Word: bundeswehr
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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First went the goose step, then the imposing steel helmet, then the snappy clicking of heels, a casualty of the West German Bundeswehr's switch from steel-capped heels to all-rubber ones. Last week the Defense Ministry proposed that yet another remnant of the old Wehrmacht be eliminated. Next to go will be "Herr"-the respectful title with which German officers have been addressed ever since Frederick William I forged a powerful officer corps from the Prussian nobility more than 200 years ago. Today's officers may lose their Herr (meaning Mr.) as a result...
...toward the Alps last week when it spun out of control. The pilot managed to eject at about 1,000 ft. and landed unhurt in a tree, but his plane plummeted into the black Bavarian soil south of Augsburg. It was the 100th Luftwaffe Starfighter to crash since the Bundeswehr adopted the hot but unforgiving aircraft...
Unhasty Improvements. The Bundeswehr does have some friends of the kind that obviates the need for many enemies: the far-right National Democratic Party of Adolf von Thadden. In his convention speech at Stuttgart last month, Von Thadden spent 60 out of 90 minutes talking sympathetically about the Bundeswehr and deploring its problems. A number of officers are campaigning as National Democratic candidates in the September elections...
Defense Minister Gerhard Schroder surfaces every few weeks or so to promise improvements in the armed forces, but he inevitably adds that reforms must not take place too hastily. An extreme view has been put forward by Major Rudolf Woller, president of the Association of Bundeswehr Reservists. In a recent speech, he said: "If in the subconscious of the nation the impression takes hold that it is not really protected by the German contribution to the defense system, the leadership of the state could be forced to a change of course toward neutralism...
...this were to happen, it would represent one of the supreme ironies of history. But then, nations do tend to get the kinds of armies they want. There is no doubt that for many West Germans, the Bundeswehr is an unwelcome reminder of the guilt-laden past, bothersome in an age of affluence, redundant in an era of seeming detente...