The Treaty of Versailles banned the Great General Staff and the War Academy, but not the Line General Staff. The army of the German Empire called the "Reichswehr," comprising 100,000 soldiers and 4,000 officers, was subordinate to the Reichswehr Minister, who, in turn, was responsible to the Parliament. It was by his order that the Chief of the Army Command (Chef der Heeresleitung) exercised command and control. Thus the Minister wore two hats: he was commander in chief and Chief of the General Staff rolled in one. The first Chief of the Army Command, General-Colonel von Seeckt, succeeded in retaining largely unnoticed by the victorious powers the Great General Staff in the Armed Forces Office of the Reichswehr Ministry. The Armed Forces Office (Truppenamt) looked after the classical tasks of a General Staff. From 1919 to 1920 it was headed by Seeckt, before he assumed the position of Chief of the Army Command. Sixty officers, mostly General Staff officers, served in the Armed Forces Office. Line General Staff officers were employed in the major formations. For purposes of deception, they were called "Commander's staff officers" (Fuehrerstabsoffiziere). The special uniform insignia of the General Staff officers were maintained. Several sections of the Great General Staff itself were dispersed among the civil ministries. The Topographical Section, for example, went to the Ministry of the Interior, the Railway Section to the Ministry of Transport, and the Military History Section disappeared into the new Imperial Archives (Reichsarchiv). In a directive signed on October 18, 1919, General von Seeckt showed that the General Staff Corps of the Reichswehr would uphold old traditions and set new standards of efficiency. He stated:
I expect every General Staff officer to ensure that by unremitting effort he acquires the highest possible degree of military ability and exerts upon the entire army an exemplary, inspiring and stimulating influence. Steadfast in concern for the troops...it will be his aim to make of them not only a reliable pillar of the state, but also a school for the teachers and leaders. (The General Staff officer)...must stand above parties and factions. Only then we shall have our hands and our hearts free for work embracing the whole people.
General von Seeckt broke new ground for the training of new generation officers: Every Reichswehr officer had to take part in military district examinations. The best 10 candidates then underwent a 2-year training course for "commander's staff officers" (Fuehrerstabsoffiziere) in the group commands. In this way General von Seeckt successfully tried to compensate for the lost centralized training facility of the War Academy. In the third year of training, the officers attended an obligatory training course in Berlin. Applied tactics was regarded as the most important subject of the military district examination. It also included papers on tactical theory, weapons, field craft, engineering and eight general subjects including a foreign language. Three or four problems had to be answered in a period of 6 to 10 hours. They were usually based on the tactics of an infantry regiment reinforced with elements of other arms, and involved the presentation of the regimental commander's estimate of the situation and his orders to follow. Together with his examination results, the character of each candidate was assessed from the annual reports of his superiors.
The process of selection extended throughout the 3 years of training. Of approximately 70, only some 15 went to the third year's course. It ended with a 2-week tactical field exercise which was passed finally by 8 to 10 students. The objective of the program was to train assistants for the senior field commanders and the central command structure, and to produce officers to be advisers, assistants and executors of leaders' decisions. The curriculum was much broader in scope than in the prewar War Academy. The Bundeswehr today maintains obligatory participation by all officers in a selective training course. Since that time, one cannot apply directly for general and admiral staff training in Germany.