INTRODUCTION
As we all know the German army two consecutive wars. The conclusion is often drawn that the German army simply could not cope with its opponents, with as result that they got the worst of it. This image is constantly reinforced in literature and in the media, where seemingly brainless operating German units led by fanatically screaming officers predominate the battle field. Nothing was less true.
[The] record shows that the Germans consistently outfought the far more numerous Allied armies that eventually defeated them ... On a man for man basis the German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at least 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops under all circumstances. This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local numerical superiority and when, as was often the case, they were outnumbered, when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost. - Colonel Trevor Dupuy
After all, if we look at the relative battlefield performance of the German army, we discover that the performance of the German Army was at least 150% (Second World War) and in sometimes as much as 300% (First World War) higher than that of the western Allies: 1 killed or wounded German soldier counted for at least 1.5 to 3.0 killed or wounded Allied soldier.
The central question to be answered is why the German army had a much higher relative battlefield performance than its opponents. Therefor we will analyze the Prussian/German army and its opponents from the point of view of management and organization to answer this question.
What are we looking for?
So this site is for people that are interested in the story behind the historical facts, that answers not the question what happened but why it happened the way it did. We look at the organizational dimensions of the opponents, beeing it the recruitment system, the selection and training or the logistics, the command culture or how much attention was paid to the psychological and sociological dimensions of individuals and teams. It is a story of management and organisation, that shows a complete new and undiscovered world 'behind the scenes' that is seldom described.
To get a hold on the subject we use the 7-S-Model of Peters & Waterman of McKinsey & Company; it is a classical model, used all over the world to analyse organisations. The ISO-2000 Quality systems also plays a role in the background; this model checks the internal coherence of organisations and the way they operate.
Read the whole story about Auftragstaktik, its history and development during time in my book 'The German Way of War. A lesson in tactical management' published by Pen & Sword.