BRASS HATS NEVER LEARN
Hesseltine, William B.
Brass Hats Never Learn By WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE AS far back as history runs, civilian observers and military critics have been making caustic comments upon the apparent inability of army officers...
...In the realm of people, however, the military has shown no such capacity, and its conduct has confirmed the critical generalization...
...They learned to use the jeep, to build a movable bridgehead, to open K-rations, and were even about to improve on the tank...
...But the Government," said the Colonel, "took the viewpoint that the forces had been sent into Germany to insure the fruits of a hard-earned victory, not for their personal pleasure or profit...
...Chapter 11 of this report recounts the "Relations between Army and Civil Population" and gives in detail the story of the collapse of the Army's anti-fraternization order...
...They saw that a great deal of what they had read about the innate viciousness of all Germans was not true and their war memories began to fade...
...The officers, finding it practically impossible to learn the language, found it difficult to study the institutions and customs, the history, laws, methods of manufacture and the commerce of the country," Col...
...Almost the first act of the commander of the American Army which occupied the Rhineland was to issue an order firmly forbidding American soldiers from associating with German civilians...
...Yet the officers did learn something—and they learned it from the very elements of the population against whom the war had been allegedly waged...
...But this, too, had consequences...
...The first consequence was an enormous increase in venereal diseases...
...For the first time in months," runs the report, they "slept in beds...
...ACASE in point is the relation of the Army to the civilian population in the occupied and enemy areas...
...But these were problems which were settled easily, and disturbances were few...
...The German people gave them the same wide-berthed respect they accorded to the officers of their own Army...
...When the troops moved to barracks, the military police immediately tightened up enforcement...
...Hunt reported...
...I. L. Hunt's report on American Military Government of Occupied Germany after the last war...
...German women of better families would not associate with soldiers on account of the Army order, and their feminine companionship, if they sought such, had to be found among such types of prostitutes—usually the lowest ones—as would risk arrest for the chance of a fei%marks...
...Is it possible that Joe Stalin is the only one who had read and heeded the lesson of 1919...
...In the last paragraph of Chapter 11, is a didactic conclusion: "A military occupation which accomplishes its purpose with the least possible friction with the inhabitants is, in the end, the most successful...
...After they had had supper with a German family, the soldiers "sat in a warm kitchen surrounded by the family, which is a luxury to be appreciated only by those who have spent long cold nights in the field...
...Hunt, "almost always strike up a strong friendship, and the American soldier and the German boy or girl were no exception to the rule...
...In a relatively short time, admitted the Officer in Charge of Civil Affairs, the average soldier personally knew most of the inhabitants of the German village which he occupied, and the only effect of the anti-fraternization order was to make the soldiers watch carefully for the M.P.'s when appearing in public with his German acquaintances...
...A far more serious problem for the Army was the number of American boys who sought permission to marry German girls...
...This criticism is perhaps too -sweeping in its generalization...
...And, as one turns from reading this record to reading the newspapers, one might indeed wonder whether the brass hats can learn from experience...
...While the soldiers might learn to know and understand the By WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE people of the country, the officers relied upon the existing Prussian bureaucracy...
...In the United States, the fellow-travelling press, the hate-mongering columnists, and the vitriol-voiced radio commentators went into immediate ecstasies of approval...
...After the order was removed, and for the remainder of the occupation, the relations of the soldiers and the civil population were good...
...The American soldiers in the occupying army were bil-letted in German homes...
...In this war, the military officials have shown a surprising and unprecedented willingness to adopt new weapons and to use new methods of destruction...
...In the barracks-bag of every officer who is charged, in any way, with civil administration in the conquered territory is a copy of Col...
...In the light of the war just ended, the criticism needs modification...
...And immediately, the absurdity of the order began to become apparent...
...THE consequence of this was that "by the time the troops reached their permanent stations, their mental attitude towards the inhabitants had entirely changed...
...In the realm of things—of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of tools and weapons and gadgets of death—the brass hats have indeed shown a capacity to learn from experience...
...By preventing open association with the civil population, it precluded their acquirement of the broadening influences which usually are obtained from residence in a foreign land...
...But the report did not leave its lesson without drawing a moral...
...The order had a different effect, however, upon the American officers...
...The officers were billeted in the better houses and in hotels, they had rooms to themselves, and they were able to maintain the attitude of dignified aloofness which the Army demanded...
...If we continue our present pig-headed policy and the Russians become even more approachable to the Germans, it won't be long, at the present rate, before we've exhausted that reservoir of good will that Wendell Willkie used to talk about, while the Russians become the friend and big brother of "the oppressed Germans...
...27, 1919, after a 9-month failure, the anti-fraternization order was rescinded...
...This document, issued by the War Department in 1943, was the basic text in the Military Government School in Charlottesville, and in the Civil Affairs Training Schools (the 'CATS' program) for officers at a dozen universities...
...In gore-dripping words they gave glorious acclaim to this new evidence that the militarists had learned nothing from the past...
...The miscasting of men-making attorneys into mechanics and librarians into landing ship operators—has been as tragically ludicrous in this war as in the last...
...Eisenhower issued an anti-fraternization order to his soldiers, defining drastic penalties for soldiers who associated with civilians in the occupied areas...
...The relations of officers to men, the administration of convalescent camps and veterans hospitals, the building of morale—in all the areas where personal, human factors are involved—the brass hats have displayed both an inability and an unwillingness to change their ancient methods and procedures...
...Promptly upon the entrance of United Nations troops on German soil, Gen...
...Brass Hats Never Learn By WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE AS far back as history runs, civilian observers and military critics have been making caustic comments upon the apparent inability of army officers generally, and the 'brass hats' of general staffs in particular, to learn from experience...
...Occasionally there were problems, as when super-patriotic preachers posted on their church doors the names of girls who associated with soldiers, or when American soldiers knocked the hats from German heads as the flag went by...
...Soldiers . . . got promptly on friendly terms with the civilians with whom they were billetted, despite the rigors of the anti-fraternization order...
...What makes this new non-fraternization order especially revealing is the fact that the officers who issued it are thoroughly familiar with the experience of the Army of Occupation in 1918-19...
...They accepted the airplane after expressing a cautious skepticism, and learned how to utilize its destructive potentialities against industrial plants, transportation systems, and civilians...
...While the soldiers were finding likable human beings in the homes of the peasants, their officers came to admire the old imperial government...
...Soldiers and children," continues Col...
...That finally brought results: On Sept...
...The Rhine-lander today . . . realizes that we did not indulge in petty spite and meanness, that .we told the truth and pursued our objectives openly and directly, without chicanery or double dealing...
...The increasing Prussianization of the officers led the Army to continue to enforce the anti-fraternization order...
...The generals, say the critics, fought the First World War on the plan of the American Civil War, and fought the Second World War on the model of the first...
...SUCH was the record—in the official text-book—of the last time an anti-fraternization order was tried...
...For the reports are that even as Joe's press in Moscow is haranguing Americans for being "soft" about the Germans, Russian troops and officers are adopting a kindlier and more sympathetic attitude toward the German people...
...Whatever reasons may be marshalled for or against such a form of government," thought the officers, "it is self-evident that its autocratic nature peculiarly fits it to adapt itself to the wishes of an occupying army...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 25
