Initial Officer Selection

[JMA]

I think a lot of the disagreement over the last couple of days on this thread might boil down to …

Well the introduction of the political factors has little to do with the topic of the thread.

One understands that Germany had a bad (understatement) experience and that shows up in the thinking introduced into this thread by Fuchs. I am not sure how prevalent this line of thinking is in Germany and how it may influence the selection and training of officers.

As opposed to the US and the UK there is probably no requirement for the German military to be ready for a war right now and thus there is most likely a lack of urgency in the military and (back to the thread) no requirement to select for an officer (and NCO) corps which is not only trained for but also psychologically ready for a war.

A person who sits in a base in Afghanistan in a passive, mainly static role is not a soldier but more a kind of militia. I can understand that given Germany's recent history they have probably selected out those who have aggressive soldier tendencies and retained and promoted passive individuals who will not upset the national psyche by producing a military which will bring back memories of the past. This is understandable.

It would be worthy of a separate study to see how the German military has been contained and restrained over the years to the point where perhaps they merely just go through the motions (of being a military) and effectively pack no punch. Quite sad but again, understandable.