Today, more than ever before, it is a necessity for General and Admiral Staff officers to deal with both technical matters and their own special position within the German officer corps and the Atlantic Alliance. The revolutionary developments in the former "German Democratic Republic" and the eastern countries since autumn 1989 have created a volatile security-political situation. They have questioned everything that has been valid up to now in the East-West confrontation and the present security structures. Even hitherto it has been difficult enough for the "commander's adviser" in the Federal Armed Forces to comprehend and put in its proper place security policy as a complex array of diverging, continuously shifting forces and factors within the overall framework.
Many questions are rising today which require the General and Admiral Staff officer's innovative participation. The former "National People's Army" is being integrated into the Federal Armed Forces. A new European-North American security architecture is being developed. Many of its parameters are still uncertain. The NATO heads of state and government have tasked the military to implement its New Strategic Concept which is to reflect force reductions which were agreed upon at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe of November 1990 and the ever diminishing threat in the Central Region. In view of these developments, the challenges to today's General and Admiral Staff officers have increased considerably and will continue to do so in the future. Besides coping with his everyday tasks, the "commander's adviser" must take pains to analyze and actively reevaluate the shifting security-political phenomena of our time.
This touches upon the problem of the education and training of young General and Admiral Staff officers to be advisers of their commanders. The ignorance of many Bundeswehr officers about the peculiarities of the German General Staff service frequently causes friction where General Staff officers are employed as superiors of older staff officers. One often meets with the opinion that young General Staff officers have the moral duty to greater diligence in the office than other staff officers due to their better career prospects. It is often overlooked, however, that the junior General Staff officers must first be educated and trained as their "commander's advisers." This can only be successful if they are not only employed as particularly hard-working staff officers, but rather frequently get the opportunity to practice advising their superiors. Acting as deputies for their commanders, they learn the interaction of the staff functional areas.
Many a young General Staff officer, however, is not always sufficiently conscious of the fact that the Fuehrungsakademie can only teach him how to train and educate himself in his preparatory assignments to become a "commander's adviser." The graduate of the assignment-oriented General and Admiral Staff course has not yet concluded his training and education. It is only in his following assignments in units, staffs and commands, the Federal Ministry of Defense and NATO that he is molded according to his professional image. This requires his own initiative. He has to go through a demanding self-educational process. Critical observers of the Federal Armed Forces increasingly point out the fact that quite a few young General and Admiral Staff officers strive to follow certain career patterns which are designed to present as little offense as possible and to agree with their superiors' opinions in order to receive the best efficiency reports, thus proceeding easily up the career ladder. "Streamlined" and adaptable General Staff officers, however, are inappropriate, for they are unable to fulfill their main task of advising their commanders and urging them to make decisions. Here, senior General Staff officers are required to exercise an influence on the molding and education of junior General Staff officers. In doing so they must also explain the particularities of a "commander's adviser" to other staff officers and support the junior General Staff officers. It would be unacceptable if they did not tend to this task, for otherwise there may be unnecessary disagreements or unrest in the staffs. It is uncontested at present that the 2-year General and Admiral Staff training is indispensable. It was discussed that General and Admiral Staff assignments in the Federal Armed Forces and in NATO are becoming increasingly complex, and go beyond the classic areas of responsibility in the tactical and operational fields. The curriculum at the Command and General Staff Academy must take this into consideration. More than ever before it is influenced by the rapidly changing military-political surroundings, by the developments within the united Germany, and by the daily practical cooperation in NATO staffs as well as by joint exercises with Germany's allies.
All this and the fact that an increasing number of students in the General and Admiral Staff training courses have a university education and are holding master's degrees—more than 90 percent of the course that ended in October 1989—makes the old dispute, whether General Staff training should be more technically or rather broadly, scientifically oriented, unnecessary.