Soldiers as citizens: Former German officers in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1955

Soldiers as Citizens addresses both the development of a democratic ideology in the Federal Republic and the social and cultural impact of warfare in Germany. By tracing the transition of the elite group of former officers from a National Socialist dictatorship to a western-style democracy. The research clearly shows that a pre-existing soldiers\u27 ideology based on service to the nation, camaraderie, and anti-communism interacted with the experience of the war and the requirements of the post-war era to produce a measure of quietism and support for democracy among German career soldiers. Most career soldiers in the Federal Republic supported and contributed to the emerging political system despite the fact that much of their language and many of their ideas derived from anti-democratic and even National Socialist models. Using the private letters of officers, the papers of their post-war organizations, church records, newspapers, and memoirs, this dissertation approaches the issue from the side of the officers themselves, delving into their political proposals and crises of conscience they experienced in the years after 1945. Many officers were very concerned to carry on the traditions of the German military. Career soldiers insisted that values such as discipline and honor, and the experiences of soldierly comradeship and class unity which the German military had always provided were indispensable to the nascent democracy of the Federal Republic. In the process, however, many former officers failed to consider the similarity between their own and Hitler\u27s celebration of soldierly values, the role which the army played in destroying the Weimar democracy, and the hostility of the German public toward the Wehrmacht. From occupying the apex of the social hierarchy to being virtual pariahs, the German officer corps provides an enlightening example of a social group, ravaged by war and defeat, trying to orient itself in a world initially hostile to it. Between 1945 and 1955, the German officer corps did adapt, if imperfectly, to the political and social milieu of the Federal Republic and its democratic values