Requiem for an Army The Demise of the East German Military

Most Western models suggest that in the face of open threats to the military's core interests, the army would have fought to keep the status quo. Yet the military actually facilitated the introduction of a new democratic polity and in the process dug its own grave. Trained under a Russian-inspired system that minimized the role of the individual, this group was suddenly exposed to the radically different Innere Fuehrung concept that lies at the heart of the Bundeswehr's ethos.