The German Way of War: A Lesson in Tactical Management

by Jaap Jan Brouwer

How the German Army combined opposing characteristics, such as drill and creativity, authority and independent thinking, into a potent mix of fighting power.The German Army lost two consecutive wars and the conclusion is often drawn that it simply wasn’t able to cope with its opponents. This image is constantly reinforced in literature and in the media, where seemingly brainless operating German units led by fanatical officers predominate. Nothing was as far from the truth. The records show that the Germans consistently outfought the far more numerous Allied armies that eventually defeated their relative battlefield performance was at least 1.5 and in most cases 3 times as high as that of its opponents.The central question in this book is why the German Army had a so much higher relative battlefield performance than the opposition. A central element within the Prussian/German Army is Auftragstaktik, a tactical management concept that dates from the middle of the nineteenth century and is still very advanced in terms of management and organization.Using more than fifty examples to illustrate the realities of the battlefield, from North Africa to Arnhem and the Hürtgen Forest, the author explains why the Prussian/German Army was such an unprecedented powerful fighting force. And why Auftragstaktik—under other guises—is still the basic form of operation for many European armies, with even the US Army introducing certain elements of Auftragstaktik into its organization, more than 150 years after its conception.“A fascinating book looking at the way the German Army went about training its units and men.” —UK Historian

Genres: History, World War II, Leadership, Nonfiction

341 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2022

About the author

Jaap Jan Brouwer, also known as Richard Brouwer, is a military veteran and writes on the Second World War focusing on the battles in the Netherlands.

Reviews

[Heinz Reinhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic distillation of what the German methodology of war is, with an emphasis on Auftragstaktik, and how the German methodology compared, and contrasted to the Western Allies ways. The author, a Dutch businessman with a clear passionate interest in both management, and military history, has crafted a wonderful little book that is both a treatise on why the German way of warfare was so successful, as well as a clear, and easy to comprehend guide to effective leadership at both a military, and more broadly human level.
It has always seemed a bit ironic that, pointed out in books written by Martin Van Creveld, and Trevor Dupuy, as well as many others, that despite being heavily outmassed, and outgunned, pretty much from the first shots being fired, the Germans not only punched well above their own weight, they continued to do so right through to the bitter end. The biggest, and most obvious, question to ask is always: how?
Jaap Jan Brouwer does give you the how, however, the how is very secondary, even tertiary, to the why. Why did the Germans do things so radical differently, and why did it work as well for them as it did?
He makes a few key observations, early on, that stood out to me that this was a book that was far more than surface level military history. This was more on the level of a military polemic, or a treatise on military art and science.
Firstly, Brouwer points out that the long fragmented nature of the German States within the Holy Roman Empire, and then the Protestant Reformation, created a culture of strong resilience, self reliance, disciplined and subordinated individualism (explained in a minute), and very decentralized command structure on a societal level. This was the perfect breeding ground for a formulation of war fighting doctrine that embraced the chaos principal as an asset, rather than as something to be oppressed, or attempted to be controlled.
In the American, British, and certainly the Russian systems of war fighting, centralized command authority, strict discipline, officer privilege, and the emphasis on obedience to orders showcased a need to do everything possible to eliminate even the possibility of chaos within their battle plans. The Germans, on the other, not only embraced chaos as a natural happenstance of warfare, they actively sought to create it, both externally on their foes, and internally in their own command structure, as a double edged force multiplier.
Inflicting chaos upon a centralized command system, such as their opponents, offered them the advantages of slowing down a larger enemies response times, and to make more predictable their responses when they came. Inflicting it upon themselves meant that the Germans encouraged not only loose interpretations of orders by the small unit commander at the point of contact, it was actively encouraged (German Kriegsakademie never taught strict adherence to orders as a virtue, rather it was always seen as a flaw of their foe which could be ruthlessly exploited to a smaller, but more flexible, forces advantage. German cadets were even taught to disobey orders, proudly, and either not get caught doing so, or to ensure you at least had some level of success to show for it).
On the surface this seems to create an armed force that is not infecting chaos on an opponent, it is chaos personified. Rather, the Germans viewed their armies not as strictly delineated units of automatons who blindly obeyed orders, but as an extension of German society itself. Officers certainly held prestige, and command authority, but they were groomed to have close, cordial, even friendly relations with their men, treating them more as neighbors than as subordinates.
Unit pride was based on shared community, as well as tradition. In essence, the unit became a family, a sub-unit of the nation as a whole. And the decentralized command nature ensured not a jumbled mess of conflicting methods and toing and froing, but highly ordered, disciplined, subordinated individualism working in harmonious melody (what Brouwer terms the Germans 'concert of battle') towards a shared goal.
Rather than taught to merely obey, German officers, and soldiers, were taught to think for themselves. And part of how they did that was it was expected of them to read, even as soldiers, quite a bit. The Germans were a highly intellectual people, and created equally highly intellectual armed forces.
The proof was in the pudding of the overall combat power ratings of the opposing sides.
Piggy backing off of the work of Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld (who seems to take a seemingly perverse glee in pointing out to his fellow Israeli audience just how much of the IDF is whole cloth borrowed from the Germans of WW2, his 'The Sword and the Olive' is absolutely filled with little datapoints where he points that out), and American General Staff officer, and historian, Trevor Dupuy, Brouwer showcases the hard numbers of the kill ratio factor.
Against the Western Allies, wether in attack, or retreat, outnumbered or not, air superiority, or with the Luftwaffe totally absent, the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS routinely inflicted 50% greater losses on the combat units of the British, Commonwealth, and American forces. Against the Red Army, it averaged better than 400%.
So successful was the usage of Auftragstaktik in both World Wars, that when the Bundeswehr was established in West Germany, during the Cold War, it was decided to, after changing some terminology for the sake of their NATO allies, to simply carry on the traditions leftover from the Prussian/German Army of old.
There is some in this book that can, of course, be contested. It's doubtful that this book will be highly regarded in the Anglosphere, as it is fairly harsh, and critical of past, and current, British, and American doctrine. Little is analyzed about the Eastern Front, so I would love to see a deeper dive into this field of study via a comparing and contrasting with the Red Army and traditional Russian war fighting methodologies vis a vis the German.
Being Dutch, it makes sense that the author would decide to use, as a model showcase, his thesis in action the fighting for the Overloon Salient, which was south of Arnhem, and an invasion route into Germany proper. The fighting lasted for half a year, though the hardest fighting was in October of 1944, where a very small German force of understength units, barely 5,000, held off against five times their number of British and American troops. Held them off, though surrendering some ground, and managed to grind their offensive down, Inflicting a 3-1 loss ratio on the Allies in the process, too.
(In armor it was 9-1 in the Germans favor, that was a rarity, even on the Eastern Front [the author did take some time to bust one myth, that of Russian ineptness in armored warfare, German accounts typically rated the Soviets better as tankers than their Western foes]).
The chapter on the Overloon engagements is the only kinetic military history in the book, so if you are looking for that, you will be disappointed. However, if you're looking for a book that answers the why, rather than merely the how, of German combat effectiveness while being behind the 8-Ball in both World Wars, this book is a very well written, concise, and highly engaging one to pick (far cheaper than Van Creveld's, too, which is sadly only available from Praeger, an academic press with academic press proclivities on pricing scales...) from.
It also serves as an excellent analysis of effective leadership tools, and how to grow an adaptive, flexible leadership culture that will not just manage your organization, but actively get the very best from it on a daily basis.
Very highly recommended.

[Robert Neil Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The German Way of War, Jaap Jan Brouwer examines how World War II was fought by the German army and compares that to the two main Allied armies in the West: Britain and the United States. The Germans, Brouwer finds, adopted a command concept known as Auftragstaktik that diffused decision-making and initiative down through the ranks. That system compared favourably with the Americans and British in all the important aspects of infantry fighting, including army structure, leadership, training, and morale. Brouwer tests his thesis using examples mostly from the Italian, North African, and Western Fronts, with the Germans attempting to stave off Allied onslaughts in all three. In the end, he argues that the Allied victory was principally one of quantity over quality.
To make his case, Brouwer compares the strengths of the Germans to his perceived weaknesses of the Allies. Although based on the evidence, it is a selective approach open to counter-examples and contextual argument. In addition, Brouwer gives the Eastern Front little attention, and his argument that the German rank-and-file displayed little ideological motive is questionable. Thus, Brouwer’s thesis is not as strong as it first appears, but it is an interesting one to consider.

[Andrea Di Bernardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone familiar with the history of the German Army will know the term "Auftragstaktik" or "decentralized command", a kind of flexibility granted to lower-ranking officers by those who defined a battle plan. In simplistic terms it is equivalent to "It doesn't matter how you do it, the important thing is to reach the goal". Today's book, the interesting volume that I present to you, written by Jaap Jan Brouwer for the Pen & Sword house, goes into the explanation of this concept by analyzing both the principles and the practical application. But not only...
The volume also analyzes the other organizations and tactical management of the battle by the British and American military institutions in a comparative way.
The result, for those new to these topics can be revolutionary. In fact, the idea that one has of the German army is that, deriving from the mass media, in particular from cinema, even recently. The idea is obviously that of a "stiff" organization, which looks after the form and not the substance, which marches well, which drills well to have "automaton" reactions in battle. One particular scene is the one that comes to mind at the moment, among the dozens, if not hundreds of war films I've seen, or the final scene of the assault by dozens of Waffen SS on the Sherman tank of the movie "Fury. ". Well, if you are not familiar with the true tactics and psychology of the German army, you will most likely believe it is possible that it went like this, or, rather, that it could go like this.
Today's book, on the other hand, tends to demolish these certainties with the support of data and an excellent bibliography, obviously combined with several concrete examples (in particular in chapter 7 dedicated to the fighting near Overloon, in Holland at the end of the war) of actions in which those principles of flexibility have been highlighted. In reality, the stereotypical idea of ​​the German Army, or rather "Prussian" has true foundations , but refers to the perfect organization set up by Frederick the Great, and which lasted (albeit with substantial debacles) until 1806 , the year in which there were a series of terrible defeats that cast doubt on any certainty of the Prussian military planners. From that moment the war was objects of scientific study throughout the 19th century, with a series of treatises (first of all the famous Von Clausewitz) which restored strategic tactical pre-eminence to the Prussians (and the united Germany , created in 1870) and which it was the basis of the two World Wars.
Not only a doctrine of decentralized command in which the decision-making capacity of lower officers and non-commissioned officers was exalted, but also notable other revolutionary ideas such as the massive use of psychology, collaboration between various arms, socialization between officers and soldiers, a sense of community and many others that brought the German Army to the forefront of competing armies.
To this was added in part what happened after the end of the Great War, in which the German Army took advantage of the experiences and learned from them for the future war. In fact, its reduction, after the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 effective and 4000 officers, determined a selection in which only the best prevailed, which thus formed the basis for the expansion resulting from the rearmament of Nazi Germany.
Even the discipline in training, the "drill", was not an end in itself, but aimed at creating an inner discipline that served in critical moments to maintain the organicity of a military institution (in the book this experience is compared with situations of American and British crisis).
The book I am presenting to you therefore stands out for the substantial depth of analysis of the German military organization and its merits, which was demonstrated in the exemplary performance on all fronts of its troops, even those with little training. The flexibility and unity of the concepts taught meant that even variegated units could be temporarily united as "Kampfgruppen" (this organizational concept is also analyzed) that in their performance in battle would have had nothing to envy to organic units. The book also examines the values ​​and psychology of the forces at play, the Germans' often mistaken for "fanaticism", but in reality only a very high professionalism in carrying out what was a task. Thus the book is extremely interesting and valid and cannot miss on the shelves of fans and historians of the Second World War and beyond.

[Chase Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Examination of “the German way of war” and German tactical/operational superiority over the British and US through WWI & II. The author, a business consultant and author, claims the Germans battlefield superiority over the British and US derived from its embrace of Auftragstakrik and related military culture of boldness and flexibility. The author emphasizes “the concert of battle” (factors shaping battlefield success) as Impact= Exploration x Preparation x Focus x Cooperation x Speed x Mass x Continuation. Ultimately, he assesses that despite outfighting the US & UK Germany lost the war(s) due to Allied advantages in mass and firepower.

The author approaches his study by contrasting the German and US/UK in terms of leadership, training, and values & morale. The inclusion of short case studies or battlefield examples helps to illustrate the authors key points and makes for interesting reading. The authors analysis is interesting but his criticism of the American approach to conflict is overstated and based on selective use of historical examples. Specifically, I believe his claim that the US Army was too reliant on detailed planning and rigid in execution runs counter to American adaptability at the small unit level (dealing with hedgerows in Normandy). That said there is truth to his claim that the US relied heavily on mass and firepower but that is/was an asymmetric advantage the US would use that to their advantage.

Ultimately this is an interesting analysis that rightly emphasizes the importance of empowering subordinates, initiative, and boldness in military operations and as key to an organization's ability to seize opportunities in uncertainty. As any good business consultant would do the author closes with a list of seven conditions for success which can apply equally to the business and military professions:
- Trust your people
- Accept mistakes
- Formulate realistic goals
- Give room to maneuver
- Make sure your subordinates assume responsibility with pleasure
- There can be only one leader (unity of command)
- Make sure that there is a common vision and focus on cooperation

Authors own discussion of highlights can be found at: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/blog/...

[GuyBanff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Wish I knew enough to love this book as much as I do!

I wish I knew enough to like this book as much as I do. Something for every Germanophile and every amateur World War Two buff. A must read for both of those categories.