When my husband reached military age in the early Seventies he had to appear before a commission which decided if he had really a conscience and would be allowed to object, and he had to bring two testimonies from persons describing his pacifist conscience. Long hair was an argument against the existence of a conscience. The testimonies were by his local parson, where my husband was active in the community, and by his mother, a refugee who described that war was how as a child she had to walk from Pomerania to Schleswig-Holstein in the first months of 45, and that she had taught her children accordingly. My husband's conscience was immediately recognised after they had read these two documents.