The point of "Zivildienst" which translates to "civil service" as opposed to "Wehrdienst" "military service" was to make conscientious objectors contribute to society in-lieu of serving with a weapon. So, once you came of age you had to do one or the other.
I think within this previous paradigm of a citizen army, as opposed to the volunteer army of professional soldiers we have now, this was a good way to make sure you'd still have recruits while not forcing anyone into the military that really didn't want to be there.
I think the point was equal duties for everyone. I read the policy that applied to conscious objectors back then and it seemed they just did a search and replace on a couple of keywords. That is how in my opinion the Grundausbildung "basic training" for conscientious objectors came to be. It contained more things that did not make any sense outside of military.
On thing was the right to receive a certain part of your pay as goods in kind - informally called Dienstbanane - banana for duty. Makes sense if you are on a battle ship for months, not so much in a hospital.
Another, almost comical, thing was the lengthy and detailed regulations about reaching the highest level of unfitness for duty (aka death), which made up a considerable part of the policy.
In practice there was not much justice though, because specific regulations implementation of the laws and regulation were clearly discourage people from going this route and involved lots of harassment.
My god. German! What a language.
But I'm just fine with a portion of it being done in a non-military national service. It matters that it is done, even if it is part of national service. There are lots of small jobs that can be done, not just taking care of others directly.