Summary: "Where are all the soldiers gone …"
Frank Bauer
While at the Potsdam Conference in August 1945 the declared goal of the Allied Powers had been the complete and permanent demilitarization of Germany, the attitude changed with the onset of the Cold War. First semi-official considerations regarding the security of Western occupied zones were made by the so-called "Deutsches Büro für Friedensfragen” which was established on 15 April 1947 by the prime ministers of the countries under US occupation and had the approval of the US administration. Even before the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany and Adenauer’s election to head of government, all of Adenauer’s military advisors had agreed that the initiative for a West German defense contribution would clearly have to come from the Western Powers. What came up in this context was that equal political, military, and economic rights would have to be conceded by the Western Powers in exchange for setting up West German forces.
Though Adenauer tried to approach Wehrmacht veterans, the "Büro Schwerin”, later called "Zentrale für den Heimatdienst”, had to continue to work under cover, due to the fact that the federal government was still not officially permitted to deal with questions of national defense. Complying with the chancellor’s wish, Count Schwerin immediately went about devising several concepts for establishing a mobile national gendarmerie.
The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950 which the Western world perceived as the beginning of a new global Soviet offensive had a catalyst effect on the security-political discussion. Already 48 hours after the outbreak of the war, the US general staff advised the president to start as early as possible with the creation of West German forces, thereby considerably stepping up the slow-moving security-political discussion concerning the Federal Republic of Germany. In the meantime Schwerin’s group had worked hard on identifying Wehrmacht veterans, as they were considered indispensable for the military revitalizing process.
By late fall 1950, the German chancellor made his confidential political advisor Theodor Blank "envoy for issues dealing with the augmentation of allied troops”. This was a clear signal that the secret planning phase of establishing West German forces was drawing to an end. With the creation of the "Bundesgrenzschutz” on 16 March 1951 Adenauer succeeded in establishing a military cadre for a future German army. Out of political considerations, the US and Great Britain supported an immediate NATO accession of Germany, which was decidedly opposed by France, as Paris was in favor of the creation of a European army within the framework of the European Defense Community (EDC).
Eyed suspiciously by the parliamentary as well as the extra-parliamentary public that had great reservations regarding the creation of armed forces and, to a large extent, opposed Germany’s armaments plans, Adenauer’s military planners developed an innovative model based on the "concept of inner leadership” that regarded the soldier as a citizen in uniform, thus attributing to him and the army as a whole a status that reflected a democratic state.
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