Initial Officer Selection

[Fuchs]

My contention is that the insertion of direct entry officers half way up the rank structure can only be justified if there is a clear assessment that these people have the potential to reach and perform well as senior officers (battalion commanders and above). The initial pre-course selection must (IMHO) focus upon this end. Where such tighter selection criteria are used and results in shortages of company grade officers these should be made up through the promotion from the ranks (which should be done with due care to prevent the senior NCO ranks from being denuded of their brightest and their best and thereby reducing and demeaning the expected quality of company senior NCOs which has historically been the strength and backbone of the infantry).

You're obviously thinking of leading officers, but many(if not most) are rather specialists - either for staffs or for technicalities.

The German army hires medical doctors, construction engineers (bridge-building expertise for army engineers!) and the like whom it doesn't produce in its own university system (which is more about business, engineering, psychology etc). These fully-educated people could earn 60,000-100,000 € p.a. in civil jobs and need to get at least a respectable rank and associated pay or you'll only get the worst graduates. Afaik these officers entry around captain/major rank and reach LtCol quite easily (medical staff is very high-ranked in Germany). You basically give them a quick entry training about their powers and limits and then you've got a ready officer with a very much needed special proficiency.


This thread appears to focus on officers for leadership instead of officers for very education-intensive jobs. Maybe the title should be modified.

By the way, about company and Plt NCOs beign the backbone of an army: There was a time in germany when even Lt Generals in command of a division were competent enough to spot training deficiencies down to lack of navigation skill or skill with emplacing a machine gun on inspections (reminds me also of an American general who lead a platoon in an assault on a building during WW2 in order to teach the Lt how to do it). A very good basic soldiering competency of leading officers (Truppenoffizier) is certainly a great advantage.