does have a tradition, such as that displayed following the disaster at Pearl Harbor, of relieving and even demoting officers that fail to meet expectations. The United States, of course, has never had a policy of executing officers, even for inexcusable failures. Demoting Officers Who Fall Behind Expectations During the course of the war, Hitler executed 84 German generals, and another 135 generals were killed in action. Ironically, one of the few senior commanders to survive, Dimitri Pavlov, would be executed within days of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union because of incompetence.Īfter the war started, Germany was equally hard on general officers. During his frenzied attack on the officer ranks through the end of 1938, Stalin had executed at least 65,000 officers, including 13 of 15 generals of the army, 93 percent of all officers ranked lieutenant general and above, and 58 percent of all officers ranked colonel through major general. Russia and Germany Both Hard Up for OfficersĪ few years before World War II Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin purged the Soviet military of most of its high ranking and experienced officers. During the war, Hitler not only directed military battles, but controlled the general officer corps to an incredible, and as it turned out, disastrous degree.

This was especially evident in the Soviet Union in the years before the onset of World War II.

Some nations have a unique concept of control over military leadership. Since the earliest days of recorded warfare, the good leaders have always been at the forefront of battle.

Leaders being out front or is not a unique military concept, nor exclusively that of the United States. This attitude was the norm for American commanders in WWII, and the amazement is not that a few dozen general officers were lost, but that U.S. You can’t push it, you have to pull it after you.” He was referring to commanders being leaders as he had little use for commanders that were not out in front of their units. Patton, Jr., once said, “An army is like a piece of cooked spaghetti.

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