Idiot's Guide to the German General Staff

[Michael Dorosh]

I am led to believe the German General Staff system was an envy for other armies to emulate, and that many militaries suffered from not having anything equivalent.

I am not sure I understand what the General Staff was. I am led to believe that besides wearing red stripes on their panataloons, a General Staff officer was one who attended schooling in the military arts, and was assigned - even if only a field grade officer - to the staff of division sized formations. Here, he was to lend his expertise to divisional and regimental commanders, despite his low rank - the divisional commanders were usually men who came up through the ranks - not the staff college.

Is this remotely correct?

That is the lower level Staff officers - what did higher ranking General Staff officers do?

Secondly, I understand that Hitler ruined the General Staff system - firstly, he was deeply suspicious of it, openly detesting the staff by the end of the war. In Dec 1941 (date?) he implemented two seperate staffs - the Army general staff and his own personal headquarters, who oversaw the fighting in the Soviet Union.

In Feb-March 1945, Hitler broke up the general staff, putting Kesslering and Doenitz in charge of land operations and leaving the Army completely out of the command loop.

Now, maybe I am getting things mixed up. We have Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command) and Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command), as well as Führer Hauptquartier. I understand FHQ to be Hitler's personal command group, and that Jodl/Keitel reigned over OKW, which was really just a rubber stamp for Hitler's personal directives. Is this correct?

Now, I see Dupuy refers to OKH as the German General Staff also. So what is the difference between the General Staff, and the Army High Command?

I thought the General Staff was simply a body of professionally trained officers, who at the lowest levels advised regiments and divisions on how to conduct operations, and who at the higher levels staffed the various headquarters (OKH being one of those headquarters).

Is it correct to refer to OKH as "the German General Staff"?

[ August 23, 2002, 10:11 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I am led to believe the German General Staff system was an envy for other armies to emulate, and that many militaries suffered from not having anything equivalent.

I am not sure I understand what the General Staff was. I am led to believe that besides wearing red stripes on their panataloons, a General Staff officer was one who attended schooling in the military arts, and was assigned - even if only a field grade officer - to the staff of division sized formations. Here, he was to lend his expertise to divisional and regimental commanders, despite his low rank - the divisional commanders were usually men who came up through the ranks - not the staff college.

Is this remotely correct?

That is the lower level Staff officers - what did higher ranking General Staff officers do?

Secondly, I understand that Hitler ruined the General Staff system - firstly, he was deeply suspicious of it, openly detesting the staff by the end of the war. In Dec 1941 (date?) he implemented two seperate staffs - the Army general staff and his own personal headquarters, who oversaw the fighting in the Soviet Union.

In Feb-March 1945, Hitler broke up the general staff, putting Kesslering and Doenitz in charge of land operations and leaving the Army completely out of the command loop.

Now, maybe I am getting things mixed up. We have Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command) and Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command), as well as Führer Hauptquartier. I understand FHQ to be Hitler's personal command group, and that Jodl/Keitel reigned over OKW, which was really just a rubber stamp for Hitler's personal directives. Is this correct?

Now, I see Dupuy refers to OKH as the German General Staff also. So what is the difference between the General Staff, and the Army High Command?

I thought the General Staff was simply a body of professionally trained officers, who at the lowest levels advised regiments and divisions on how to conduct operations, and who at the higher levels staffed the various headquarters (OKH being one of those headquarters).

Is it correct to refer to OKH as "the German General Staff"?

[ August 23, 2002, 10:11 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[M Hofbauer]

HGMF, Chapter I, Section III explains the organization of the german high command.

Chapter I, Sec. III, No. 3 specifically explains the Generalstab des Heeres.

[M Hofbauer]

HGMF, Chapter I, Section III explains the organization of the german high command.

Chapter I, Sec. III, No. 3 specifically explains the Generalstab des Heeres.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

HGMF, Chapter I, Section III explains the organization of the german high command.

Chapter I, Sec. III, No. 3 specifically explains the Generalstab des Heeres.

Did the Yankees get this stuff correct?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

HGMF, Chapter I, Section III explains the organization of the german high command.

Chapter I, Sec. III, No. 3 specifically explains the Generalstab des Heeres.

Did the Yankees get this stuff correct?

[Christian Knudsen]

Hi Michael.

In regards to your first point, I would direct you to "Command or Control? Command, Training, and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918", by Martin Samuels (London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1995). This book contains an excellent discussion of the concept of the General staff as it evolved along with the doctine of directive command. The major function of the General Staff as a body seems to have been to have produced a body of advisory officers (A large percentage of which went on to senior command) who had a common doctrine and would, when given a tactical/operational situation, come to the same basic conclusion as the vast majority of their peers. This allowed the Chief of the General Staff, who after von Moltke was basically the operational head of the army, to be confident that his subordinate units would basically react to the situations in which they were placed in the way that he himself would have, which was presumably the correct response. Basically then it was first and foremost a tool for ensuring the effectiveness of the decentralized command neccessitated by the size and scale of late 19th and 20th century warfare.

As for your second point regarding the fate of the General Staff as a body in WWII, one must IMHO seek to differentiate the politics of the OKW/OKH from the body of General Staff officers. Hitler was not, however, a believer in the sort of reliance on one's subordinates that is at the core of the General Staff system as Samuels describes it. Therefore the constant micromanagement from OKW/OKH would certainly have curtailed the effectiveness of the General Staff advisory system.

As for Dupuy, I believe (with a certain amount of sticking out of my neck - please be kind) that he tends to confuse (gulp) the General Staff as an advisory body with the OKW/OKH as a command body, seeing as sort of Joint Chiefs concept. In this sense, then, I would see it as incorrect to refer to the OKW/OKH as the German General Staff.

Hope this helps more than it confuses,

Christian

[Christian Knudsen]

Hi Michael.

In regards to your first point, I would direct you to "Command or Control? Command, Training, and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918", by Martin Samuels (London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1995). This book contains an excellent discussion of the concept of the General staff as it evolved along with the doctine of directive command. The major function of the General Staff as a body seems to have been to have produced a body of advisory officers (A large percentage of which went on to senior command) who had a common doctrine and would, when given a tactical/operational situation, come to the same basic conclusion as the vast majority of their peers. This allowed the Chief of the General Staff, who after von Moltke was basically the operational head of the army, to be confident that his subordinate units would basically react to the situations in which they were placed in the way that he himself would have, which was presumably the correct response. Basically then it was first and foremost a tool for ensuring the effectiveness of the decentralized command neccessitated by the size and scale of late 19th and 20th century warfare.

As for your second point regarding the fate of the General Staff as a body in WWII, one must IMHO seek to differentiate the politics of the OKW/OKH from the body of General Staff officers. Hitler was not, however, a believer in the sort of reliance on one's subordinates that is at the core of the General Staff system as Samuels describes it. Therefore the constant micromanagement from OKW/OKH would certainly have curtailed the effectiveness of the General Staff advisory system.

As for Dupuy, I believe (with a certain amount of sticking out of my neck - please be kind) that he tends to confuse (gulp) the General Staff as an advisory body with the OKW/OKH as a command body, seeing as sort of Joint Chiefs concept. In this sense, then, I would see it as incorrect to refer to the OKW/OKH as the German General Staff.

Hope this helps more than it confuses,

Christian

[Michael Emrys]

Another point about the Red Stripers, is that the German army seems to have recognized that the requirements for command and the requirements for staff duties required discernably different kinds of personalities. Early in an officer's career, he was identified as one type or the other and was guided in his career accordingly. Those selected for staff duties were trained accordingly. Those selected for command responsibilities went on maneuvers with increasingly larger formations under their command as their abilities and experience allowed. Those on the staff track went to staff college.

The job of a staff officer may have included advising his superior, but more importantly it involved doing all the administrative tasks required to turn his boss' plans into executable actions.

So far as I have been able to discover, and others may know better, the demarcation between command and staff was fairly strictly observed, but that certain exceptional figures may have crossed the line more than once in their career. Guderian comes to mind in this regard. Also, it was not at all uncommon for a staff officer to be given command of a taskforce on a temporary basis. As the overall situation in the east continued to deteriorate, some of these postings became more or less permanent.

It seems to me that more or less the same system was observed in the other armies of the period, although I don't think the practice was so formalized in those cases.

BTW, the US Navy, for one, stood in marked contrast to this practice. In order to achieve high rank, one had to have had extensive experience both in command at sea and in administrative posts on land, although it was often recognized that an officer would be better in one area than another.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Another point about the Red Stripers, is that the German army seems to have recognized that the requirements for command and the requirements for staff duties required discernably different kinds of personalities. Early in an officer's career, he was identified as one type or the other and was guided in his career accordingly. Those selected for staff duties were trained accordingly. Those selected for command responsibilities went on maneuvers with increasingly larger formations under their command as their abilities and experience allowed. Those on the staff track went to staff college.

The job of a staff officer may have included advising his superior, but more importantly it involved doing all the administrative tasks required to turn his boss' plans into executable actions.

So far as I have been able to discover, and others may know better, the demarcation between command and staff was fairly strictly observed, but that certain exceptional figures may have crossed the line more than once in their career. Guderian comes to mind in this regard. Also, it was not at all uncommon for a staff officer to be given command of a taskforce on a temporary basis. As the overall situation in the east continued to deteriorate, some of these postings became more or less permanent.

It seems to me that more or less the same system was observed in the other armies of the period, although I don't think the practice was so formalized in those cases.

BTW, the US Navy, for one, stood in marked contrast to this practice. In order to achieve high rank, one had to have had extensive experience both in command at sea and in administrative posts on land, although it was often recognized that an officer would be better in one area than another.

Michael

[Fionn]

General Staff:

1. It began out of the need for professional military officers to accompany airhead royals onto the battlefields of the 19th Century to ensure that those royals in command didn't bring disaster on their field forces.

What Michael Emrys identified as the division between personality types is, in part, a carry-over from this time...

2. Many "leaders" had also attended General Staff College but this should not blind one to the fact that the "staffer" was very different to the "leader who attended GSC for a couple of years once".

3. Christian's post is very good and brings out a necessary point. Back in the day when radio comms weren't invented yet and the only info you might get from 2nd Korps all morning was that it was going to attack the village in front of it you had to be able to trust that whoever was giving the orders in 2nd Korps would know how to exploit any victory and, more importantly, would exploit it in a predictable manner.

If the fellow giving the orders had gone to the same school as you, studied the same curriculum and been taught the same lessons as you AND had to come up with the same solutions to the same problems as you did 15 years ago then odds were that he was fairly well trained to do exactly the same things you had been trained to do in response to a given set of circumstances. So, if the village fell it would make most sense for 2nd Korps to wheel left and roll up the enemy line. Ok, time to order 3rd Korps into a wide flanking maneuvre ready to catch the remnants of the fleeing enemy army as they began to break and run about 6 hours from now.

I trust the benefits are clear now... I'll outline them just to be safe:

1. The overall commander can anticipate actions of his subordinates.

2. This allows him to more accurately forecast the shape of the battlefield in the hours to come.

3. This allows him to take advantage of any opportunities which will arise in the future.

4. He can issue orders in time to ensure units are in the right place at the right time to take advantage of what he believes will happen... Since the officers in the HQ of those units are also trained in the same school to think the same way when they see the opportunity presenting itself they will react in precisely the way the overall commander wishes them to.

5. If the CO had to wait for the village to fall before ordering the "end run" he would be unable to trap any but the slowest enemy units. This would turn a decisive victory into only a slight one and might make the difference between a short and decisive war and one which dragged on for much longer and resulted in very few decisive battles.

I trust the benefits gained in OODA loop cycles is clear. With the poor comms of the time OODA loops were even more decisive than they are nowadays.

General Staff training was also very important during times when the Napoleonic Fan was in vogue but prior to the invention of reliable radio comms.

In any case, staff officers were trained to arrive at the same conclusion given the same basic information. They were trained to be extensions of German doctrine uninfluenced by whether or not they had an audacious or cautious personality. Given the same basic data two polarly opposite personality types trained in the same way would arrive at the same conclusion. THAT is they key to the system.

The leader was the heart of the unit. If he was cautious the unit was cautious, if he was audacious the unit was audacious. He issued broad orders and had sufficient GSC training to understand the issues involved but rarely had enough training to compete with the GSC-trained staffers. There were, of course, exceptions.

Command Teams... something no-one seems to have mentioned. The Germans quite deliberately matched Commanders and Operations Officers so as to achieve the desired "blend" in the resulting gestalt command entity.

At the best of times the Commander and Ops officers would compliment eachother, shoring up eachothers weaknesses and being completely interchangeable within certain broad parameters ( IOW if the Ops Officer of the Army... a Colonel.. went to the front and told a Division CO ( a generalleutnant) to attack somewhere then that division CO would consider the order as having the full weight of the Army Commander even if the Ops Officer hadn't discussed it with the Army CO first).

Sometimes the operation fell short of the ideal but very often what happened was that the Ops Officer stayed in the HQ ran the minutiae of the battle while the CO roamed the field doing the following:

1. getting a sense of the battle,

2. giving broad strokes orders and touching base with his most important subunit commanders/encouraging them.

3. personally assessing the situation/intervening at the most critical points

I don't know many people who have thought about this but do the following now: Think back and try to remember if any German or Allied officers who were notably succesful actually did these 3 things ( with or without an official General Staff to back them up).

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

A

L

E

R

T

Well, let's see. Rommel in N. Afrika certainly did it. Patton certainly fulfilled the criteria. Balck ( IMO a greater general than Rommel ever was or would have been) also certainly fits the mould.

The three above were leader types and completely unsuited to staff work. They succeeded because they took on the leadership role, had good staffs behind them (whether these were German GSC-trained or not) and pushed the level of decision-making down as low as it would go.

This is, of course, only touching the surface.

I suggest reading vonMellenthin's "Panzer Battles" and his book on Hitler's Generals to find out more. I would particularly concentrate on anything written about his relationship with Balck. it is most "instructive".

In summary...

Men who make good leaders are often poorly equipped for the detail of staff work and vice versa.

The system arose when the need for a cohesive, reliably, universal doctrine was at a premium ( no radios etc) and continued into the 20th Century because it was shown to be valuable.

The system carried its Monarchic roots with it and turned them into advantages.

The system relied on men being true to their inner natures but suppressing their emotions ( e.g. leaders led, detailers worked out the details but at all times staffers worked to coe up with "book solutions" and not whatever their hearts might tell them).

Obviously it is all more complicated than that but, IMO, it is a good system and something which has been partially copied around the world.

[ August 24, 2002, 05:33 AM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[Fionn]

General Staff:

1. It began out of the need for professional military officers to accompany airhead royals onto the battlefields of the 19th Century to ensure that those royals in command didn't bring disaster on their field forces.

What Michael Emrys identified as the division between personality types is, in part, a carry-over from this time...

2. Many "leaders" had also attended General Staff College but this should not blind one to the fact that the "staffer" was very different to the "leader who attended GSC for a couple of years once".

3. Christian's post is very good and brings out a necessary point. Back in the day when radio comms weren't invented yet and the only info you might get from 2nd Korps all morning was that it was going to attack the village in front of it you had to be able to trust that whoever was giving the orders in 2nd Korps would know how to exploit any victory and, more importantly, would exploit it in a predictable manner.

If the fellow giving the orders had gone to the same school as you, studied the same curriculum and been taught the same lessons as you AND had to come up with the same solutions to the same problems as you did 15 years ago then odds were that he was fairly well trained to do exactly the same things you had been trained to do in response to a given set of circumstances. So, if the village fell it would make most sense for 2nd Korps to wheel left and roll up the enemy line. Ok, time to order 3rd Korps into a wide flanking maneuvre ready to catch the remnants of the fleeing enemy army as they began to break and run about 6 hours from now.

I trust the benefits are clear now... I'll outline them just to be safe:

1. The overall commander can anticipate actions of his subordinates.

2. This allows him to more accurately forecast the shape of the battlefield in the hours to come.

3. This allows him to take advantage of any opportunities which will arise in the future.

4. He can issue orders in time to ensure units are in the right place at the right time to take advantage of what he believes will happen... Since the officers in the HQ of those units are also trained in the same school to think the same way when they see the opportunity presenting itself they will react in precisely the way the overall commander wishes them to.

5. If the CO had to wait for the village to fall before ordering the "end run" he would be unable to trap any but the slowest enemy units. This would turn a decisive victory into only a slight one and might make the difference between a short and decisive war and one which dragged on for much longer and resulted in very few decisive battles.

I trust the benefits gained in OODA loop cycles is clear. With the poor comms of the time OODA loops were even more decisive than they are nowadays.

General Staff training was also very important during times when the Napoleonic Fan was in vogue but prior to the invention of reliable radio comms.

In any case, staff officers were trained to arrive at the same conclusion given the same basic information. They were trained to be extensions of German doctrine uninfluenced by whether or not they had an audacious or cautious personality. Given the same basic data two polarly opposite personality types trained in the same way would arrive at the same conclusion. THAT is they key to the system.

The leader was the heart of the unit. If he was cautious the unit was cautious, if he was audacious the unit was audacious. He issued broad orders and had sufficient GSC training to understand the issues involved but rarely had enough training to compete with the GSC-trained staffers. There were, of course, exceptions.

Command Teams... something no-one seems to have mentioned. The Germans quite deliberately matched Commanders and Operations Officers so as to achieve the desired "blend" in the resulting gestalt command entity.

At the best of times the Commander and Ops officers would compliment eachother, shoring up eachothers weaknesses and being completely interchangeable within certain broad parameters ( IOW if the Ops Officer of the Army... a Colonel.. went to the front and told a Division CO ( a generalleutnant) to attack somewhere then that division CO would consider the order as having the full weight of the Army Commander even if the Ops Officer hadn't discussed it with the Army CO first).

Sometimes the operation fell short of the ideal but very often what happened was that the Ops Officer stayed in the HQ ran the minutiae of the battle while the CO roamed the field doing the following:

1. getting a sense of the battle,

2. giving broad strokes orders and touching base with his most important subunit commanders/encouraging them.

3. personally assessing the situation/intervening at the most critical points

I don't know many people who have thought about this but do the following now: Think back and try to remember if any German or Allied officers who were notably succesful actually did these 3 things ( with or without an official General Staff to back them up).

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

A

L

E

R

T

Well, let's see. Rommel in N. Afrika certainly did it. Patton certainly fulfilled the criteria. Balck ( IMO a greater general than Rommel ever was or would have been) also certainly fits the mould.

The three above were leader types and completely unsuited to staff work. They succeeded because they took on the leadership role, had good staffs behind them (whether these were German GSC-trained or not) and pushed the level of decision-making down as low as it would go.

This is, of course, only touching the surface.

I suggest reading vonMellenthin's "Panzer Battles" and his book on Hitler's Generals to find out more. I would particularly concentrate on anything written about his relationship with Balck. it is most "instructive".

In summary...

Men who make good leaders are often poorly equipped for the detail of staff work and vice versa.

The system arose when the need for a cohesive, reliably, universal doctrine was at a premium ( no radios etc) and continued into the 20th Century because it was shown to be valuable.

The system carried its Monarchic roots with it and turned them into advantages.

The system relied on men being true to their inner natures but suppressing their emotions ( e.g. leaders led, detailers worked out the details but at all times staffers worked to coe up with "book solutions" and not whatever their hearts might tell them).

Obviously it is all more complicated than that but, IMO, it is a good system and something which has been partially copied around the world.

[ August 24, 2002, 05:33 AM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[Ozzy]

I am led to believe the German General Staff system was an envy for other armies to emulate, and that many militaries suffered from not having anything equivalent.

I am not sure I understand what the General Staff was. I am led to believe that besides wearing red stripes on their panataloons, a General Staff officer was one who attended schooling in the military arts, and was assigned - even if only a field grade officer - to the staff of division sized formations. Here, he was to lend his expertise to divisional and regimental commanders, despite his low rank - the divisional commanders were usually men who came up through the ranks - not the staff college.

Is this remotely correct?

Yes, that was and still is the usual way. Staff officers usually attented military school before assigned to a Staff position. But every officer had (and has in the Bundeswehr of today) to pass field training and field command as cadet before entering school, and every one had/has to pass school (though the Staff officers attend to more specialized lessons). That enabled both to cross the border line - Rommel served as teacher in an infantry school, was Chief of the Führerhauptquartier (staff work), and later became one of the best field Generals in WWII - his Ic (intel staff officer) in Africa, Hans von Luck, later commanded P.G.R.125/21.P.D. near Caen.

The German military term "Stab" (staff) has several slightly different meanings. Especially on Korps and Divisional level, the Stab (also called Generalsstab, therefore the appendix "i.G." to the rank, e.g. "Maj.i.G." = "Major im Generalsstab")) has three enormously important functions:

1) collect data from subordinate and superior echelons, formulate reports and provide analysis to CO.

2) decide on requests from subordinate units

3) provide all administrative requirements (logistics, artillery, communications, medical, etc...) to execute CO orders

An excellent summary about this can be found here:

http://www.feldgrau.com/germanstaff.html

Generalstabsoffiziere were initially of considerably lower rank than the commander of the unit. Standard rank for Division was Major i.G., Korps had Oberstleutnant i.G., and Army Oberst i.G.. Somewhat different was the Artilleriekommandeur (Arko), who was also part of the Stab, but, as he was considered Regimentskommandeur (Artillerieregiment), had one "standard" rank higher, i.e. for Division he was Oberstleutnant d.A. (d.A. = der Artillerie).

Later in war the differences in the ranks became apparently smaller.

Their importance should not be underestimated; the homogenuous mixture of boldly leading COs and specialized, skilled Staff officers was often the way to the success.

The second meaning of Stab is referring on "Oberkommando" = "High Command", which existed from Army level upwards (A.O.K.) to O.K.W. "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" (the highest Stab unit). In Army and Armygroup, the tasks and duties where almost the same, while the Oberkommandos of the highest levels (OKH,OKW, etc.) also fulfilled the administrative work for weaponry development, recruitment, national military logistics, etc.

Secondly, I understand that Hitler ruined the General Staff system - firstly, he was deeply suspicious of it

yes, since his days as grunt in the WWI trenches, he had a deep mistrust in officers who had achieved their rank and command through their merits and skills.

I understand FHQ to be Hitler's personal command group, and that Jodl/Keitel reigned over OKW, which was really just a rubber stamp for Hitler's personal directives. Is this correct?

Actually it is my understanding that the FHQ was where the plans where made (by Hitler, of course), and then it was left to OKW to execute them - if you like, the FHQ formulated the political desirements, which had to be achieved by OKW's military efforts. But he entire systenm was corrupted when Hilter begun to remove inconvenient officers - finally Jodl and Keitel (mockingly nicknamed "Lakaitel" from "Lakai" = lackey) were left in charge of the OKW, and blindly fulfilled the orders issued by Hitler, without daring to show own initiative. This is IMO the main reason why Germany lost the war.

Now, I see Dupuy refers to OKH as the German General Staff also. So what is the difference between the General Staff, and the Army High Command?

I thought the General Staff was simply a body of professionally trained officers, who at the lowest levels advised regiments and divisions on how to conduct operations, and who at the higher levels staffed the various headquarters (OKH being one of those headquarters).

Is it correct to refer to OKH as "the German General Staff"?

Staffs are not only composed of officers - there exist "Stabsunteroffiziere" (Staff NCOs) and "Stabsgefreite" (Staff Private) as well. The term "Stab" must hence be understood as a complete body to perform all supportive and administrative work - from peeling potatoes up to commanding a regiment of some dozens large caliber guns.

The General Staff = "Generalsstab" (see above) extists at Div. level as well, therefore Dupuy's (don't know his book, but I assume you've quoted him correctly) definition is flawed. The OKH (land forces) was a subordinate unit to the OKW (High Command of Armed forces), just as the Oberkommandos for Luftwaffe etc. and the General Admirality for the Kriegsmarine. The OKW and OKW are IMO correctly "High Commands", not "General Staffs"

[Ozzy]

I am led to believe the German General Staff system was an envy for other armies to emulate, and that many militaries suffered from not having anything equivalent.

I am not sure I understand what the General Staff was. I am led to believe that besides wearing red stripes on their panataloons, a General Staff officer was one who attended schooling in the military arts, and was assigned - even if only a field grade officer - to the staff of division sized formations. Here, he was to lend his expertise to divisional and regimental commanders, despite his low rank - the divisional commanders were usually men who came up through the ranks - not the staff college.

Is this remotely correct?

Yes, that was and still is the usual way. Staff officers usually attented military school before assigned to a Staff position. But every officer had (and has in the Bundeswehr of today) to pass field training and field command as cadet before entering school, and every one had/has to pass school (though the Staff officers attend to more specialized lessons). That enabled both to cross the border line - Rommel served as teacher in an infantry school, was Chief of the Führerhauptquartier (staff work), and later became one of the best field Generals in WWII - his Ic (intel staff officer) in Africa, Hans von Luck, later commanded P.G.R.125/21.P.D. near Caen.

The German military term "Stab" (staff) has several slightly different meanings. Especially on Korps and Divisional level, the Stab (also called Generalsstab, therefore the appendix "i.G." to the rank, e.g. "Maj.i.G." = "Major im Generalsstab")) has three enormously important functions:

1) collect data from subordinate and superior echelons, formulate reports and provide analysis to CO.

2) decide on requests from subordinate units

3) provide all administrative requirements (logistics, artillery, communications, medical, etc...) to execute CO orders

An excellent summary about this can be found here:

http://www.feldgrau.com/germanstaff.html

Generalstabsoffiziere were initially of considerably lower rank than the commander of the unit. Standard rank for Division was Major i.G., Korps had Oberstleutnant i.G., and Army Oberst i.G.. Somewhat different was the Artilleriekommandeur (Arko), who was also part of the Stab, but, as he was considered Regimentskommandeur (Artillerieregiment), had one "standard" rank higher, i.e. for Division he was Oberstleutnant d.A. (d.A. = der Artillerie).

Later in war the differences in the ranks became apparently smaller.

Their importance should not be underestimated; the homogenuous mixture of boldly leading COs and specialized, skilled Staff officers was often the way to the success.

The second meaning of Stab is referring on "Oberkommando" = "High Command", which existed from Army level upwards (A.O.K.) to O.K.W. "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" (the highest Stab unit). In Army and Armygroup, the tasks and duties where almost the same, while the Oberkommandos of the highest levels (OKH,OKW, etc.) also fulfilled the administrative work for weaponry development, recruitment, national military logistics, etc.

Secondly, I understand that Hitler ruined the General Staff system - firstly, he was deeply suspicious of it

yes, since his days as grunt in the WWI trenches, he had a deep mistrust in officers who had achieved their rank and command through their merits and skills.

I understand FHQ to be Hitler's personal command group, and that Jodl/Keitel reigned over OKW, which was really just a rubber stamp for Hitler's personal directives. Is this correct?

Actually it is my understanding that the FHQ was where the plans where made (by Hitler, of course), and then it was left to OKW to execute them - if you like, the FHQ formulated the political desirements, which had to be achieved by OKW's military efforts. But he entire systenm was corrupted when Hilter begun to remove inconvenient officers - finally Jodl and Keitel (mockingly nicknamed "Lakaitel" from "Lakai" = lackey) were left in charge of the OKW, and blindly fulfilled the orders issued by Hitler, without daring to show own initiative. This is IMO the main reason why Germany lost the war.

Now, I see Dupuy refers to OKH as the German General Staff also. So what is the difference between the General Staff, and the Army High Command?

I thought the General Staff was simply a body of professionally trained officers, who at the lowest levels advised regiments and divisions on how to conduct operations, and who at the higher levels staffed the various headquarters (OKH being one of those headquarters).

Is it correct to refer to OKH as "the German General Staff"?

Staffs are not only composed of officers - there exist "Stabsunteroffiziere" (Staff NCOs) and "Stabsgefreite" (Staff Private) as well. The term "Stab" must hence be understood as a complete body to perform all supportive and administrative work - from peeling potatoes up to commanding a regiment of some dozens large caliber guns.

The General Staff = "Generalsstab" (see above) extists at Div. level as well, therefore Dupuy's (don't know his book, but I assume you've quoted him correctly) definition is flawed. The OKH (land forces) was a subordinate unit to the OKW (High Command of Armed forces), just as the Oberkommandos for Luftwaffe etc. and the General Admirality for the Kriegsmarine. The OKW and OKW are IMO correctly "High Commands", not "General Staffs"

[Michael Dorosh]

Terrific info, everyone, this one gets printed out and kept for reference tucked into my HGMF.

[Michael Dorosh]

Terrific info, everyone, this one gets printed out and kept for reference tucked into my HGMF.

[JasonC]

Good responses already, but I will add a lot about the history, and also explain what I understand the point was about OKH.

The staff system was developed by Gneisenau during the wars of liberation in 1813. It was meant to make the incapable, defeated army of Jena in 1805 into a weapon that could fight Napoleon. It was based on a searching examination of the weaknesses of the army of 1805, and the relative strengths of Napoleon's Grand Armee. The goal was to counter Napoleon's personal military genius with a corporate bureaucratic structure that could outthink any single mind.

You should understand what armies were before Napoleon, particularly in the "old regime" aristocratic powers. Warfare was a sport of class nobility. Offices were vendible, commissions bought and sold. They carried honors, rank, command responsibilities, and a safe income guareenteed by the state. The bulk of most state budgets in Germany went to military expenditure, which could be skimmed or pocketed by commanding nobles in time of peace. Aristocratic "vons" treated military office as an alternative to land, as a personal fief. The officer "class" as a whole was a subset of the class nobility, outdoorsy "jocks" who rode and hunted, rich and relatively polished by the standards of the day. But not at all selected for intellect, merit, or schooling.

In actual war, many of those who held rank practically by birth (or wealth) proved incapable in the field. They had egos the size of houses and brains the size of walnuts, and quarrelled with each other about every decision, scarcely recognizing any common superior. The king was the only one over them all, and each was willing to denounce others to him as incompetent, lobbying for favor, position, and decisions made their own way. Unity of command was effectively lacking. Meshing of decisions made by seperate commanders at different times and places was nearly non-existent.

This system then faced a tightly run centralized machine commanded by the genuis of Napoleon. Who used flexible, seperated corps as part of an integrated, articulate structure. Each commanded by a marshal personally selected by Napoleon for conspicuous merit, often up through the ranks and always experienced and loyal (Bernadotte excepted). This organization caught the German army still concentrating. The result was the defeat in detail at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt, and a subsequent relentless pursuit in which nothing could be rallied, and only one officer (Blucher) managed to keep any effective force in the field.

So they saw that they needed to make some pretty drastic changes from the old "von" way of doing things. But the aristocratic political structure of the Prussian state could not be changed. They needed French meritocracy without French social revolution. They needed centralized military command without a general replacing the king as head of state. And they needed a professional officer corps without years of campaigning and of selection out of the ranks by the eye of a command genius.

The staff system was designed to fufill these functions. It created a sort of parallel bureaucracy to the command structure of the old army, which was now a seperate thing, the structure of "line command". These new nominal subordinates were selected and trained in meritocratic ways, without regard to birth or wealth, based primarily on raw intelligence and secondarily on formal military schooling. An intellectual, rather "academic" hierarchy (similar to the professoriate), was "stapled" alongside the class based line command one.

This duplicated a common class-based division of labor in German society at the time. The aristocratic rich relied on able subordinates who did the actual intellectual work of organization and administration. They reserved playing politics, ultimate command responsibility, ownership, pomp and circumstance - to themselves. Just as their bankers, their butlers, their overseers, their clerks handled their finances, households, farms, and offices, now "staffers" would handle the intellectual aspects of military command. The general staff idea was putting "Jeeves" in charge of operations, because he obviously was rather more clever than his sporting employer.

All of this is rather important not just to understand why the system was developed and its "feel", division of responsibilities, etc. It is also important to understand what broke when it was changed, and the characteristic problems that re-emerged. Hitler considered himself another Napoleonic military genius, and the reduced role of the head of state that the staff system was based on, got in his way. The army considered him a meddling king who did not know military operations from his anatomy unless he was told. To them, he was wrecking the carefully constructed system they had created to put effective military decision making in their own corporate hands while leaving civilian political leadership to a figurehead king.

The army expected to give due political deference to the leader, but to make the effective decisions on a meritocratic, intellectual, and organized basis. Hitler expected to make the decisions as the actual chief of state, and ridiculed as hypocracy, deceit, gross flattery, and crawling servility the careful professional subordination of the officer class. Which was completely the opposite of his own ideas of leadership by will, personal responsibility, and sense of destiny, which were the personification of "line command". Indeed, the "fuhrer principle" was "line command" writ large.

So there was an enourmous politically charged "culture clash" at the very base of civilian-military relations in the Third Reich. The army was designed for a figurehead monarchy, a nominal aristocracy, and the cloaked but effective reality of a bureaucratic professional meritocracy of educated, selected, trained experts. They wanted Hitler to act as figurehead, the Nazi Party to act as nominal aristocracy and political control, and the professional officers of the Heer to make the actual decisions as technocrats - as the king had done, the old aristocracy of princes and vons had done, and the old German general staff had done, in the 19th century and in WW I. None of which remotely fit Hitler's self conception as a new Napoleon intent on revolutionizing German society in ways Gneisenau and company had carefully avoided doing in 1813.

That is political background. The military reality of the staff system is easier to explain once it is understood. At the peak of both the line command system and the merit-professional staff system stood the Army General Staff. It was the place where the lines of control of both parallel hierarchies met.

Staff officers, by virtue of the tabs on their shoulders, were directly under high level commanders at the center of the army, acting as their designated subordinates. The line commanders they worked with were far senior to them in rank and usually in time in service, also in political connections, heft, and general poohbahhood. But the staffer was the central command's personal "bright young thing" on the spot, reporting directly to the central command and effectively representing it at the line commander's HQ. When the line commander hears his voice, he does not hear a mere colonel. He hears the trusted errand boy of his own boss.

Unity of command is thus provided by the chief of the army general staff. He runs the staffers, who are his agents. He outranks and can relieve even the most senior line officers (although in practice, the highest ones have independent political heft with the head of state, making any changes there delicate political maneuvers). The line commanders listen to mere staffers precisely because they represent his own clout over them. They are his personal "machine" running throughout the army, whereas each line commander has little control over the staffers in his command.

Above all, a line commander has little control over the staffer's career tracks, their promotions and next assignments, which are in the hands of the central staff bureaucracy, led by the army chief of staff. And which involve men too junior in rank to merit the attentions of the chief of state or the political poohbahs of the aristocracy, who (without a file system and hundreds of clerks) don't know one major from another. The staffer thus looks to his superiors in the staff hierarchy, and seeks to impress and serve his line commander only for the good reports this may generate to that hierarchy.

In turn, the line commander is freed from much of the administrative aspects of command, as Fionn explained. If not personally able, he can fade to a wallflower and let his staff run everything, limiting himself to a pure figurehead role. If personally able, he can concentrate on field command, key decisions, and relations with his immediate line subordinates and superiors. In addition, he can "tap" the staff system as a whole, impressing its functionaries with the merit of his own ideas, using them as his executive managers, and even reach into other less active line commanders' areas of responsibility by having "his Jeeves" talk to "their Jeeves".

Whatever gets through the meritocratic and doctrinal filter of acceptance by the staff can therefore spread in influence throughout the army. Whatever does not get through that filter gets contained to the fiefdom of this or that old "von", is regarded as a personal idiosyncrasy, and is prevented from spreading.

Now, in all of the above what is the political story with OKW and OKH? The answer is that OKH was the instrument of the professional military cadre trying to run the general staff system as it was intended and as it had operated in the 19th century and in WW I. And OKW was Hitler's weapon to prevent that from happening, and ensure instead his personal control. OKH was the *army* high command. The army had invented the general staff system, and contained the body of officers, schools, and traditions that compromised that system. The Luftwaffe, for instance, was recent as anything large, was Goering's personal fief, and was not run the same way at all. The OKW was the *armed forces* high command, and therefore included responsibility over the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine and SS etc, in addition to the Heer.

Hitler used the additional layer of bureaucracy above the army high command, needed for "joint-ness" between branches of service, to "cut off" the top level coordinating control of the old position of chief of the army general staff (CAGS for short). On the pretext that coordination with the other branches of service was necessary, and that the army did not understand the problems of those other branches, and that he did as coordinator of the overall grand strategy of Germany and as head of state, he took away the staff leading and line command leading role of the old CAGS.

But the whole staff system had functioned based on the unity of command provided by the CAGS. It was the old CAGS who had integrated the staff leading lines of control and the line-command leading lines of control. The lower level staffers were listened to by line commanders who outranked them, precisely as the representatives of the CAGS. Neuter the role of the CAGS, and the line commanders no longer have the old reason to defer to the staffers alongside them, whom they outrank and who no longer report to a body with the clout to discipline and control the line commander. Because the body they do report to - the CAGS, aka the head of OKH - has lost that power of discipline and control. How? Simply because any directive from OKH could be second guessed and reversed by OKW. As a result, nobody took anything coming from OKH as final, and it lost power to discipline line commanders.

Now, it would have been possible to simply move the CAGS responsibilities from the OKH to the OKW, with the OKW functioning in the old chief of general staff role. But that was not the intention, and it was not what was done. Instead, Hitler believed in the "fuhrer principle", aka line leaders taking personal responsibility for this or that affair, lobbying him personally and maintaining their own political relationships and standing with himself and the other leading figures of the regime (Goering, Himmler, etc). He did not let the head of OKW act as a CAGS in the old sense. He let Keitel or Jodl act as his own "Jeeves" in administrative matters, to free himself from clerkish duties, but nothing more than that.

Thus, Dupuy is correct that the practical relationship between OKH and OKW - the eclipsing of the old or "proper" role of the former by the latter - was the proximate cause of the neutering of the old general staff system in the German army of WW II. They were left with a struggling hybrid system.

Self effacing junior technocrats on staff still existed in the lower echelons of the army. Many of the most talented senior commanders had come up through the staff system and had been educated and formed by it - since the old staff system had been functioning in the interwar years, and scarfed up whatever intellect it could find within the army during those years.

But then in addition, talented men "climbed" by the newer, dictatorial processes intended by the new regime, in their own way mirroring Napoleon's original. Thus Manstein rose to staff planning by the old system based on his intellect, and in that capacity got a crack at planning the invasion of France in 1940. But that his plan was accepted over those of his seniors, and he himself immediately earmarked for senior line command (first of a Panzer corps in Russia in 1941, then of an army in the Crimea, earning the Marshal's baton, then of AG South after Stalingrad) was due to Hitler picking him out, as a Davout, say, had risen by impressing Napoleon.

Others "climbed" in the new way too. Guderian did, when the staff was still relatively skeptical of his ideas. So did others less talented, promoted for their political views and loyalty rather than their military merit. By the end, Himmler, who had never been more than a policeman, was leading army groups, like one of Napoleon's less able cousins promoted for family loyalty.

There is little question the hybrid system did favor innovation in the early war years. Innovative men trained under the old system could get their ideas accepted and applied more readily by grabbing Hitler's ear than by trying to move the whole body of staff orthodoxy. But the staff system corrected mistakes, especially large ones or ones committed by senior people, much more readily. Line command tends to set large mistakes in concrete, because very important people have to admit they were wrong. Whereas a staff system can always blame some minor colonel for a bad idea and dispense with him. Staff professionalism also dealt with difficult conditions better, as blame games were less of a problem. The leader idea may have helped in 1939 to 1941, but the gutted staff system certainly hurt in 1943 to 1945.

But the main overall result of the mixture was confusion and lack of central military command. Which left Hitler with effective authority, because only he could decide the squabbles the whole mess of the mixed system automatically generated, among the military professionals themselves. From Hitler's standpoint, he divided to rule. From the army's, the staff system was effectively gutted to allow a military amateur to micromanage everything. Which set up exactly the sort of interfering amateur king with all the nobles lobbying him for influence that had paralyzed the Prussian army of 1805, and left it an uncoordinated easy prey.

So the old army was always lobbying for centralized professional military command. They would have preferred that OKH run everything. If OKW was insisted upon instead, they would have tolerated that if a strong head of OKW had been appointed, who could act as a true CAGS in the fashion of Ludendorf (the generalissimo of WW I), rather than a mere Jeeves of the head of state (like Keitel). Then this strong CAGS, at the traditional OKH or a minor innovation at OKW, would have run parallel line command and staff systems, with the line command system only subject to some Nazi party control for a degree of political reliability, and the staff system essentially free of such interference, left to function as a pure meritocracy representing the CAGS. Which Hitler would never tolerate, because such a CAGS would be a political rival to himself, and reduce him (in his own eyes) to a figurehead role.

I hope that helps understand what the OKH - OKW business is about. The key is simply to understand that the parallel lines of line command and staff command had to meet at the top of the military hierarchy, in order for the staff system to function as intended. With that meeting in the hands of a professional military officer, you got unity of professional command and the German general staff system was it was designed to function. OKH would have worked that way, if it had been allowed to run things.

With that meeting deferred to the hands of the head of state, you got divide and rule of that system by the head of state, acting as dictator and generalissimo himself, on the pattern of Napoleon. Which put line commanders in charge (the fuhrer principle, in effect) and eclipsed the staff system, relegating it to a body of useful junior clerks. Keitel was simply a high ranking useful clerk, not a real CAGS. That is how OKW actually ran the second half of the war.

[ August 24, 2002, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[JasonC]

Good responses already, but I will add a lot about the history, and also explain what I understand the point was about OKH.

The staff system was developed by Gneisenau during the wars of liberation in 1813. It was meant to make the incapable, defeated army of Jena in 1805 into a weapon that could fight Napoleon. It was based on a searching examination of the weaknesses of the army of 1805, and the relative strengths of Napoleon's Grand Armee. The goal was to counter Napoleon's personal military genius with a corporate bureaucratic structure that could outthink any single mind.

You should understand what armies were before Napoleon, particularly in the "old regime" aristocratic powers. Warfare was a sport of class nobility. Offices were vendible, commissions bought and sold. They carried honors, rank, command responsibilities, and a safe income guareenteed by the state. The bulk of most state budgets in Germany went to military expenditure, which could be skimmed or pocketed by commanding nobles in time of peace. Aristocratic "vons" treated military office as an alternative to land, as a personal fief. The officer "class" as a whole was a subset of the class nobility, outdoorsy "jocks" who rode and hunted, rich and relatively polished by the standards of the day. But not at all selected for intellect, merit, or schooling.

In actual war, many of those who held rank practically by birth (or wealth) proved incapable in the field. They had egos the size of houses and brains the size of walnuts, and quarrelled with each other about every decision, scarcely recognizing any common superior. The king was the only one over them all, and each was willing to denounce others to him as incompetent, lobbying for favor, position, and decisions made their own way. Unity of command was effectively lacking. Meshing of decisions made by seperate commanders at different times and places was nearly non-existent.

This system then faced a tightly run centralized machine commanded by the genuis of Napoleon. Who used flexible, seperated corps as part of an integrated, articulate structure. Each commanded by a marshal personally selected by Napoleon for conspicuous merit, often up through the ranks and always experienced and loyal (Bernadotte excepted). This organization caught the German army still concentrating. The result was the defeat in detail at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt, and a subsequent relentless pursuit in which nothing could be rallied, and only one officer (Blucher) managed to keep any effective force in the field.

So they saw that they needed to make some pretty drastic changes from the old "von" way of doing things. But the aristocratic political structure of the Prussian state could not be changed. They needed French meritocracy without French social revolution. They needed centralized military command without a general replacing the king as head of state. And they needed a professional officer corps without years of campaigning and of selection out of the ranks by the eye of a command genius.

The staff system was designed to fufill these functions. It created a sort of parallel bureaucracy to the command structure of the old army, which was now a seperate thing, the structure of "line command". These new nominal subordinates were selected and trained in meritocratic ways, without regard to birth or wealth, based primarily on raw intelligence and secondarily on formal military schooling. An intellectual, rather "academic" hierarchy (similar to the professoriate), was "stapled" alongside the class based line command one.

This duplicated a common class-based division of labor in German society at the time. The aristocratic rich relied on able subordinates who did the actual intellectual work of organization and administration. They reserved playing politics, ultimate command responsibility, ownership, pomp and circumstance - to themselves. Just as their bankers, their butlers, their overseers, their clerks handled their finances, households, farms, and offices, now "staffers" would handle the intellectual aspects of military command. The general staff idea was putting "Jeeves" in charge of operations, because he obviously was rather more clever than his sporting employer.

All of this is rather important not just to understand why the system was developed and its "feel", division of responsibilities, etc. It is also important to understand what broke when it was changed, and the characteristic problems that re-emerged. Hitler considered himself another Napoleonic military genius, and the reduced role of the head of state that the staff system was based on, got in his way. The army considered him a meddling king who did not know military operations from his anatomy unless he was told. To them, he was wrecking the carefully constructed system they had created to put effective military decision making in their own corporate hands while leaving civilian political leadership to a figurehead king.

The army expected to give due political deference to the leader, but to make the effective decisions on a meritocratic, intellectual, and organized basis. Hitler expected to make the decisions as the actual chief of state, and ridiculed as hypocracy, deceit, gross flattery, and crawling servility the careful professional subordination of the officer class. Which was completely the opposite of his own ideas of leadership by will, personal responsibility, and sense of destiny, which were the personification of "line command". Indeed, the "fuhrer principle" was "line command" writ large.

So there was an enourmous politically charged "culture clash" at the very base of civilian-military relations in the Third Reich. The army was designed for a figurehead monarchy, a nominal aristocracy, and the cloaked but effective reality of a bureaucratic professional meritocracy of educated, selected, trained experts. They wanted Hitler to act as figurehead, the Nazi Party to act as nominal aristocracy and political control, and the professional officers of the Heer to make the actual decisions as technocrats - as the king had done, the old aristocracy of princes and vons had done, and the old German general staff had done, in the 19th century and in WW I. None of which remotely fit Hitler's self conception as a new Napoleon intent on revolutionizing German society in ways Gneisenau and company had carefully avoided doing in 1813.

That is political background. The military reality of the staff system is easier to explain once it is understood. At the peak of both the line command system and the merit-professional staff system stood the Army General Staff. It was the place where the lines of control of both parallel hierarchies met.

Staff officers, by virtue of the tabs on their shoulders, were directly under high level commanders at the center of the army, acting as their designated subordinates. The line commanders they worked with were far senior to them in rank and usually in time in service, also in political connections, heft, and general poohbahhood. But the staffer was the central command's personal "bright young thing" on the spot, reporting directly to the central command and effectively representing it at the line commander's HQ. When the line commander hears his voice, he does not hear a mere colonel. He hears the trusted errand boy of his own boss.

Unity of command is thus provided by the chief of the army general staff. He runs the staffers, who are his agents. He outranks and can relieve even the most senior line officers (although in practice, the highest ones have independent political heft with the head of state, making any changes there delicate political maneuvers). The line commanders listen to mere staffers precisely because they represent his own clout over them. They are his personal "machine" running throughout the army, whereas each line commander has little control over the staffers in his command.

Above all, a line commander has little control over the staffer's career tracks, their promotions and next assignments, which are in the hands of the central staff bureaucracy, led by the army chief of staff. And which involve men too junior in rank to merit the attentions of the chief of state or the political poohbahs of the aristocracy, who (without a file system and hundreds of clerks) don't know one major from another. The staffer thus looks to his superiors in the staff hierarchy, and seeks to impress and serve his line commander only for the good reports this may generate to that hierarchy.

In turn, the line commander is freed from much of the administrative aspects of command, as Fionn explained. If not personally able, he can fade to a wallflower and let his staff run everything, limiting himself to a pure figurehead role. If personally able, he can concentrate on field command, key decisions, and relations with his immediate line subordinates and superiors. In addition, he can "tap" the staff system as a whole, impressing its functionaries with the merit of his own ideas, using them as his executive managers, and even reach into other less active line commanders' areas of responsibility by having "his Jeeves" talk to "their Jeeves".

Whatever gets through the meritocratic and doctrinal filter of acceptance by the staff can therefore spread in influence throughout the army. Whatever does not get through that filter gets contained to the fiefdom of this or that old "von", is regarded as a personal idiosyncrasy, and is prevented from spreading.

Now, in all of the above what is the political story with OKW and OKH? The answer is that OKH was the instrument of the professional military cadre trying to run the general staff system as it was intended and as it had operated in the 19th century and in WW I. And OKW was Hitler's weapon to prevent that from happening, and ensure instead his personal control. OKH was the *army* high command. The army had invented the general staff system, and contained the body of officers, schools, and traditions that compromised that system. The Luftwaffe, for instance, was recent as anything large, was Goering's personal fief, and was not run the same way at all. The OKW was the *armed forces* high command, and therefore included responsibility over the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine and SS etc, in addition to the Heer.

Hitler used the additional layer of bureaucracy above the army high command, needed for "joint-ness" between branches of service, to "cut off" the top level coordinating control of the old position of chief of the army general staff (CAGS for short). On the pretext that coordination with the other branches of service was necessary, and that the army did not understand the problems of those other branches, and that he did as coordinator of the overall grand strategy of Germany and as head of state, he took away the staff leading and line command leading role of the old CAGS.

But the whole staff system had functioned based on the unity of command provided by the CAGS. It was the old CAGS who had integrated the staff leading lines of control and the line-command leading lines of control. The lower level staffers were listened to by line commanders who outranked them, precisely as the representatives of the CAGS. Neuter the role of the CAGS, and the line commanders no longer have the old reason to defer to the staffers alongside them, whom they outrank and who no longer report to a body with the clout to discipline and control the line commander. Because the body they do report to - the CAGS, aka the head of OKH - has lost that power of discipline and control. How? Simply because any directive from OKH could be second guessed and reversed by OKW. As a result, nobody took anything coming from OKH as final, and it lost power to discipline line commanders.

Now, it would have been possible to simply move the CAGS responsibilities from the OKH to the OKW, with the OKW functioning in the old chief of general staff role. But that was not the intention, and it was not what was done. Instead, Hitler believed in the "fuhrer principle", aka line leaders taking personal responsibility for this or that affair, lobbying him personally and maintaining their own political relationships and standing with himself and the other leading figures of the regime (Goering, Himmler, etc). He did not let the head of OKW act as a CAGS in the old sense. He let Keitel or Jodl act as his own "Jeeves" in administrative matters, to free himself from clerkish duties, but nothing more than that.

Thus, Dupuy is correct that the practical relationship between OKH and OKW - the eclipsing of the old or "proper" role of the former by the latter - was the proximate cause of the neutering of the old general staff system in the German army of WW II. They were left with a struggling hybrid system.

Self effacing junior technocrats on staff still existed in the lower echelons of the army. Many of the most talented senior commanders had come up through the staff system and had been educated and formed by it - since the old staff system had been functioning in the interwar years, and scarfed up whatever intellect it could find within the army during those years.

But then in addition, talented men "climbed" by the newer, dictatorial processes intended by the new regime, in their own way mirroring Napoleon's original. Thus Manstein rose to staff planning by the old system based on his intellect, and in that capacity got a crack at planning the invasion of France in 1940. But that his plan was accepted over those of his seniors, and he himself immediately earmarked for senior line command (first of a Panzer corps in Russia in 1941, then of an army in the Crimea, earning the Marshal's baton, then of AG South after Stalingrad) was due to Hitler picking him out, as a Davout, say, had risen by impressing Napoleon.

Others "climbed" in the new way too. Guderian did, when the staff was still relatively skeptical of his ideas. So did others less talented, promoted for their political views and loyalty rather than their military merit. By the end, Himmler, who had never been more than a policeman, was leading army groups, like one of Napoleon's less able cousins promoted for family loyalty.

There is little question the hybrid system did favor innovation in the early war years. Innovative men trained under the old system could get their ideas accepted and applied more readily by grabbing Hitler's ear than by trying to move the whole body of staff orthodoxy. But the staff system corrected mistakes, especially large ones or ones committed by senior people, much more readily. Line command tends to set large mistakes in concrete, because very important people have to admit they were wrong. Whereas a staff system can always blame some minor colonel for a bad idea and dispense with him. Staff professionalism also dealt with difficult conditions better, as blame games were less of a problem. The leader idea may have helped in 1939 to 1941, but the gutted staff system certainly hurt in 1943 to 1945.

But the main overall result of the mixture was confusion and lack of central military command. Which left Hitler with effective authority, because only he could decide the squabbles the whole mess of the mixed system automatically generated, among the military professionals themselves. From Hitler's standpoint, he divided to rule. From the army's, the staff system was effectively gutted to allow a military amateur to micromanage everything. Which set up exactly the sort of interfering amateur king with all the nobles lobbying him for influence that had paralyzed the Prussian army of 1805, and left it an uncoordinated easy prey.

So the old army was always lobbying for centralized professional military command. They would have preferred that OKH run everything. If OKW was insisted upon instead, they would have tolerated that if a strong head of OKW had been appointed, who could act as a true CAGS in the fashion of Ludendorf (the generalissimo of WW I), rather than a mere Jeeves of the head of state (like Keitel). Then this strong CAGS, at the traditional OKH or a minor innovation at OKW, would have run parallel line command and staff systems, with the line command system only subject to some Nazi party control for a degree of political reliability, and the staff system essentially free of such interference, left to function as a pure meritocracy representing the CAGS. Which Hitler would never tolerate, because such a CAGS would be a political rival to himself, and reduce him (in his own eyes) to a figurehead role.

I hope that helps understand what the OKH - OKW business is about. The key is simply to understand that the parallel lines of line command and staff command had to meet at the top of the military hierarchy, in order for the staff system to function as intended. With that meeting in the hands of a professional military officer, you got unity of professional command and the German general staff system was it was designed to function. OKH would have worked that way, if it had been allowed to run things.

With that meeting deferred to the hands of the head of state, you got divide and rule of that system by the head of state, acting as dictator and generalissimo himself, on the pattern of Napoleon. Which put line commanders in charge (the fuhrer principle, in effect) and eclipsed the staff system, relegating it to a body of useful junior clerks. Keitel was simply a high ranking useful clerk, not a real CAGS. That is how OKW actually ran the second half of the war.

[ August 24, 2002, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]