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Image And Reality: The Making of the German Officer, 1921-1933
Excellent Book
280 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1984
3 people want to read
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May 14, 2016
The Reichswehr, the German Army that existed from 1919 until 1933, has the reputation as having been one of the most impressive and important armies in modern military history. Reduced to military-political insignificance through the Versailles Treaty, it managed to develop the most advanced thinking in the world about the use of tanks and airpower (even though both weapons were forbidden to it) and fostered a spirit of flexibility and initiative that became the bedrock upon which the successes of the Wehrmacht were built. And yet, as David Spires points out, there has been very limited study of the Reichswehr as an army, as opposed to its political impact. Indeed, although the book is now 30 years old, and authors such as Robert Citino and Matthias Strohn have published important works on the Reichswehr, Spires' analysis remains, to the best of my knowledge, the only one to delve into the detail of how the army actually operated.
Spires explores in turn the processes by which the Reichswehr selected its new officers, trained them, chose from them the new generation of General Staff officers and developed them in turn, posted its officers, promoted them, dismissed them, and then trained them in their operational duties. Throughout, the analysis is based on detailed evidence gained from contemporary German sources, as well as the highly informative reports of the US military attaches.
Spires highlights and examines many issues that are often overlooked or misinterpreted. For example, the requirement for officers to sign up for 25 years, producing an annual 4% turnover, imposed by the Versailles Treaty, was incompatible with the practical requirements of an army, where most officers need to be junior and young and where the most senior officers need to serve much longer than 25 years. The result was a rigorous weeding process, which ruthlessly rooted out the weaker officers and dismissed them long before their 25 years were completed, in order to create room for promotion and the right balance between the different ranks. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the book is that the Reichswehr lasted for little more than a decade, such that there was little time for many of its policies to come to maturity.
Overall, an excellent work, that forms one of the basic texts for any student of the Reichswehr, and hence the Wehrmacht.
Spires explores in turn the processes by which the Reichswehr selected its new officers, trained them, chose from them the new generation of General Staff officers and developed them in turn, posted its officers, promoted them, dismissed them, and then trained them in their operational duties. Throughout, the analysis is based on detailed evidence gained from contemporary German sources, as well as the highly informative reports of the US military attaches.
Spires highlights and examines many issues that are often overlooked or misinterpreted. For example, the requirement for officers to sign up for 25 years, producing an annual 4% turnover, imposed by the Versailles Treaty, was incompatible with the practical requirements of an army, where most officers need to be junior and young and where the most senior officers need to serve much longer than 25 years. The result was a rigorous weeding process, which ruthlessly rooted out the weaker officers and dismissed them long before their 25 years were completed, in order to create room for promotion and the right balance between the different ranks. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the book is that the Reichswehr lasted for little more than a decade, such that there was little time for many of its policies to come to maturity.
Overall, an excellent work, that forms one of the basic texts for any student of the Reichswehr, and hence the Wehrmacht.
Displaying 1 of 1 review