par Küntzler, Marie
Président du jury Olsson, Christian
Promoteur Wasinski, Christophe
Publication Non publié, 2025-06-30
Thèse de doctorat
Résumé : The German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) face a significant challenge in their ongoing efforts to attract thousands of new recruits to enlist each year. These efforts are directed towards ameliorating the challenging personnel situation within the armed forces, filling vacancies, and enabling an increase in the size of the Bundeswehr. The objective is to reach a total personnel strength of 203,000 by the year 2031. However, personnel numbers have stagnated at just over 180,000 for several years. Since the suspension of obligatory military service in 2011 and in view of demographic change, the Bundeswehr has adopted new ways to attract personnel into the force. In recent years, the Bundeswehr has, in collaboration with a private marketing firm, developed a series of recruitment devices that spread a specific framing of the armed forces and military careers. This framing draws upon modalities of popular culture, notably reality TV, video games and spectator sport, to promote a compelling image of the military profession. Core elements of the Bundeswehr’s promotional strategy are action, self-conquest and camaraderie. Although comparable forms of framing are well documented in recruitment media and popular culture in the Anglo-Saxon context, it is somewhat surprising to encounter this approach to military promotion in Germany. This is due to the country’s complex military history and the specific conceptualization of German soldiers as ‘citizens in uniform,’ emphasizing political education and civil responsibility. This thesis puts forward a thorough investigation into the representations projected by the Bundeswehr’s recruitment media and activities. It explores how military recruitment efforts portray the Bundeswehr as an attractive employer and how these compelling representations serve broader functions in disseminating appealing frames of the armed forces in society at large. The analysis is based first on a qualitative content analysis of various media-based promotional devices, with a particular focus on the Bundeswehr’s ‘reality documentaries.’ Second, it is informed by an examination of the Bundeswehr’s organisation of public events, incorporating observations from various field studies. This dissertation puts forward a novel perspective on the manner in which the Bundeswehr seeks to enhance recruitment, and, of particular significance, on the development of a representation of the legitimacy of the use of armed force in this context. It asserts the significance of examining military recruitment devices as an independent field of enquiry, integrating framing theory with insights from critical military studies and their contributions to our understanding of how popular culture can serve as a pivotal means through which armed forces elicit support from the general public.

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