I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and ......
General Kurt Von Hammerstein served as the Commander-in-Chief of the German Defence Force in 1930. Having fought in World War I, he was disapproving of the Hitler regime and a vocal opponent of the Nazi party. Towards the later part of his career, he was involved in several public attempts to overthrow the Hitler regime, none of which succeeded.
Many decades on, General von Hammerstein’s remains a familiar name. Not so for his contributions to the military affairs at that time but rather to his ingenious classification of military officers.
In his position as the Chief of the Army High Command, he oversaw the compilation of a German Army field manual called the Truppenfuhrung in 1933. Within the manual, he was credited with the following passage
