THE GERMAN ARMY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4523, 14 January 1942, Page 7

THE GERMAN ARMY

AN INTERESTING COMPARISON “ It is a profound mistake to regard the German army of to-day, without reservations, as the equal successor of that of 1914-1918 and to attribute to it the qualities which the army of Imperial Germany demonstrated by its proved efficiency. “ In fact, only the intellectual standard of the General Staff and of the German army—this does not apply to the General Staff of the Luftwaffe in the same degree—is reproduced unlowered on the army of to-day. More than that, it may be assumed that the average quality of the rank and file in the purely technical sphere corresponds similarly with that of the last World War. “ On the other hand, the morale of the troops is without question far inferior to that of the army of 25 years ago, and for the great mass of the officers’ corps in every department we must assume a far lower' average capacity. “ The heads of the German Reichswehr estimated at the beginning of the rearmament campaign that at least a ten years’ term was necessary to produce in the officers of the new army, representing something like a tenfold expansion, the moral and technical qualities of the Imperial Officers’ Corps. This was unattainable without a long and systematic training course. “ The officers’ corps in the Luftwaffe and the Panzer detachments, which had been practically improvised overnight, and had to base their training not on practical experience on a Iqrge scale, but almost wholly ipn paper plans, required a still longer period of thorough-going training to bring them to efficiency. “ Hitler refused to allow his army this period. This army must therefore necessarily be distinguished from the Imperial Army to its detriment by lower moral standards and a lower standard of purely technical efficiency, as the best of the infantry officers are the first to recognise.”