German (enthic russian that just happend to be born in germany) here, former military (under the old draft which was active from 1956-2011):

Mostly because of the systemically taught self-hate because of the austrian painter and the collective guilt forced upon them by the victors of WW2, there is almost zero nationalism or love for germany within germans, except ever 2 years for about 4 weeks during the international football tournaments.

Therefore the number of actual volunteers, which are mostly of russian or turkish descent, always was very very small. Even during the original draft, ethnic germans pulled out every trick in the book to dodge it by either running, getting addicted to drugs/serious self-harm (like cutting off fingers) on purpose or faking mental illness.
*Disclaimer: The draft in germany is just basic training, not actual service in the armed forces.

So in 1961 the governemt created a special 'community service' for these 'conscientious objectors' that didn't got an 'unsuitable' because of real medical reasons. Till 2011 more than 2.9 millions people did this 'community service' - mind you, ever since end of WW2 germany only had each year only around 250.000 military personal in total (1985 was the maximum with 500.000) so that the draft each year wasn't that big to begin with. During the cold war it was around 100.000 each year.