Any German soldier may write directly to the Wehrbeauftragte, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, without going through the chain of command. The office was created in 1956 under Article 45b of the Basic Law. Every year the commissioner writes a full report for the Bundestag. In March 2024, Eva Högl presented the report for 2023. She said that the armed forces were shrinking and aging, and that recruitment was not satisfactory. Many barracks, she said, were in a state she called erbärmlich, miserable.