“The German and Prussian officer corps are the officer corps with the greatest culture of disobedience–with maybe the exception of the French. The stories and events that kept alive the virtue requiring an officer–even in war–to disobey an order “when justified by honor and circumstances” were corporate cultural knowledge within the Prussian and German officer corps and it is therefore important to recount them here.”
– Jörg Muth, Command Culture
Contrary to popular opinion, the German Army in both world wars was not an army of automatons but a thinking and reactive combat force at the tactical and operational level unmatched in efficacy and superiority.
I recommend this splendid essay.
