Talk:Ceremonial oath of the Bundeswehr

Religious confirmation
The solemn vow of the conscripts is not confirmed by the expression "so help me God". That addition wouldn´t make sense in this case anyway as it´s not a valid oath. It´s only a kind of public demonstration of willingness to fulfil a soldier`s duty during the conscript service. Greetings Ogbader 17:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, yes it is. It is not said so in the directives, but (in Bavaria) it is. (Which in fact makes it a valid oath in reality, even though not in the State's view, because the point of an oath is to confirm one's pledge with the Name of God...)--93.135.119.17 (talk) 14:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Germany is very much a secular country. What makes it an oath is the use of "schwöre" instead of "gelobe", not the "so help me God" (which doesn't make sense for non-Christian servicemen anyway). If there's pressure on conscripts in Bavaria to add that latter part, that would be unfortunate and basically a case for an official complaint. -- DevSolar2 (talk) 12:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Minor correction
I have changed the respective positions of "faithfully" and "bravely" in the pledge's / oath's translations, since there used to be split infinitives (..."to faithfully serve"...). As our teacher told us: "Never split your infinitves!" --89.52.138.31 (talk) 14:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I´ll revert this correction. The emphasis of the vow/oath is substantial on "faithfully" (as can be seen here Ceremonial vow of the Bundeswehr). Even though your teacher told, not to split the infinitives, the original sense is way better transferred, with this little grammatical trifle. Keep in mind that its figurative and abstract style of speech with a little poetic licence. 89.14.103.211 (talk) 21:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Translations
Shouldn't oath and pledge be translated the same way? --Schuhpuppe (talk) 10:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Alternative Translation
The alternative translation is wrong. It says "I pledge to faithfully serve THE Germany..." and it should be "I pledge to faithfully serve the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF Germany...". "the Germany" doesn't make any sense and is therefore not correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NorddeutscherBund (talk • contribs) 20:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)