Can We Revive Auftragstaktik? (II)

Franz Uhle-Wettler

Emil Hünten Frederick the Great at Schweidnitz

This post continues the serialization of What is Auftragstaktik? And Can We Revive It?, an article written by the late Franz Uhle-Wettler in the 1990s. To read the first installment of this series, please see

Can We Revive Auftragstaktik?

What is Auftragstaktik? And Can We Revive It?

Franz Uhle-Wettler

(Continued)

The Development of Auftragstaktik

Unfortunately, few books or articles provide us with an origin story for Auftragstaktik. Those who applied it, seem to have considered it the normal way, not as something that required specific explanation, theory and terminology. Even the term Auftragstaktik was applied after the fact. That is, it first came into general use in the 1950s, after the practice it described had passed into history.

Soon after the unveiling of the term in Germany, Americans began to translate Auftragstaktik as ‘mission-type orders’. This rendering drew attention towards the custom of allowing a subordinate maximum latitude in the execution of the missions assigned to him and, in particular, to the phrasing of orders in ways that made this clear. At the same time, it revealed little about the preconditions that made this practice possible or the historical conditions in which it came to be.

Auftragstaktik arose in Prussia, the foremost of the states that would later come together to create a unified German state. For more than seven decades (1713-1786), two kings ruled this kingdom as absolute monarchs, paying close attention to all matters, whether commercial, financial, legal, or military, related to the health of the realm. Thus, for example, each king would inspect every single regiment in his army every year, inquiring into details that the rulers of other states might consider the business of non-commissioned officers.

Adolf von Menzel Frederick the Great on a Journey (1850)