REARMAMENT PROBLEMS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05224835
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2022
• Case Number: F-2022-01257
• Publication Date: February 16, 1955

Approved for Release: 2022/09/29 C05224835
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
This material contains information affecting the Na-
tional Defense of the United States within the mean-
ing of the Espionage Livia, Title 18, U.S.C. Sees. 799
and 794, the transmission or revelation of which in
any manner to an unauthorised person is prohibited
bylaw.
-SICRE1=1573TaFFIetkb9-eNL-31-
COUNTRY
SUBJECT
West Germany
Rearmament Problems
DATE OF INFO. November 1954
PLACE ACQUIRED Germany, Munich
REPORT NO. CS �56521
DATE DISTR.
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THE SOURCE EVALUATIONS IN THIS REPORT ARE DEFINITIVE.
THE APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
(FOR KEY SEE REVERSE)
16 February 1955
SOURCE American Government official (A). Annraisal of Conten-k: 2.
The following is a summary of a conversation with former General Adolf Heusinger,
now a member of the Blank Office staff.
1. Rearmament plans currently developed in the Blank Office have now attained a fairly
definite form. The timetable informally accepted in responsible quarters i: based
on the hope that tht Paris Agreements will be ratified in West Germany before spring,
and that all NATO countries will complete the ratification before the end of June
1955.
2. Surprisingly little of the old EDC blueprint has been found suitable for immediate
use in the framework of a German national army. The anticipated military establish-
ment will be headed by a Defense Minister. He will have two principal assistants:
a civilian state secretary with responsibility for all non-military defense matters
and, on the same level, an Inspector of the Defense Forces, who will be a general.
Subordinate to the Inspector will be a General Staff which, in order to avoid un-
pleasant parallels ir recent German history, will be called something other than
"German General Staff." It will, however, have sections covering each of the normal
military staff planning functions. One of the sections will be the "Fuehrungsstab,"
designed as an intelligence, plans, and operations staff.
3. Personalities mentioned for .poste in the new military establishment notably include
General Heusinger himself, who is a possible choice for the position of Inspector
of the Defense Forces and who, after German integration in NATO, may be assigned to
the SHAPE staff. Among the younger prospects, Colonel Kurt Fett has been described
as a very capable man who enjoys a universally excellent reputation with former
German officers.
4. The immediate problems facing the Blank Office include the drafting of a legislative
program embracing the establishment of a national army, provisions for a draft, a
military budget, basic laws on military discipline and justice and a variety of
related minor problems. It is estimated that at least six months will be required
to get this legislation before the German parliament. Since the actual remilitaripation
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process cannot begin before Germany enters NATO and since a number of financial
questions remain to be settled, responsible officials feel that the first draftees
cannot possibly be inducted before June 1956. The Finance Minister has thus far
been unwilling to allocate additional funds to the Blank Office until the basic
legislation is on the books. On the other hand, the Blank Office cannot proceed
with the preparatory phases of rearmament until it has more money. Specifically,
one billion marks are needed early in 1955.
5. Since military service is not and never has been an attractive career for young men,
General Heusinger feels, the future pay scale for officers should provide for
adequate compensation. This would mean, for instance, four hundred marks a month
for a lieutenant, eight hundred marks for a married captain with one child, and
approximately eighteen hundred marks for a colonel. Finance Minister Fritz Schaeffer,
who wants to keep expenses at a minimum, has proposed considerably lower figures
which, in General Heusingerts opinion, would not attract high-quality officer material.
6. Under present plans, the German army will include 25,000 officers of whom approximately
8,000 will be lieutenants. Officer-training courses will be initiated at Sonthofen
where casernes are being made available by the U.S. Army. The first class will inellide
about two hundred top staff officers of colonel and general officer rank. This course
will last two months. It will be followed by a second course for field-grade officers
who will command the initial cadre, school, and training units. A third course for
company-grade officers, also of two months' duration, will lead into a training
program for junior troop officers, non-commissioned officers and specialists. If
the casernes that are to be utilized for training the army itself are ready in time,
the cadre training will be carried out there rather than in the central school at
Sonthofen.
7. At this Stage, General Heusinger is quite satisfied with American handling of German
rearmament problems. This applies in particular to American opposition to the long
anticipated French proposal that arms for Germany should be channeled through a West
European seven-nation armr-control group. Liaison between the Blank Office and senior
American officers has been similarly satisfactory to Heusinger, who feels that it
has produced more in a few weeks than had been accomplished in Paris in over two
years of planning.
8. Heusinger believes that historic developments since 1918 may provide some answers
to current remilitarization problems. He points out, for instance, that many of the
undesirable aspects of the imperial German army had disappeared in World War II.
These aspects include the sharp distinction between officers and enlisted men and
between general ltaff and line officers. The difference in behavior and morale
displayed by German soldiers in 1918 and 1945 is regarded as a possible result of
these improvements. Similarly, Heusinger believes, other moderate and sensible
reforms could further improve public morale, and could thereby help to protect the
young German democracy from the strains of remilitarization. The proposed measures
would include a good start for the new German army, with the beet possible officer
material, casernes, military leadership, weapons, and equipment. If the first
increment of draftees emerges with the feeling that the German defense ministry is'
doing the beat it can under the circumstances, Heusinger feels that a major obstacle
will have been overcome. On the other hand, if the officers are bad, if the equipment
is second-class, and if the entire remilitarization program is not accompanied by
an active information and education program for both soldiers and civilians, the act
of recreating a national army can, in Heusinger 'a opinion, destroy the good start
that has been made in fashioning a German democracy. In this connection, Heusinger
has found that EEC had an attraction for the average German, and especially for
German youth, that is entirely lacking in the prospect of a German national army.
As a result, he gives even a good government-sponsored education program not much
more than a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding.
9. One of the most critical tests of the new program and of American prestige in
Germany, according to Heusinger, is the quality of the weapons that will be delivered
to Germany by the U.S. Tlfe expects all the critics of German rearmament to subject
to the most minute and critical inspection the arms that are given to the first
German youths. If the U.S. is able to provide only a relatively small body of troops,
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such as the cadre units for a single division, with the most up-to-date equipment,
he proposes to have this equipment delivered first since it will constitute the
basis for shaping German public opinion on the question of American arms. By the
the same token, he anticipates disastrous psychological consequences especially from
a possible delivery of outmoded American tanks since the tank, mare than any other
weapon, can easily be compared with Soviet tanks of the same type and class.
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