The Orphan Army

To hear the West German generals tell it, their soldiers are so inept and so lacking in morale that they would scarcely be a match for the Beefeaters in the Tower of London or the halberd-bearing papal guard. Speaking to a closed session of officers at the Leadership Academy near Hamburg, Major General Helmuth Grashey complained that the Bundeswehr (literally, Federal Defense Force) is burdened with too much civilian bureaucracy and hounded by an ombudsman who undermines officers' authority by listening sympathetically to soldiers' gripes.

Above all, Grashey lashed out at the principle of Innere Fuehrung, or "inner direction." This Riesmanesque notion holds that an army must be more than a goose-stepping collection of robots blindly obeying orders. The soldier is supposed to follow commands because he understands the reasons for them, rather than jawohl-ing out of automatic respect for, or fear of, authority. Though all officers are obliged to take courses in Innere Fuehrung, some are unhappy about it. Brigadier General Heinz Karst charges that inner direction has produced an "unsoldierly army."

Motor Damage. Whether Innere Fuehrung is at fault, or something else, the Bundeswehr is in bad shape. The No. 1 problem is manpower--the army is 3,500 officers and 32,000 noncoms short. Since German bureaucratic traditions dictate that all desk jobs be filled first, it is the field and training units that are the most undermanned.

Filling the ranks has become increasingly difficult. Spurred by West Germany's noisy left, the number of applications for exemption by conscientious objectors has risen from 6,000 in 1967 to 11,800 last year--and 81% of the exemptions were granted. West Berlin, where residents are draft-exempt, is increasingly used as an asylum for young men who want to avoid military service. They stay there as students or workers until they pass draft age. In recent weeks, three Bundeswehr officers--two of whom held sensitive positions--have defected to East Germany. There is an increase of minor sabotage, consisting largely of motor damage and destruction of weapon parts.

With the German economy still surging, officers and men feel underpaid. A full colonel earns about as much as a ski instructor; a master sergeant's pay about equals that of a cab driver. Moreover, a uniform provides no compensating psychic income to its wearer today. Determined not to repeat the mistakes of previous regimes that allowed the German army to become a state within the state, Bonn may have downgraded the postwar armed forces too far--the defense share of the federal budget has dropped from 28% in 1965 to 22.6% this year. Few soldiers wear their uniforms on furlough. Many German girls boast that they would never date a soldier in uniform. The uniform itself --gray and baggy--faithfully reflects the army's lack of prestige.

Even more frustrating for general officers is the fact that they do not even have official control of the troops under their command. West Germany has no operational general staff, and all its strategic plans and commands come from NATO headquarters in Belgium. Unlike other NATO powers, which allot part of their armed forces to NATO but keep command of the remainder, every single West German combat unit is under NATO command. Although a number of West German officers are mixed in with other allied officers in the NATO command structure, in practical terms the Bundeswehr is an extension of the U.S. Seventh Army. U.S. Lieut. General Donald Bennett, commanding VII Corps in Stuttgart, notes that Germany "is the only major country in the world that has agreed to put its self-defense into someone else's hands."

Unhasty Improvements. The Bundeswehr does have some friends of the kind that obviates the need for many enemies: the far-right National Democratic Party of Adolf von Thadden. In his convention speech at Stuttgart last month, Von Thadden spent 60 out of 90 minutes talking sympathetically about the Bundeswehr and deploring its problems. A number of officers are campaigning as National Democratic candidates in the September elections.

Defense Minister Gerhard Schroder surfaces every few weeks or so to promise improvements in the armed forces, but he inevitably adds that reforms must not take place too hastily. An extreme view has been put forward by Major Rudolf Woller, president of the Association of Bundeswehr Reservists. In a recent speech, he said: "If in the subconscious of the nation the impression takes hold that it is not really protected by the German contribution to the defense system, the leadership of the state could be forced to a change of course toward neutralism."

If this were to happen, it would represent one of the supreme ironies of history. But then, nations do tend to get the kinds of armies they want. There is no doubt that for many West Germans, the Bundeswehr is an unwelcome reminder of the guilt-laden past, bothersome in an age of affluence, redundant in an era of seeming detente.

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