A former director of doctrine and research at the Bundeswehr Command and General Staff Academy stated that General Staff officer training should be aimed at producing officers who are capable of occupying the position of Chief of Staff of a major formation or command agency, as the responsibilities for this assignment are representative of General Staff requirements. Therefore, General Staff training should be directed towards this objective. This statement sheds light on the decisive peculiarity of the German General Staff officer, which distinguishes him from his colleagues of all other armed forces. He has a dual responsibility; specifically, as is the case in other armies, the General Staff officer relieves his commander from the technical details of staff work. However, in the German system, his main task is to advise his commander in all matters, and he is entitled to the commander's attention. The General Staff officer bears the shared responsibility for the relevance of his advice. Thus the General Staff officer has a position that makes him stand out from the rest of the staff officers. While all staff officers give advice to their senior officers, the General Staff officer additionally provides advice to his commander in all relevant matters. He has the right to urge the commander to make a decision, and the commander must listen to him. The General Staff officer is entitled to articulate diverging opinions. He is the "alter ego" of his commander; moreover, he bears joint responsibility because he is accountable for the relevance of his advice.3"
The first General Staff officer of a major unit or command has an especially elevated position. He actively participates in all stages of command and control. Together with his commander, he evaluates the mission, estimates the situation and develops the decision. After this process it is no longer possible to say who made the individual contributions. The commander alone, however, has the authority to make decisions on his own. Once a decision has been made, the General Staff officer loyally carries out his orders.
The following two examples from German military history are intended to underline this particularly close cooperation between commanders and their first General Staff officers. In his memoirs, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg rendered a description of his relationship with his first General Staff officer, General of the Infantry Erich Ludendorff, during World War I. He said:
I myself have often described my relationship with General Ludendorff as a happy marriage. How can an outside observer clearly differentiate the merits of the individual man within such a relationship. Thoughts and actions merge, and the words of one man are often just the expression of the thoughts and feelings of the other one.3'
Colonel General Hans von Seeckt, one of the "big Chiefs of Staff" of World War I, elaborated on the same subject pointing out that before the commander made a decision, he had to first listen to the advice of an assistant, his Chief of Staff:
The decision is taken in private, and when the two men come out, there is only one decision. They have amalgamated it; they share one mind with each other. Should the opinions have differed, in the evening of this happy day in a military marriage the two halves will no longer know who gave in. The outside world and military history
will not have knowledge of a domestic quarrel. The competence of command and control is based on this fusion of the two personalities. It does not matter if the order bears the commander's signature, or if the Chief of Staff has signed it for the High Command (today 'For the commander') according to our old custom. The commander always issues his orders through his Chief of Staff, and even the most senior subordinate leader must submit himself to his orders without objection, because his orders will always be given on behalf of the supreme commander.
At higher command levels only the first General Staff officer, the G3 of the brigade or the Chief of Staff, has this particularly close relationship with his commander. Younger General Staff officers, however, cooperate with their respective superiors in just the same way. They have the right and the obligation to advise them. Theoretically, every General Staff officer is authorized to approach his commander and offer him advice.
The increasing trend within the Bundeswehr is that all subordinates are supposed to give advice to their superiors. The superior officer should listen to the advice of his subordinates-when it seems appropriate. Up to now, however, it is only the German General Staff officer who has had the institutionalized right to press his advice upon his superior, who, in turn, is obligated to listen prior to making his decision. This is not always very easy for commanders. Thus, the German General Staff system bears the inherent potential for strong Chiefs of Staff to dominate weak superiors. This inherent danger is one of the reasons why it is almost impossible to explain the peculiarities of the German General Staff system to foreigners. Allied commanders would not tolerate an officer at their side who has the institutionalized right to give advice, even when not solicited. This would be detrimental to their understanding of authority. Therefore, German General Staff officers serving in NATO staffs often meet with a total lack of understanding when they try to force their advice on their allied commanders. Such behavior is often interpreted as insubordination.
Even the French General Staff system does not provide for a jointly responsible adviser. In his Réflexions sur l'art de la guerre, General de Serrigny, who was General Petain's chief of cabinet during the battle for Verdun, describes the relationship between the commander and the Chief of Staff as follows:
The general devises and directs his operations with his closest advisers including one or several tactically trained officers who take up his thoughts and cooperate in the closest way. (In France, these officers are called 'adjoints'.) The Chief of Staff is responsible for feeding resources to the battle. He immediately directs all supply operations and issues orders to the respective agencies.
The adjoints in the French staff system are integrated in the organization of the French commander's Cabinet. They work exclusively for him. They are personal staff officers who supply original ideas to their commanders and fulfill functions which are done within the Prussian-German General Staff System by the General Staff officers. They are, however, not advisers to their commanders in the German sense.