace of digitalisation in Scandinavian schools (in German; it’s the third contribution). I also write about this, e.g., here:
With that being said, the below text comes to you in my translation, with emphases [and snarky] commentary added.
Jailtime for Soldiers: ‘Anyone Who Wasn’t Jabbed by 1 p.m. Was Considered to Refuse Following Orders
By Camilla Hildebrandt, Berliner Zeitung, 23 July 2024 [source]
Jan Reiners served in the German army for twelve years. Because he refused to be vaccinated against coronavirus, he was sent to prison. He says: ‘Everything was taken from me.’
At the end of May 2024, the coronavirus vaccination requirement for the Bundeswehr was lifted. Ex-soldier Jan Reiners was nevertheless sent to prison on 12 July 2024 because he did not want to be vaccinated against coronavirus. He faced 40 days in prison in Lingen Prison in Lower Saxony for refusing to obey orders. The day before, he was ready for an interview and a look back.
Jan Reiners spent twelve years in the Bundeswehr. Today, the former corporal lives on Bürgergeld [a kind of basic guaranteed income]:
Everything was taken away from me. My Bundeswehr driving licence, my military ID card, I wasn’t allowed to go to the barracks just like that, I was treated like a felon.
In November 2021, the then defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer introduced the coronavirus vaccination requirement/toleration obligation [the latter term refers to the German word Duldungspflicht, i.e., the obligation of a soldier to carry out orders that potentially harm him]. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the ‘refusal to vaccinate in the troops is now jeopardising service operations’ and that the ‘Bundeswehr is therefore the first institution in Germany to introduce a general vaccination obligation’. [historically, a lot of BS flows from the military to the civilian world]
Reiners remembers this moment quite well:
We were loudly told this at the assembly point. They said: the coronavirus vaccination is now compulsory. To all soldiers who have not yet been vaccinated against coronavirus: Anyone who has not been vaccinated by 1 p.m. will be charged with insubordination, for which the penalty is three years in prison. Dismissed!
What followed was psychological terror for everyone. Of course, he sought dialogue with his superiors. But they simply said: orders are orders and they come from the very top [talk about responsibility]. He was threatened with fines and disciplinary measures and dishonourable discharge. Reiners’ superiors painted a picture of what that would mean: ‘That means you’ll be sitting at the job centre and won’t be able to pay for it, your life will be ruined,’ Reiners recalls [talk about torture].
He argued that the Covid vaccine was still an experiment, the trial studies had not been completed, and the possible side effects were unpredictable. Moreover, it was against human dignity to force a citizen and soldier to take part in a medical experiment:
I’m not interested in that, said my superior. If I didn’t get vaccinated by 1 p.m., there would be severe consequences and I could say goodbye to my uniform. [meaning his life would be turned upside down]
‘Covid vaccination order is illegal’
Reiner’s lawyer Edgar Siemund, an expert in military law and retired lieutenant in the reserves, says that ‘the order to get the Covid vaccination is illegal’. Three areas of responsibility overlap here. Specifically, it is about the relationship of responsibility between superiors and soldiers, between doctors and soldiers/patients, and between doctors and employers.
Let us first look at the responsibility between superiors and soldiers. Section 17a (2) of the Soldiers Act states: ‘The soldier must only tolerate medical measures against his will if they 1. serve to prevent or combat communicable diseases or 2. serve to determine his fitness for service or deployment.’ [A side-note on this one: in my grandfather’s diary/journal, he mentions a bunch of vaccines being administered upon being conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1941: this section of military law isn’t anything special or the like].
At no point did the vaccination protect against transmission of the virus. But not only that. In any case, it is not the aforementioned law that is decisive here, but the Bundeswehr’s key service regulation A-840/8, explains Siemund. It is precisely this regulation that governs the authorisation of superiors for vaccinations and prophylactic measures. ‘This service regulation says nothing about giving an order to vaccinate.’ It merely states that a presentation of the soldier to the vaccinating doctor should be ‘arranged’ and refers to ‘vaccination measures arranged on official business’ [i.e., these doctor’s visits would be part of the regular working hours]. ‘Not a word about an order, especially not a “vaccination order”’, adds Siemund.
Regarding the responsibility between doctor and patient/soldier, attorney Siemund explains:
If a soldier presents at the medical centre and declares that he is only appearing because he is obliged to tolerate the vaccination, the doctor knows that he is acting against his will. This means that the doctor cannot vaccinate him because he is not allowed to treat the soldier, who is a patient here, against his will.
Even if he is a military doctor, he is subject to a professional responsibility: no patient may be treated against his will.
The Nuremberg Code
The Nuremberg Code states: ‘The voluntary and informed consent of the patient after the best possible explanation is a fundamental basis for all treatments in the healthcare system, all therapeutic trials, and all medical experiments on humans.’ [my translation of the German-language version]
Regarding the responsibility between the employer and the doctor, Siemund explains that even as a soldier, a doctor cannot be ordered to treat a patient against their will.
To summarise, lawyer Siemund is of the opinion: ‘In my legal opinion, all of these orders requesting soldiers to be vaccinated constitute an abuse of authority in each individual case.’
Nevertheless, Jan Reiners was found guilty of insubordination. He could also have paid a fine, 40 daily rates of 60 euros each, totalling 2,400 euros. The daily sentences were later reduced to 15 euros because he earns his living from citizens’ income. But he still didn’t want to pay:
That would have been an admission. I’m not admitting anything, because I didn’t do anything wrong. If you look at the Bundeswehr regulations: medical orders must not be given. Every superior knows that. And yet this unlawful order was given: Get vaccinated against corona.
Reiner’s lawyer Edgar Siemund has received a letter from the Ministry of Defence in which instructions were given for each individual level of the Bundeswehr. One document is about medical personnel. The ‘Guidance for disciplinary superiors on dealing with soldiers who refuse to undergo the mandatory Covid-19 vaccination’ states:
In the case of servicemen and women who have not been reprimanded up to that point, it may even be necessary to conduct 2 or 3 judicial D(isziplinar) proceedings in succession, if the first did not result in removal from service and the refusal continues, then proceedings will be conducted until the serviceman/servicewoman is kicked out of the Bundeswehr or is deprived of the pension he/she has earned over decades. [I have no idea how that can be legal]
‘Psychological torture’
Siemund considers this to be coercion and ‘clearly contradicts the Nuremberg Code’ [and the constitution]. Jan Reiners calls it ‘psychological torture’. He has informed himself in detail about the possible side effects of the new Covid vaccines and read the package leaflet carefully. Due to his previous illnesses, he definitely ruled out the vaccines for himself. ‘But the doctor said to me: it doesn't matter, we can't take the fate of individuals into consideration.’
Of course, he spoke to his fellow-soldiers about it. ‘I told them that I had friends and family members with vaccine damage. Of course, they then went to their superiors and asked questions that were uncomfortable.’ As a result, the military service court banned Reiners from wearing uniform and carrying out his duties:
It was already a crime to talk to me in my barracks. That’s psychological torture. None of my comrades wanted anything more to do with me.
Soldiers were ordered to check WhatsApp or Telegram groups that he was a member of. ‘No matter what Reiners writes or posts, take a screenshot’, he is said to have been told [if true, this, too, cannot be legal]. He was called for a simple check-up at the doctor’s office, and ‘a soldier was waiting for me at the barracks gate like a guard dog. He had to accompany me from the barracks gate to the doctor’s office’. Reiners is certain that he was bugged during this time. He was also questioned by the Military Counterintelligence Service [!!!] as to why he refused the Covid vaccination.
Even pregnant soldiers were coerced into being vaccinated:
Suddenly their mobile phone rings at 3 p.m. and they say: Be careful, tomorrow at 8 a.m. you have to be at the barracks and get vaccinated.—Why? I’m pregnant. The doctor has ruled out any vaccinations.—If you’re not there tomorrow and don’t get vaccinated, we’ll have to start legal proceedings against you.
A soldier from Minden was kept in the holding cell for seven days. Another had been banned from wearing uniform and from carrying out his duties, Reiners continued. ‘He is supposed to sit at home, the Bundeswehr no longer wants him there. And they are cutting 50% of his salary.’ Sergeant Major Alexander Bittner from Ingolstadt has been sent to prison for six months because he refused the Covid vaccination.
Jan Reiners Feels Left Alone
Reiners served Germany for twelve years. Now he feels left alone. Also by mainstream media. Society suppresses and forgets very quickly, he says. ‘They can’t imagine what I experienced. Anyone who hears that I have to go to prison for 40 days because I didn’t want to be vaccinated is shocked.’
One day before he went to prison, he says:
It’s a horror! When I talk about it, I feel like I've been transported back in time; how I was treated and how the Bundeswehr didn’t give a shit about my life. Grief and despair have turned into anger and hatred.
He says that his doctor diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
When he started his sentence on 12 July, Reiners was determined to get through the 40 days. He receives support from human rights activists, lawyers and the Blaulicht-Familie association, an association of people who are critical of Covid mandates for first responders or military members, in nursing professions, the justice system, the medical and teaching professions, and the police—that is professional groups ‘whose very purpose is to help people’, according to the website.
‘But we had to get him out two days later’, says deputy chairman of the [Blaulicht-Familie] and police officer Carsten Stehlik. ‘The massive strain on him and his family was too great. We couldn’t justify that.’ The club paid the fine of 600 euros on 14 July 2024. Reiners then agreed and was released [remember that the Bundeswehr’s Covid vaccine mandate had been lifted in May 2024].
But further prison sentences are pending. Sergeant Major Alexander Bittner reports by phone: ‘I was given six months’ probation and a was ordered to pay a 2,500 euro fine.’ Because he did not pay the fine for over a year, his probation has now been revoked. This means he has to go back to prison - for six months. Bittner says that he knows at least ten soldiers who experienced the same thing but paid the fine instead of going to prison.
Lawyer Edgar Siemund, together with his colleagues Sven Lausen and Göran Thoms, has applied to the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig to have the compulsory vaccination declared unlawful.
Bottom Lines
It’s a disgrace, plain and simple.
At least the Berliner Zeitung is, however tentatively and timidly, breaking the silence on the abuse of power, state violence, and the shenanigans associated with the Covid poison/death juice.
I’ll mention one other thing, though: cases like this one are an indicator how low our society’s standards have fallen since we vowed ‘never again’.
Now, I’m not saying that the Covid mania is the same as what happened during the Second World War; history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. Hence, we need to acknowledge the underlying drive to abuse power, blatantly disregard the innate rights of our fellow men and women, and the perpetrators’ trying to stay—cheat—themselves out of troubles.
The worst aspect here is the callousness with which ‘the authorities’ today—despite knowing better—insist on demanding their pound of flesh.
Since 1945, ‘we’ German-speakers have been told, unceasingly, that the atrocities of the Third Reich were only possible because too few haven’t stood up.
Jan Reiners, Alexander Bittner, and others have stood up—and look at how they are treated.
I suppose we need to restore honour (and shame) to public discourse.
And level the same amount of scrutiny that is meted out against these brave men and women against those who gave these disgusting orders.
What was that slogan again? ‘No justice, no peace’?
What a disgrace.
That's the trouble with military law, and law in general: even if you are in the right against legal authority, you are in the wrong.
Even if the order was illegal, or twisted by the commanding officer into making the soldiers thinking it was mandatory and a legal order, if you refuse that's still insubordination. Disobeying or refusing an order is what it is, and that's military law.
(Small wonder I was cashiered at conscription, when I stated that I would never comply with orders I though ethically or morally wrong. The military psychiatrist doing the evaluation noted "Compulsive anti-authoritarian" in my papers.)
If the police order you out of your car, for no good or even legal reason and you refuse, you are guilty of refusing the orders of a policeman. I can guarantee that there's not a nation of Earth that doesn't function that way - Authority must be absolute and its enforcers must be able to act without fear of repercussions for state-made law to function at all, is the underlying judicial philosophy.
(Which is why most attorneys et c are the leading bleeding edge of compliance with ever-increasing authoritarian politics all over the West; it grants them more and more power and higher and higher income, just by being compliant.)
I hope this soldier is not alone, and I hope he somehow manages to bring suit against the military proper, for its actions. A scandal like that is precisely what the Bundeswehr needs right now, given that they are desperately scrambling for young German men willing to die in Ukraine to ensure a million arabs, africans and the like can continue to move into Germany ever year.
I have a massive empty internment camp up the road from me. Yes, I would say what happened during covid was the same.
The final stages of Stanton’s Ten Stages of Genocide are “preparation, persecution and extermination.” The final stages begin with lists: victims are identified and separated from the group, tortured and displaced and finally killed. Before this begins, however, victims are disarmed and incapable of self-defence to ensure the dominant group has total control.
We were one step away from 'finally killed.'