Word: germane
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...resisting excessive wage demands and encouraging exports through tax incentives or subsidies. He is adamantly opposed to devaluing the franc unilaterally, but has endorsed financial cooperation with France's partners; this may well result in multilateral negotiations later this year for a cheaper franc and a dearer West German mark...
...With the German economy still surging, officers and men feel underpaid. A full colonel earns about as much as a ski instructor; a master sergeant's pay about equals that of a cab driver. Moreover, a uniform provides no compensating psychic income to its wearer today. Determined not to repeat the mistakes of previous regimes that allowed the German army to become a state within the state, Bonn may have downgraded the postwar armed forces too far-the defense share of the federal budget has dropped from 28% in 1965 to 22.6% this year. Few soldiers wear their uniforms...
...control of the troops under their command. West Germany has no operational general staff, and all its strategic plans and commands come from NATO headquarters in Belgium. Unlike other NATO powers, which allot part of their armed forces to NATO but keep command of the remainder, every single West German combat unit is under NATO command. Although a number of West German officers are mixed in with other allied officers in the NATO command structure, in practical terms the Bundeswehr is an extension of the U.S. Seventh Army. U.S. Lieut. General Donald Bennett, commanding VII Corps in Stuttgart, notes that...
...hear the West German generals tell it, their soldiers are so inept and so lacking in morale that they would scarcely be a match for the Beefeaters in the Tower of London or the halberd-bearing papal guard. Speaking to a closed session of officers at the Leadership Academy near Hamburg, Major General Helmuth Grashey complained that the Bundeswehr (literally, Federal Defense Force) is burdened with too much civilian bureaucracy and hounded by an ombudsman who undermines officers' authority by listening sympathetically to soldiers' gripes...
Motor Damage. Whether Innere Führung is at fault, or something else, the Bundeswehr is in bad shape. The No. 1 problem is manpower-the army is 3,500 officers and 32,000 noncoms short. Since German bureaucratic traditions dictate that all desk jobs be filled first, it is the field and training units that are the most undermanned...