How Much Obedience 

Does an Officer Need?

Beck, Tresckow, and Stauffenberg -- Examples of 

Integrity and Moral Courage for Today's Officer

by

Major (General Staff) Dr. Ulrich F. Zwygart
1893-1993

Commemorating the Centennial of International 

Officer Participation in the U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College
Combat Studies Institute

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900

CONTENTS

Illustrations

Preface

I. Introduction

II. Disobedience in Twentieth-Century Military History

Beck, Tresckow, and Stauffenberg

A Short Summary of the Military Resistance to Hitler

The Motives

Summary

Other Examples

World War I

Between the Wars

World War II

Algerian War

Vietnam

Greece, 1973

Soviet Union, 1975

Lebanon, 1982

Iraq, 1990
Analysis

Classifications

The Legitimacy and Morality of Disobedience

The Relationship of Obedience to Disobedience and Blind Obedience

III. Application: Lessons to Be Learned for Today's Officer

The Challenge

Case A: Training with Simulations

Case B: Housing

Case C: A Conversation and Its Consequences

The Goal

The Education

The Senior Officer's Responsibility

IV. Conclusions

Notes

Bibliography

English

German

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures

1. The relationship of obedience to disobedience and blind obedience

PREFACE
Major Ulrich F. Zwygart's essay, "How Much Obedience Does an Officer Need?" was 

awarded second place in the 1992-93 MacArthur Writing Award competition. The 

excellence of Major Zwygart's accomplishment is especially remarkable in that he wrote 

in a language other than his own. It is fitting that the Combat Studies Institute publish 

Major Zwygart's work in conjunction with the commemoration of the centennial of 

international officer participation at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College 

(CGSC). One hundred years ago, on 19 December 1893, Lieutenant Colonel Henry C. 

LeComte, Swiss Army, reported for duty at CGSC for a six-month course. Today, Major 

Zwygart exemplifies the continued excellence of international officers at CGSC.

 

RICHARD M. SWAIN

Colonel, Field Artillery

Director, Combat Studies Institute

I. INTRODUCTION

We are born with a potential for obedience, which then interacts with the influence of 

society to produce the obedient man.1 Conscience, which regulates man's impulsive 

aggressive action, is diminished, however, when man enters a hierarchical structure. In 

this context, the individual no longer views himself as responsible for his own actions 

but defines himself as an instrument for carrying out the wishes of others.2 Stanley 

Milgram, professor of psychology, describes the process that finally leads to 

disobedience-inner doubt, externalization of doubt, dissent, threat, and disobedience: 

It's a difficult path, which only a minority of subjects are able to pursue to its 

conclusion.... The act of disobedience requires a mobilization of inner resources, 

and their transformation beyond inner preoccupation, beyond merely polite verbal 

exchange, into a domain of action.... The price of disobedience is a gnawing 

sense that one has been faithless. Even though he has chosen the morally 

correct action, the subject remains troubled by the disruption of the social order 

he brought about, and cannot fully dispel the feeling that he deserted a cause 

which he had pledged support. It is he, and not the obedient subject, who 

experiences the burden of his action.3
The purpose of this essay is to analyze cases of disobedience during twentieth-century 

military history as a means of addressing a number of issues. Why do soldiers disobey? 

What are their motives for disobedience? What is the legitimacy and morality of 

disobedience? What is the relationship of obedience to disobedience and blind 

obedience? And, finally, what is the value of this analysis for today's officer? The first 

case study deals with three of the most important personalities in the conspiracy against 

Hitler: Ludwig Beck, Henning von Tresckow, and Claus Count von Stauffenberg. I chose 

them namely for two reasons: first, the three German officers illustrate three different 

paths from obedience to disobedience, as they risked career, life, and honor. Second, 

the German military resistance to Hitler is, in my perception, not yet fully analyzed. I 

have the impression that the decisive role of Beck, Tresckow, and Stauffenberg is only 

marginally known in the British and American military.4 Other examples are added to 

give an overview of disobedience in twentieth-century military history, followed by an 

analysis of the legitimacy and morality of disobedience and the relationship of 

obedience to disobedience and blind obedience. I will arrive at the conclusion that 

today's officer should live and be educated according to the principle of what I term 

"critical obedience."

II. DISOBEDIENCE IN TWENTIETHCENTURY MILITARY HISTORY

Beck Tresckow, and Stauffenberg

A Short Summary of the Military Resistance to Hitler

Several events between 1933 and 1938 placed some senior German military men in 

opposition to Hitler.5 First to mention is the assassination of Röhm, leader of the SA 

(Sturmabteilung/storm troops), in the summer of 1934 at Hitler's orders. Subsequently, a 

total of eighty-five men were killed, including Röhm, his staff, and former Chancellor von 

Schleicher. Second, Hitler consolidated his power after President von Hindenburg's 

death on 2 August 1934, when all soldiers swore "unconditional obedience" to Hitler--

not the nation or the constitution. Third, Hitler alienated some military supporters after 

the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis (November 1937), in which the war minister, Fieldmarshal 

von Blomberg, and the commander in chief of the German Army, General von Fritsch, 

had to resign on trumped-up charges. The fourth significant event was the night of 9-10 

November 1938, the so-called Reichskristallnacht ("Night of the Broken Glass"), with 

the burning of 119 synagogues, the arrest of 20,000 Jews, and 36 deaths. When Hitler 

issued orders to prepare a surprise attack on Czechoslovakia early in 1938, General 

Beck warned the commander of the Wehrmacht, General von Brauchitsch, that France 

and Britain would assist Czechoslovakia. On 16 July 1938, Beck handed out prepared 

notes to Brauchitsch: "All upright and serious German men in positions of responsibility 

in the state must feel called upon and duty-bound to employ all conceivable means and 

ways, including the most extreme, to avert a war against Czechoslovakia which in its 

effects must lead to a world war that would mean finis Germaniae (the end of 

Germany)."6 Beek even went a step further and requested a collective protest by senior 
commanders. On 4 August 1938, the senior German Army commanders were briefed 

by Brauchitsch. and Beck. The latter's memorandum of 16 July showed nearly 

unanimous agreement among the assembled generals. But Brauchitsch did not request 

that the generals confront Hitler with a refusal to carry out orders in case of war. Beck 

was isolated. Hitler must have been informed of this gathering, for he promptly ordered 

the senior chief of staffs to his Berghof vacation house on 10 August. There, after a 

three-hour speech, he found little opposition and concluded that only one or two of the 

commanding generals had the courage to, live up to their convictions. General Beck 

resigned on 18 August and handed over his duties to his successor, General Franz 

Halder.

Halder, although he did not have the same perseverance as Beck, was ready to 

announce a coup if Hitler gave the order to attack Czechoslovakia. The conspirators, 

among them Generals von Witzleben, Oster, and Hoepner, were uncertain of Halder 

and therefore ready to act without his agreement. The deployment of units of the army 

and the police of Berlin was planned in detail. Hitler was to be arrested or shot down on 

sight. On 28 September 1938, a general mobilization was expected, whereupon the 

conspirators planned to strike. But in the afternoon, news came of an international 

conference in Munich the following day. The preconditions for a coup failed to 

materialize. Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador in Berlin, wrote to Lord 

Halifax, secretary of state: "By keeping the peace, we have saved Hitler and his 

regime."7

The conspirators tried again in 1939. Colonel General Kurt Baron von HammersteinEquord, who was assigned to arrest Hitler, was appointed commander of Army 

Detachment A in the west. But Hammerstein was soon relieved of his command before 

Hitler visited his headquarters. During the next three years, Hitler's successes continued 

to demoralize the military resistance. As the war went on, Hitler became even less 

accessible. After Hammerstein's death in 1942, the sicknesses, of Witzleben in the 

same year, and of Beck one year later, the conspirators, at least temporarily, lost their 

military leaders. The initiative passed to younger officers. The two outstanding 

personalities were Colonel (later Major General) Henning von Tresckow and Lieutenant 

Colonel (later Colonel) Claus Count von Stauffenberg. Both tried to convince several 

general officers, among them Field Marshals Manstein and Kluge, to act against Hitler. 

Failing to persuade them, they decided to act on their own in close cooperation with the 

conspiracy's unofficial headquarters in Berlin (under Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris of 

Military Intelligence). On 13 March 1943, Hitler visited Army Group Center, where 

Tresckow had gathered a group of anti-Nazi officers. One of Hitler's staff officers was 

asked to take a gift to Berlin. The parcel contained a bomb, but it did not explode. On 21 

March 1943, Major (later Major General) Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, an 

officer of Tresckow's circle, was supposed to blow himself up with Hitler during an 

exhibition of captured war materiel. Hitler, almost as if he felt the danger, virtually 

rushed through the rooms at the exhibit and left after a few minutes. Gersdorff could 

only defuse the mine. When, in the second half of 1943, Stauffenberg was posted as 

chief of staff to General Olbricht, commander of the Home Army and a member of the 

conspiracy, new dynamics got hold of the military resistance. This assignment gave 
Stauffenberg a great opportunity to organize the plot under the code word Valkyrie. The 

plan was to assassinate Hitler and to accuse unnamed Nazi party notables of "stabbing 

the fighting front in the back" so that the Army would have to take power. The 

paperwork for Operation Valkyrie is a masterpiece of general staff work, taped in 

secrecy by Tresckow's wife and her friend, Margarethe Countess von Hardenberg.8

Volunteers to kill Hitler were found: Captain Axel Baron von dern Bussche (who just 

died recently), Lieutenant Ewald Heinrich von Kleist, and Captain Eberhard von 

Breitenbach. However, the three young officers never came close to Hitler, because 

either an Allied air raid prevented the show of equipment, the viewing was postponed, 

or the "assassin" was barred from entering the conference in the last minute. Finally, 

Stauffenberg decided to become both "Chief of Staff" of the plot and assassin--a double 

role that, of course, did not favor the outcome. Stauffenberg was indispensable for the 

success of the coup after the assassination, and so he had to return to Berlin. The final 

act on 20 July 1944 stood under the star of misfortune. The conference had been 

shifted from the bunker to a wooden barracks. Stauffenberg placed the suitcase with the 

bomb as near as possible to Hitler, but an oaken pedestal was between the dictator and 

the explosives. Both the composition of the barracks and the pedestal fatally weakened 

the effect of the explosion and saved Hitler's life. Professor Hans Rothfels commented, 

"one cannot avoid the conclusion that a number of failures were caused by an 

unbelievable accumulation of trivial incidents."9 The results are known. Beck tried to 

commit suicide, failed, and was finally shot by an NCO. Stauffenberg, together with his 

aide and three other officers, were shot during the night of 20-21 July 1944. The 

Generals von Witzleben, Hoepner, Oster, Fellgiebel, St ̈lpnagel, Admiral Canaris, and 

between 160 to 180 other officers were arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged. In 

consequence, the war in Europe continued until 8 May 1945, hundreds of thousands 

were killed on each side during the last ten months of World War II, and Germany was 

devastated and occupied. 

The Motives

General Ludwig Beck was born in 1880.10 After completion of school, he joined the 15th 

Field Artillery Regiment in Strassburg. In 1913, he became a member of the German 

General Staff. During the Great War, he served in various staff positions exclusively on 

the Western Front. After the end of World War I, he decided to remain in the German 

Army (Reichswehr), where he commanded an artillery battalion and later an artillery 

regiment. In the early 1930s, he commanded a cavalry division. In October 1933, Beck 

was appointed "Chef des Truppenamtes," a position which later was transformed to 

chief of the General Staff of the Army. General Beck was a cultivated European with a 

sense of history.11 He was an intellectual as much as a soldier,12 a quiet and reliable 

man who did not tolerate any contradiction between words and deeds.13 Field Marshal 

Erich von Manstein referred to Beck as "the only one I would consider equal to Moltke 

the Elder."14 According to Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a conspirator in Tresckow's staff, 

General Beck made the impression of a wise man.15 Beck criticized Hitler's aggressive 

plans for territorial policy that could only lead to defeat and reduction of Germany.16

Beck renounced a brilliant career, preferring to resign in protest rather than serve a 

regime that did not act in favor of its people. His opposition was rooted in a firm 

Christian faith and in a conservative attitude that believed legality, integrity, ethics, and 

responsibility were crucial for the servant of a nation.17 When Beck resigned in 1938, he 
was motivated not only by "professional and political knowledge" but also by the "dictate 

of conscience"18 --believing that "obedience ends where knowledge, conscience, and 

responsibility prohibit the execution of an order."19 Doubtless, the conspirators, civilian 

and military, held him in high esteem and looked to him as their true leader. After the 

successful coup d'état he was meant to become Reichsverweser and commander in 

chief of the German Army. General Henning von Tresckow was born in 1901.20 Fighting 

as a platoon leader in World War I, he was awarded the Iron Cross in July 1918. After 

the war, he stayed in the German Army until October 1920, then enrolled at the 

university, had a short career as a businessman, and finally, in 1924, went for a trip 

around the world. In South America, he received a telegram saying that his family was 

suffering a financial crisis. He went home and successfully met the crisis. Later, he 

married Erika von Falkenhayn, daughter of the former chief of the General Staff during 

the Great War, and decided to join the ranks again (1926). A captain in 1934 and an 

outstanding student of the class of 1934-36 at the German war college, he became a 

member of the German General Staff. He was an adversary of Hitler's regime from 

1934. The events of the 1930s strengthened his antipathy against the Nazis. In 1938, 

he told his commander, General von Witzleben, that the generals should have acted in 

favor of General Fritsch. Witzleben replied that there would be plans for an action 

against the SS and the Gestapo and urged him to stay in the army. Nevertheless, after 

General Beck resigned in protest, Tresckow lost faith in the senior leaders. He felt that 

Hitler would lead his country into a catastrophe. He commented that the 

Reichskristallnacht was a personal humiliation and a degradation of civilization. And 

when he heard of the plans to invade Poland, he said in July of 1939: "War is madness. 

We have to prevent it. The key person is Hitler. We have to kill him."21

A staff officer in Field Marshal von Rundstedt's headquarters during the campaigns in 

Poland and France, he became the Ia (first general staff officer) in the Army Group 

Center for Operation Barbarossa. There, he succeeded in rallying officers against Hitler. 

When, in May 1941, Hitler issued his infamous Kommissarbefehl (guerrillas and Soviet 

political agents were to be shot instantly; German soldiers who violated rules of 

humanitarian law were not subjects of prosecution), Tresckow went to see Field 

Marshal Bock, his commander. On the way, he said to Gersdorff: "Remember this hour! 

If we do not succeed in convincing Field Marshal Bock to do everything within his might 

to urge Hitler to take back this order, then Germany has definitively lost its honor. 

Further generations will not blame Hitler alone, but you and me, too."22 Tresckow did 

not convince Bock to protest to Hitler personally. In Tresckow's words: "As long as I am 

the Ia of the Army Group Center, no political agent nor prisoner will be shot."23 And he 

lived according to his principles. When Tresckow learned about the massacre of 

Borissow, where thousands of Jews had been killed by commando groups of the SS, he 

appealed again passionately to Field Marshal Bock: "Never may such a thing happen 

again! Therefore we must act now. We have the power in Russia!"24 In December 1941, 

Tresckow said to one of his officers: "I would like to show the German people a film with 

the title 'Germany at the end of the war.' Then perhaps people would be alarmed and 

would realize where we are heading. People would agree with me that the superior 

warlord (Hitler) must disappear. But since we cannot show this movie people will create 

the legend of the 'stab in the back' whenever we will act against Hitler."25
Tresckow tried to convince his superiors (Bock, Manstein, Kluge) to take action.26 He 

implored Manstein to stop the dishonorable blind obedience and to accept his military 

and political responsibility for action.27 In April 1943, he said to his wife: "I cannot 

understand how people can still call themselves Christians and not be furious 

adversaries of Hitler's regime."28 And on the occasion of his sons confirmation, he said 

to all the invited guests: "One may not separate the concept of freedom from 

Prussianism. True Prussianism means a synthesis of obligation and freedom. Without 

this combination, Prussianism threatens to become soulless service and narrow-minded 

dogmatism."29

When, in June 1944, Stauffenberg asked Tresckow, through Lehndorff, if the 

assassination of Hitler should still be undertaken, Tresckow answered: "It must be done 

coute que coute [cost what it will]. If it fails you must act in Berlin as well. It is no longer 

a question of feasibility but to show to the world and to history that the German 

resistance dared to make the last step."30 Colonel Claus Count Schenk von 

Stauffenberg was born in 1907.31 After his final school examination in 1926, he started 

his military career with the 17th Bamberg Cavalry Regiment. In 1936, he was posted to 

the War Academy. Like Tresckow, he was among the very best officers of his year 

group. Later, he served as a staff officer during the occupation of the Sudetenland and 

in General Hoepner's headquarters in Poland. Stauffenberg can be called a Hitler 

sympathizer in the 1930s. Like the vast majority of the officer corps, he welcomed 

conscription, rearmament, and the annulment of the Versailles Treaty. However, he 

judged the Reichskristallnacht as a disgrace to his country. After the campaign in the 

West, he was assigned to the German Army High Command and often visited the 

Russian front. In 1942, he came to believe that the war was lost because of bad 

leadership. He recognized bitterly the fickleness of senior officers, who told 

Stauffenberg that they would speak openly to Hitler but never dared to do so. He soon 

became terrified by reports of the brutal treatment of civilians in Russia, the killing of 

thousands of Jews, and the deaths of so many POWs in the prison camps. In the 

summer of 1942, he said: "Hitler is a fool and a criminal! We must put an end to this 

society!"32 Stauffenberg referred to Thomas von Aquin, who said tyrannicide was a legal 

and honored act under certain circumstances: "He who sheds the blood and the goods 

of the people to become famous is not a king but a tyrant."33 Like Tresckow, he was 

unsuccessful in his attempts to incite the generals to action. He admitted that his wish to 

join the front (North Africa, where he lost an eye and seven fingers) was like an escape. 

Coming back from the hospital, he was convinced that "now that the generals have 

failed the colonels must act themselves as General Staff officers we are responsible to 

save Germany."34 Claus von Stauffenberg was a strong personality who impressed 

many people from the first time they met him.35 General Ulrich de Maiziére, 

Generalinspekteur der Bundeswehr (chief of staff of the German Armed Forces) in the 

1960s, worked in Stauffenberg's office during the early years of the war: 

Never again did I experience a young General Staff officer who had a position of trust 

like Stauffenberg at the age of thirty-five. He could listen and counsel. I often went to 

see him and ask his advice. General Halder often ordered Major (General Staff) 

Stauffenberg to brief him personally, skipping the whole chain of command. 
Stauffenberg was highly educated and deeply rooted in Christian faith. Seldom have I 

met a person who could laugh as refreshingly as he did. We, the younger officers, were 

persuaded that Stauffenberg was meant to climb to the highest ranks in the Army.36

It is interesting, in this context, to quote former German World War II Minister of War 

Production Albert Speer's opinion of Stauffenberg: 

As (General) Schmundt (Hitler's Chief Adjutant) explained to me, Stauffenberg was 

considered one of the most dynamic and competent officers in the German Army.... In 

spite of his war injuries, Stauffenberg had preserved a youthful charm; he was curiously 

poetic and at the same time precise, thus showing the marks of the two major and 

seemingly incompatible educational influences upon him: the circle around the poet 

Stefan George and the General Staff. After the deed which will forever be associated 

with his name, I often reflected upon his personality and found no phrase more fitting for 

him than this one of Hölderlin, (German poet): "An extremely unnatural and paradoxical 

character unless one sees him in the midst of those circumstances which imposed so 

strict a form upon his gentle spirit."37

Shortly before 20 July 1944, Stauffenberg said: "It is time to act. But he who dares must 

be conscious about the fact that he will be a traitor to German history. If he refrains from 

doing it, he will be a traitor to his own consciousness."38

Summary

Beck, Tresckow, and Stauffenberg: two generations, three personalities, three different 

stories and approaches to disobedience and conspiracy, but similar in their motives. 

General Beck, with insights into Hitler's war plans, soon was in opposition to them. 

Guderian reproached Beck for having been too conservative to realize the importance 

of tank warfare.39 This is the purely military way of thinking. Beck, a general and a 

statesman in the true Clausewitzian sense, realized that this machinery was primarily a 

tool for the offense and led to war. Beck's life is straight-lined. At first, he tried to 

convince his superiors, talked to them, and wrote memorandums against the "road to 

war." Then, he hoped to bring all the generals together for a strong demonstration of 

protest. Only after these failures did Beck resign in protest. Later, he agreed to arrest 

Hitler and bring him to court. During the war, he became the spiritual center of the 

resistance, highly respected by all civilian and military men of like minds. General 

Tresckow, on his part, learned the evil of the regime through Hitler's actions to 

consolidate power in 1934 and later. He tried to speak to the generals to whom he had 

access. Only after he was convinced that they remained loyal to Hitler, despite their 

partial disapproval, did he take action on his own. The attempted assassinations of 

1943 were almost a "private war" of Tresckow's friends in Army Group Center, though 

they had acted in accordance with the conspirators in Berlin. However, they had no 

plans on how to proceed after a successful attempt on Hitler's life. Only Operation 

Valkyrie, a combined effort by Stauffenberg and Tresckow, set the stage for the 

proposed actions necessary after the death of the dictator.

Colonel Staufferiberg joined the resistance in 1942, relatively late. Leadership failures 

and the war crimes persuaded him that Germany's problems were Hitler's fault. Once 

sure of his belief, he acted with dynamism and determinism. We note that Beck, 
Tresckow, and Stauffenberg became critical of Hitler's regime by the time they had 

almost complete access to the data available and a broader overview of the events. For 

Beck, this must have occurred between 1935 and 1937, when Hitler's war plans 

assumed a definite form; for Tresckow, it was probably in 1941 and for Stauffenberg 

1942. These men shared several things in common. First, they were all outstanding 

soldiers and general staff officers, and they each belonged to the best of their year 

groups. Most probably, they were all aware of their responsibility as an elite and were 

inclined to serve the German people, rather than a dictatorial government. In their 

opinion, Hitler led the German people into a war that was disastrous and dishonorable. 

In order to save their country and their own souls, they had to remove the criminal 

government. Second, they had received a broad education, encompassing not only 

military knowledge but music, literature, and studies of foreign culture and languages. 

Beck's participation in the Mittwochsgesellschaft (a civilian club of academics that met 

every Wednesday on an informal basis), Tresckow's travel around the world, and 

Stauffenberg's link to the Stefan George circle support this statement. Third, and 

perhaps most important, their religious backgournd must be mentioned. They were all

Christians and driven by moral and religious impulses.40 They took an oath to Hitler, the 

"legal" head of the Third Reich; but there was no doubt that they felt bound to a higher 

oath--their conscience, which was based on Christianity, humanism, legality, and 

freedom. Fourth, they remained faithful to their military tradition ("true Prussianism"), 

their people, their heritage, and above all, to their conscience. They were ready to give 

their lives to uphold their principles. Truly, they are examples of integrity and moral 

courage. Other Examples

Now I want to look at other examples of disobedience, cases that will give an overview 

of disobedience in twentieth-century military history and lead us to further analysis. 

World War I

On 16 August 1914, General François, commander of the German I Corps, was ordered 

to halt his advance beyond Gumbinnen in East Prussia by his commander in chief, 

General von Prittwitz. François indignantly protested by telephone that the earlier he 

engaged the Russians, the less risk to German territory. Prittwitz dispatched a written 

order again prohibiting further advance. François ignored it. The Battle of Gumbinnen 

was indecisive, since François broke off the action; however, the Russians had, been 

badly handled.41 On 25 August, François refused to attack because his artillery was not 

yet ready, causing Ludendorff to become high tempered. Nevertheless, the German 

victory at Tannenberg was, to a certain degree, due to François' merit.42 General 

Pilcher, commander of a British division, was ordered to carry out an attack on Mametz 

Wood in the summer of 1916. He did not attack according to the plan and was sent 

home: "If I had obeyed the corps order more literally, I should have lost another two or 

three thousand men and achieved no more. It is very easy to sit a few miles in the rear, 

and get the credit for allowing men to be killed in an undertaking foredoomed to failure, 

but the part did not appeal to me and my protests against these useless attacks were 

not well received."43 Ernst Jünger, fighting on the Western Front, refused to make a 

frontal attack with his company because he was convinced that the same objective 
could be attained later while turning the enemy's left flank and with less casualties. The 

outcome proved him right.44 Captain Renouart refused the order to select a man from 

his company for court-martial. The order was issued by the corps commander because 

an attack had failed on the Western Front. Renouart responded: "As an officer acting in 

a judicial capacity I would be guilty of dereliction of duty by bringing charges which I 

knew to be false. As a Christian I cannot take a step which could brand me a murderer 

in my own eyes as well as in those of God and my fellow-men."45 Renouart sent a 

message back to his regimental commander: "I have the honor to report that I am 

unable to comply with your instructions because there is no member of my company 

against whom charges of cowardice in the face of the enemy can either be made or be 

found tenable."46

Between the Wars

General William ("Billy") Mitchell, a thinker about the future of air power, was second in 

command of the U.S. Army Air Service. When he complained about the neglect of 

aviation, he was exiled by the Coolidge administration to Texas. In September 1925, 

after some accidents involving Army airplanes, Mitchell gave a statement to the press: 

"These accidents are the results of the incompetency, the criminal negligence, and the 

almost treasonable administration of our national defense by the Navy and the War 

Department."47 Inevitably, Mitchell was court-martialed with "disorders and neglects to 

the prejudice of good order and military discipline ... conduct of a nature to bring 

discredit upon the military service."48 He was convicted and sentenced to suspension 

from rank, command, pay, and allowances for five years. His response was to resign. 

General Sir Percy Hobart, the British exponent of armored warfare--with only support 

from General (retired) J.F.C. Fuller--was in constant opposition to the other British 

generals who stubbornly clung to outmoded technology and techniques. At the first 

convenient opportunity, the "difficult" Hobart, with his forcefully argued "heresies," was 

shunted off to a backwater area in Egypt.49

World War II

Captain Heinz Karst, commander of a German tank battalion during the Russian 

campaign, received orders from his division commander to attack a Russian village and 

to kill all the women. This order was based on reports saying that wounded German 

soldiers left behind before the retreat had been mutilated by female Soviet partisans. 

The Germans took the village and found their comrades dead and mutilated. They also 

found women trying to save their belongings. Karst decided to let the women go 

because he could not prove their guilt. Later, he informed his commanding general, who 

accepted his decision.50

General Erich Hoepner, commander of 4th Tank Army (Army Group Center) in Russia, 

decided to withdraw XX Corps on 8 January 1942, despite Hitler's strict refusal to 

authorize any further retreat. In the farewell address to his staff, he said: "I'm relieved as 

Commander of 4th Tank Army because I disobeyed an order of the Führer. Since my 

youth I have felt bound to the Army and the German soldier. My decisions [nonetheless] 
were always based on the feeling of being responsible to a higher God...."51

William Douglas Home, a British officer, found himself facing a major moral issue in 

1944. The German commander at Le Havre had approached the British, asking 

permission to evacuate a large number of French civilians from the city. There was 

apparently ample time to do so, since the British attack was not scheduled to go in for 

several days. But permission was refused. Home, along with other officers of his 

regiment, was ordered to take part in the operation. In Home's own words: "Faced with 

what I considered to be an immoral order, I must either obey it and abandon what I had 

conceived to be the humanitarian fight that I had waged so long--thus proving myself 

afraid to practice what I preached--or I must disobey it and face the unknown fate that 

would be mine."52 Home refused to take part in the assault, in which incidentally some 

12,000 civilians were killed as a result of air bombardment. He sat down and wrote a 

letter to the press. Ironically, on the day his letter appeared in print, the German 

commander of Calais requested and received permission to evacuate French civilians 

from the battle area. Nevertheless, Home's letter to the press brought him before a 

court-martial, which found him guilty of disobeying a military order--not of refusing to 

take part in the offense but of writing to the press without permission. Home was 

cashiered and sentenced to twelve months in prison. At about the same time, in 

Germany, the unknown son of a peasant wrote a last letter to his parents: "Dear 

Parents! We are sentenced to death, me and Gustav G. We did not sign for the SS. We 

would rather die than be conscience-stricken with the atrocities of the SS."53

Algerian War

In April 1961, General Maurice Challe, together with three other general officers, started 

a revolt against the president of France, Charles de Gaulle, who was about to negotiate 

with the insurgent Front de la Libération. Nationale (FLN) and to hold general elections 

for the independence of Algeria. General Challe felt that honor and conscience left him 

no alternative, because he had--in the name of de Gaulle--promised to the Harkis, the 

Moslems loyal to the French, that France would never abandon them. General Challe 

was court-martialed and spent five years in prison.54

Vietnam

My Lai also had its heroes: a junior officer tried to stop the massacre, standing between 

the Vietnamese villagers and his fellow Americans; a soldier shot himself in the foot in 

order to escape the scene; and others refused to participate and ran away.55 According 

to Savage and Gabriel, no general officers and only a few colonels or lieutenant 

colonels chose to resign as a matter of ethical conviction during the Vietnam War. 

Protests, resignations, or early retirements of officers occurred at lower levels but only 

rarely.56 However, the example of Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, a senior prisoner of 

war for several years in North Vietnam, is worth mentioning: "'Good morning,' says the 

interrogator. 'You look well. I have your first assignment for you. We want to provide the 

American criminals with news from U.S. newspapers, but we Vietnamese have an 

accent that makes us difficult to understand on the camp radio. You will read these

American articles into the tape recorder and they will be played at noon today.' 'No.'
'What do you mean, no. The camp regulations require that you obey all orders. You 

must do it. My superior has decreed that you shall do it.' 'I refuse.'

'You can't refuse. You must obey the laws of the country. You are a criminal. If you 

refuse, you will be severely punished. Shall I call the guard and have him punish you? I 

think you remember the punishment, and that you cannot overcome it. What do you 

say?' 'I say nothing. The problem is not mine, it is yours. It's up to you.'"57

Greece, 1973

Early on 25 May 1973, to the astonishment of British, American, Italian, and other naval 

commanders, the Greek destroyer Velos abandoned a NATO exercise, her radio 

messages affirming continued fidelity to the western bloc but also vowing to "restore 

democracy to Greece." The destroyer, led by Captain Nicholas Pappas, made for the 

fishing port of Fiumicino, Italy, where two officers went ashore and tried to telephone 

their exiled king, who was living on the outskirts of Rome. Italian authorities intervened 

and surrounded the Velos with police boats. Italy sent the ship back to Greece and 

granted asylum to Pappas and the other officers. Soon, events in Greece led to a return 

of democracy. Pappas later was promoted to the rank of admiral.58

Soviet Union, 1975

On 7 November 1975, Lieutenant Commander Valery Sablin seized the Storozhevoy, a 

Soviet missile frigate, and locked up the captain of the ship and other officers. Sablin's 

plan was to take the ship from the Gulf of Riga north into the Gulf of Finland and to 

Leningrad, from where he would, by radio and television, recount the sins and hypocrisy 

of the Soviet system and demand reforms. However, one of the nonconspirators freed 

himself and sent a radio message to naval authorities in Riga. When the Storozhevoy 

cleared the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, she did so with ten bomber and reconnaissance 

aircraft and nine warships in pursuit. Sablin realized. the futility of resistance and 

surrendered. He was arrested, tried before a military court in May 1976, and executed 

on 3 August 1976, Sablin, in a farewell letter to his parents, wrote: "I am convinced that 

a revolutionary consciousness will catch fire among our people."59

Lebanon,1982

On 27 July 1982, Colonel Eli Geva had asked to be released from the command of his 

brigade to participate in the war as a simple soldier. He did this to protest a planned 

military move conquering Beirut. Geva claimed that, as a commander, he could neither 

accept responsibility for the civilian casualties likely to be caused nor face the prospect 

of justifying the action to the families of those in his unit who would be killed. Geva was 

discharged from his command and barred from the Israel Defense forces.60

Iraq, 1990

About 100 officers of the Iraqi Armed Forces refused to take part in the invasion of 

Kuwait. They were executed.61
Analysis

Classifications

My enumeration of examples of disobedience is far from complete. Perhaps the first 

thing that we find is that, whether a general or a soldier, there are many such lonely 

heroes, for disobedience demands the courage to be alone. The attempt to classify the 

many examples of disobedience gives, the following results. Disobedience on Different 

Levels. On the strategic level, there were the conspirators against Hitler, Mitchell, 

Challe, and the 100 Iraqi officers; on the operational level, there were Pilcher, Hoepner, 

and François; on the tactical level, Karst and Geva; and on the very personal level, the 

peasant-soldier, the officer and the soldiers rejecting the shooting of innocents at My 

Lai, and Stockdale. (However, there are good reasons to classify every case of 

disobedience as a case on the personal level.) Disobedience in an Authoritarian State 

and in a Democracy. There are cases of disobedience both in authoritarian states (the 

conspirators against Hitler, Pappas, Sablin, and the 100 Iraqi officers) and in 

democracies (Mitchell, Challe, and Geva). Disobedience with Different Risks. In some 

cases, the objectors face severe punishment or even immediate death (the peasant 

soldier, Stockdale, Sablin, and the Iraqi officers), while others may "only" be discharged 

or court-martialed (Pilcher, Home, and Challe). One may argue that mental suffering 

could be an even greater test of moral courage than death itself; however, the cases 

show that most of the disobedient men were prepared to follow the dictates of their

conscience and their convictions, at the same time risking career and public dishonor. 

Only very few were honored for disobedience during their own lifetime, for instance, 

Pappas. Disobedience in Wartime. In general, there are two kinds of disobedience: one 

based on morals and conscience, another on tactical circumstances and on military 

knowledge. Conscientious disobedience leads to resignation or active resistance (Beck 

and Geva), while the latter tends more to independent actions, followed either by 

success (François and Ringer) or defeat and discharge (Pilcher). Disobedience in 

Peacetime. In democracies, the causes for disagreement and disobedience are mostly 

upon doctrinal issues rather than questions of morality (Mitchell and Hobart). In 

authoritarian states, disobedient officers ask for changes in politics (Pappas and 

Sablin). 

The Legitimacy and Morality of Disobedience

First, I would like to emphasize that the great majority of the serious German-speaking 

lawyers and historians acknowledge the legitimacy and morality of the conspirators 

against Hitler.62 Hitler was a dictator, who only in the very beginning of his Third Reich 

tried to legitimize his brutal rulership, asking for the people's approval in a referendum. 

During the years of the Third Reich, the inhumanity of Nazi Germany became more and 

more evident. Germany, the birthplace of Kant, Goethe, and Beethoven, from 1933-45, 

was an illegal and immoral state. Resistance against Hitler was justified. Fabian von 

Schlabrendorff, a conspirator who was tortured by the Gestapo, said: "Obedience is the 

rule. However, there are cases which demand disobedience. This has been 

uncontested in the Prussian Army. Blind obedience has its origin with Hitler."63
Professor Golo Mann, the "great old man of German history and politics," wrote that 

"Resistance was the Highest the German history ever achieved, if Hitler and Himmler 

were the Lowest."64 The German Chancellor, Dr. Helmut Kohl, said on the occasion of 

Stauffenberg's eightieth birthday in 1987: "Resistance is legitimate if its objective is to 

overthrow a reign of terror and to establish a just regime."65 Second, I quote authors 

who made important comments regarding obedience and disobedience. In 1902, Rear 

Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, the American apostle of sea power, wrote that obedience is 

the cement of the (military) structure, the lifeblood of the organism.66 He recognized 

special cases in which disobedience might be justified: 

When a doubt arises, as it frequently does, between strict compliance with an 

order and the disregard of it, in whole or in part, the officer is called upon to 

decide a question of professional conduct. Personal judgment necessarily enters 

a factor, but only one of many; and, to be trusted, it needs to be judgment 

illuminated by professional knowledge and fortified by reflection.... The officer at 

the moment should consider himself, as he in fact is, a judge deciding upon a 

case liable to be called up to a superior court, before which his conclusion has no 

claim to respect because it is his personal opinion, but only so far as it is 

supported by the evidence before him. There is, of course, the necessary 

reservation that the final judgment upon himself, for his professional conduct as 

involved in his decision, will be rendered upon the facts accessible to him and not 

upon those not then to be known, though afterwards apparent.67

For Samuel P. Huntington, professor of government at Harvard University in 1957, the 

supreme military virtue is obedience: "When the military man receives a legal order from 

an authorized superior, he does not argue, he does not hesitate he does not substitute 

his own views, he obeys instantly."68 Huntington goes on to say that the limits of 

obedience arise in two separate connections. The first concerns the relation between 

military obedience and professional competence; the author concludes that professional 

competence must be the final criterion. The second concerns the conflict between the 

military value of obedience and nonmilitary values. Two things are important to 

highlight. Huntington declares that the superior political wisdom of the statesman must 

be accepted as a fact: "If the statesman decides upon war which the soldier knows can 

only lead to national catastrophe, the soldier, after presenting his opinion, must fall to 

and make the best of a bad situation."69 Consequently, Huntington blames the German 

officers who joined the resistance to Hitler, believing that it is not the function of military 

officers to decide questions of war and peace. Huntington resolves the conflict between 

military obedience and morality by saying that "except in the most extreme instances it 

is reasonable to expect that he [the officer] will adhere to the professional ethic and 

obey. Only rarely will the military man be justified in following the dictates of private 

conscience against the dual demand of military obedience and state welfare."70 Michael 

Walzer, professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, 

points out that the soldier's obedience can be criminal, for when he violates the rules of 

war, superior orders are no defense. According to Walzer, the only way to avoid killing 

prisoners and innocents is to act morally by disobeying orders; he agrees, however, that 

disobedience is not an easy thing to do: "To disobey is to breach that elemental accord, 
to claim a moral separateness (or a moral superiority), to challenge one's fellows, 

perhaps even to intensify the dangers they face."71 Walzer's final conclusions are worth 

mentioning:

Mostly morality is tested only by the ordinary pressures of military conflict. Mostly 

it is possible, even when it isn't easy, to live by the requirements of injustice. And 

mostly the judgments we make of what soldiers and statesmen do are singular 

and clearcut; with whatever hesitation, we say yes or no, we say right or wrong.... 

That dualism makes us uneasy; the world of war is not fully comprehensible, let 

alone a morally satisfactory place. And yet it cannot be escaped, short of an 

universal order in which the existence of nations and peoples could never be 

threatened.72

Nico Keijzer, a lawyer and former officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy, writes in his 

dissertation that "the ideal type of legally binding order is an order which is given by a 

person who is legally permitted to do so to a person who is legally bound to comply with 

the orders given by that person."73 Keijzer describes the following limitations to the duty 

to obey: 

(1) An order is nonexistent and cannot be legally binding, if it does not reach its 

addressee or does not make clear what is the action that its recipient should 

perform.

(2) Impossibility. Nobody is required to do the impossible.

(3) Violation of a legal norm.

(4) Conscientious objections do not, in principle absolve the recipient of an order 

from the legal duty to obey.74

According to Malham M. Wakin, a teacher of philosophy at the U.S. Air Force Academy, 

obedience to orders is not merely a functional expedient for military men; it involves, at 

the same time, a moral commitment. Wakin admits that there are limits to military 

obedience that are not easy to determine, precisely because obedience is so critical to 

the military function.75 The author quotes Senator Hughes in the Senate hearings in 

1974 regarding the nominations for promotion of general officers, two of whom were 

accused of ordering falsified reports of bombing strikes that violated the written rules of 

engagement: 

The integrity of our command and control structure, both within the military and 

under civilian authority, depends upon men of the highest character, whose 

obedience to our laws and the Constitution is unquestioned. If we choose to 

reward these men with promotions, what will the consequences be?.... Will the 

officers down the line include that loyalty and obedience within one's service are 

more important than adherence to the higher principles of law and civilian control 

of the military?76
Wakin concludes that if one is torn between obedience to an order and fulfillment of 

another moral obligation, he or she must judge which is the higher obligation in those 

circumstances. Universal obligations (like loyalty and obedience, integrity and moral 

courage) are neither absolute nor relative. They bind all human beings in analogous 

sets of circumstances, but they may conflict. For G.F.G. Stanley, former professor of 

Canadian studies at Mount Allison University, the old doctrine of absolute obedience to 

superior orders is now pretty much discredited. To plead superior orders, one must 

show an excusable ignorance of their illegality. Stanley further depicts that disobedience 

should be limited to what is unquestionably an injustice; an immoral command presents 

a dilemma to the soldier, who will act in the way his moral principles demand: "The 

paths of loyalty lead to the grave as frequently as those of disloyalty lead to glory. It all 

depends upon loyalty to whom and to what."77 R.M. Hare, a British philosopher and 

author of many books and articles on ethics, in his essay, "Can I Be Blamed for Obeying 

Orders," comes to the conclusion that "we must never lose sight of the distinction 

between what we are told to do and what we ought to do. There is a point beyond which 

we cannot get rid of our own moral responsibilities by laying them on the shoulders of a 

superior."78 Harold M. Hyman, professor of history at Rice University, analyzing where 

the ultimate allegiance of the officer lies--to country, conscience, or Constitution--

concludes that in ultimate situations, soldiers have a duty to say "no" to immoral or 

illegal orders.79

Anthony E. Hartle, professor of philosophy at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, 

writes that military professionals must consider and weigh the significance of their 

actions in terms of the general moral principles, which derive from the basic values of 

society:80

Though duty prevails for the military professional obedience to orders may be 

questionable when strong evidence exists that certain actions will not be in the 

interests of the security of state. Such questioning is itself based upon the 

requirements of the duty principle, because duty for the American military 

professional is not simply a commitment to subordinate personal and other 

interests to those of national security. The commitment of the American military 

officer is to maintain a particular value structure within American society.81

Certainty in moral judgment is seldom attained in the complex situations which 

need the structure of moral evaluation sketched here. When a subordinate is 

certain that the moral judgment of a superior is wrong from a professional point of

view, he or she is professionally obligated to take action.82

Summarizing all the comments about the legitimacy and the morality of disobedience, 

one thing is quite easily said: there is no vade mecum for what is right or wrong, when 

exactly to say "yes" or "no." Nonetheless, aside from mere stereotypes, a simple guide 

in case of a questionable order can be given. If a legal and moral order has been issued 

by an authorized superior and should be followed, or if it is questionable whether an 

order is either legally or morally defective, the recipient of the order, if he does not fear 

immediate danger to his health or life, should follow a three-step process. Phase of 
Inquiry. First, he asks himself about the rightness of the specific order and judges it with 

his conscious and higher principles. Phase of Communication. Then, if the recipient 

concludes that "something is wrong," he calls his superior's attention to the doubtful 

point. Depending upon the reaction of the superior, the recipient has to decide whether 

to obey or to disobey. Discussions with the spouse or a close friend may be helpful, 

depending on the situation and the time available. Phase of Moral Courage. This marks 

the time of decision: do I want to obey and maybe later feel bad because I did not dare 

to do what appeared right to me? Or do I want to disobey and risk a lot of 

inconveniences? In my opinion, it is important to come to this phase and to analyze a 

sensitive issue thoroughly, make a decision, and stick to it; this shows the responsible 

human being, inside the uniform. The outcome will not be clear right from the beginning. 

We may not know exactly whether "yes" or "no" will be right. Victory or defeat, glory or 

humiliation, self-confidence or self-contempt are sometimes not easily discernible. 

The Relationship of Obedience to Disobedience and Blind Obedience

Obedience is the normal case. Orders or wishes of superiors are to be followed as long 

as they are legal and moral. But obedience includes criticism. The examples of 

disobedience in twentieth-century military history and their analysis show that between 

the "yes"/can do (obedience) and the "no"/cannot do (disobedience), only a few 

moments may elapse. Nonetheless, a critical thought process occurs based upon 

ethical and/or military knowledge. The verbal expression of disagreement is part of this 

chain of reasoning or its result. It is not yet a statement of disobedience or of 

disloyalty.83 Only the action determines a person's obedience or disobedience. 

Disobedience, when it occurs, is based either upon ethical or military knowledge. A 

resignation, a resigning in protest, and resistance are more commonly due to ethical, 

rather than to purely military, reasons. Blind obedience can be subdivided into 

"ollieism," a subordinate acting illegally or unethically to get a job done because he 

wants to please his boss,84 and that of the "yes man," who--like Keitel and Jodl--the 

classical pair of "nodding donkeys"85 are men who do whatever their superiors want, 

without further questioning (see figure 1).
III. APPLICATION: LESSONS TO BE 

LEARNED FOR TODAY'S OFFICER
The Challenge

General Franks, walking on the battlefield of Operation Desert Storm with soldiers of VII 

Corps, asked a company commander how long his part in the battle lasted. The answer 

was twenty-three minutes.86 Sometimes, we prepare a lifetime for the possibility of only 

a few minutes of combat. Therefore, the army in peacetime is especially challenged. 

Today's training, education, and command climate87 determine an officer's performance 

in hour X. In my opinion, there are basically two kinds of challenge. First is the 

integration of ethical issues in training programs. Every soldier must know that he could 

face ethical conflicts in war. The officer's duty is to teach his subordinates the basic 

rules of the law of land warfare and to make them aware of the moral issues involved. 

Case studies, discussions in staff colleges, officer professional development courses, 

and short sketches during field training exercises for the troops have positive learning 

effects. The value of the training, however, depends on the personal commitment of the 

senior leaders. It may sound an easy task, but in reality, daily routine and busy 

schedules often result in a neglect of ethical training. Second, we must accept that there 

are more moral issues in daily military life than we normally think. These cases have a 

lot to do with questionable orders and the command climate. In order to illustrate my 

point, I present three cases that occurred in the last two years. They are from personal 

experience or are accounts of other officers. It does not matter which country is 

involved; they could have happened in any peacetime army. 

Case A: Training with Simulations 

During an exercise for a division commander and his staff, the exercise director, a 

general, asked the operator, a lieutenant colonel, to change the weather conditions so 

that the opposing force could use its air power for a limited amount of time. The training 

audience, incidentally, was not informed of this change. The outcome of the exercise 

was significantly different because of the air strike of the opposing force.

Case B. Housing

A new garrison commander arrived. He did not like the location of the fireplace in his 

dwelling. The commander asked the engineers to move the fireplace to another room 

and to list it under "renovation." The company commander of the engineers did the job. 

Case C. A Conversation and Its Consequences

The new battalion commander was not a role model. He was supposed to be involved in 

extramarital affairs and did not seem to care about the training. Rumors were going 

around. A company commander took heart and talked to his boss. The battalion 

commander, however, accused him of disloyalty and threatened him with a bad 

evaluation. Case A prompts us to feel that something is wrong. It is unfair to change the 

conditions for one opponent but not for the other. Case B describes an illegal act. We 

are interested. Why, in both cases, did not the subordinate officers speak up and talk 
about their concerns? Why did they not disobey? The answer may be, at least partly, 

found in case C. The fear of risking a reprimand, a negative evaluation, or losing one's 

career is obviously a concern, especially in a time when armies are under constant 

budget restrictions and are forced to downsize their manpower. The fear is legitimate. 

Why should a subordinate argue with his commander upon "minor" moral questions? If 

he does not do what he is told, another officer will make it happen anyway! On the other 

hand, can someone live with the fact that an order is unfair, illegal, or morally defective? 

Can he still consider himself sincere in his own convictions? Is there a difference 

betweeen courage in combat and peacetime? General Matthew B. Ridgway told us that 

it is hard to tell a superior he is wrong. Yet it is the correct course of action, because to 

say nothing is to violate one's personal honor code, which therefore not only abridges 

one's sense of integrity, it also degrades one's effectiveness both as a leader and as a 

follower.88 John C. Bahnsen and Robert W. Cone say that the true leader "must also 

possess the integrity and moral character to do the harder right instead of the easier 

wrong. This may sometimes mean taking unpopular or controversial stands that result in 

damage to one's own career. Quality of service, not length, is the measure that should 

be used to evaluate a soldier's career."89 General Harold K. Johnson, the Army's deputy 

chief of staff for operations during the Vietnam years and later Army chief of staff, 

responded to the question, "If you had your life to live over again, what would you do 

differently?" 

I remember the day I was ready to go over to the Oval Office and give my four 

stars to the President and tell him, "You have refused to tell the country they 

cannot fight a war without mobilization; you have required me to send men into 

battle with little hope of their ultimate victory; and you have forced us in the 

military to violate almost every one of the principles of war in Vietnam. Therefore, 

I resign and will hold a press conference after I walk out of your door."--I made 

the typical mistake of believing I could do more for my country and the Army if I

stayed in than if I got out. I am going now to my grave with that burden of lapse 

of moral courage on my back.90

What about the superiors in the three cases? The superiors' behavior reflect doubtful 

short-term and egoistic objectives that may be partly personality driven, partly motivated 

by a lack of professional ethical education. Who is responsible for their education, 

selection to their present rank, and their actual command climate? One thing appears 

clear. The superior is responsible for his own development and his command climate. 

The command philosophy may be very helpful to set the stage in the beginning of his 

command. However, daily military life soon brings to light whether a commander is 

approachable or not. A survey at the U.S. Army War College in 1986 showed only two 

out of five generals were approachable. Insecurity and, to a lesser degree, arrogance 

are given as reasons for the significant number of general officers who are not at all 

approachable.91 The "closed door general" does not get all the information he needs, 

and he certainly does not get the bad news. Superiors who are not approachable can 

hardly build a command climate that fosters critical thinking. In addition, we hold the 

superiors' leaders also responsible. Either they are responsible for selecting them for 

command or do not care about their present command climate. Senior officers also 
need counsel? Ethical dilemmas can occur every day. In order to cope with these 

challenges, we must establish a goal and focus on the necessary education.

The Goal

The diagram presented earlier (see figure) shows that obedience is not reduced to a 

simple "yes" or "can do," even if there is not an immediate danger for one's life (it is 

hard to be critical and to disobey with a gun at one's head!). Basically, there are two 

kinds of criticism: criticism based upon ethical considerations and criticism based upon 

military knowledge. Every officer must understand that having critical thoughts and 

speaking up properly to one's superior does not mean to disobey. It is, even more, his 

duty to analyze carefully a given order in relation to his ethics and military knowledge. 

All his moral background, experience, wisdom, and inner soul shall determine this 

analytical process. This analysis may take a matter of minutes, hours, or even days--for 

every person and every dilemma is much different. The result is either to speak up or 

submit. Even when the superior resists his objection, the officer has two alternatives: to 

obey or disobey. As we already know, there is no way to say in advance which way is 

the better way. To obey seems to be much easier, to disobey certainly is the lonelier 

and harder path. FM 22-103 does not emphasize the principle of critical obedience. The 

regulations refer to criticism as follows: "Leaders see problems as challenges rather 

than obstacles. Leaders accept just criticism and admit mistakes; they encourage others 

to do likewise."92 What is "just" criticism? Here, in my opinion, is the crux. Too often, we 

perceive criticism as a negative statement. That is the wrong attitude. We should take 

every criticism seriously, whatever message it contains. Criticism stands at the 

beginning of every improvement. The British General J.F.C. Fuller wrote more than fifty 

years ago about the value of criticism: "The old are often suspicious of the young and 

do not welcome criticism, yet without criticism, both destructive and constructive, there 

can be no progress. As I have already mentioned, the easiest course to adopt is to lay 

down rules and regulations which must be implicitly obeyed; yet chance knows no 

compulsion, and such rules and regulations are apt to cramp intelligence and 

originality."93 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein said to Colonel Claus Graf Stauffenberg: 

"Criticism is the salt of obedience!"94 This definition of obedience contrasts, fortunately, 

with blind obedience--which can be defined as either a selfish philosophy to please 

one's boss or the easiest way to omit thinking and avoid trouble. Critical obedience, an 

inherent part of obedience, also differs from disobedience in the sense that the 

disobedient officer, having left the common path with his superior, has decided to follow 

his own orders. Critical obedience does not stand alone in our societies. It has its 

counterpart in critical citizenship--the appropriate approach to our modern, 

multidimensional, and often confusing civilization. As Stephen Nathanson, professor of 

political philosophy at Northeastern University points out: 

The ideal of critical citizenship seems to get things right. People do have a moral 

obligation to support just laws and just institutions. We do not, however, have an 

obligation to support unjust laws and unjust institutions. From that, it follows that 

we need to think critically about the laws and institutions under which we live. 

Our support of them can be genuine without being uncritical and unquestioning. 
We need to be appreciative of the good that political systems can create, while 

remaining aware that not all political systems are good and that even good 

politlical systems can give rise to unjust laws and evil policies.95

The Education

An officer's education is two-fold: it encompasses the informal process of selfdevelopment and the formal training within the military institutions. Xenophon, student of 

Socrates and famous for his historical and philosophical work, talked about voluntary

obedience and how to become a role model: 

People obey gladly somebody who is in a better position to look after their wellbeing than they can do it themselves. Sick people call for the doctor who can 

cure them, and passengers on sea trust their helmsman because he knows the 

way. A good leader acquires everything that can be learned, like he does with 

tactics. What he cannot learn and foresee thanks to his intellect he may 

experience from the gods. So he will do what's right.96

Xenophon tells us that the superior's example determines whether his subordinates 

obey or not. In order to become a role model,97 the officer needs to learn as long as he 

lives; not everything, however, can be learned, so he also must trust his moral 

judgment. The military institutions, of course, accompany and enhance the individual 

learning, process. Staff colleges are essential in making officers aware of the 

interrelationships between leadership, command climate, and critical obedience. The 

study of great commanders is an appropriate tool as the following quotation about 

Abraham Lincoln's leadership style demonstrates: 

Lincoln essentially treated his subordinates as equals; they were colleagues in a 

joint effort. He had enough confidence in himself that he was not threatened by 

skillful generals or able cabinet officials. Rather than surround himself with "yes" 

men, he associated with people who really knew their business, people from 

whom he could learn something, whether they were antagonistic or not. An often 

overlooked component of leadership is the ability to learn from people and 

experiences, from success and failures. The best leaders never stop learning. 

They possess a special capacity to be taught by those with whom they come into 

contact. In essence, this ongomig accumulation of knowledge prepares the 

organization for change.98

Modern adult education also promotes critical thinking: reading (as a means of 

stimulating critical thinking), participating in the arts, thinking, writing, discussing, and 

acting in practical situations are valuable strategies. Also, conducting workshops, 

analyzing case studies, and participating in informal networks can play an important role 

in the development of critical thinking. Teaching is also a very important tool for 

disseminating the knowledge base and for promoting leadership principles. Do we still 

emphasize teaching? We should. Mark A. Stoler, professor of history at the University of 

Vermont, stresses what an outstanding teacher General George C. Marshall was: "At 

the end of his second year at Leavenworth, his performance was again considered 
outstanding... The board unanimously selected him as one of five class members to 

remain as an instructor, though he would be outranked by all of his students...He was a 

brilliant success...."99 Certainly Marshall is worth emulating.

Recent publications for businessmen stress the value of criticism, because quality work 

is impossible where people are afraid to tell the truth.100 In the same light, the existing 

training programs for enhancing interpersonal communications and promoting good 

command climates in the military are essential preconditions for promoting critical 

obedience. Unfortunately, most of these programs are taught only once, shortly before 

an officer gets promoted to a senior officer's rank. Instead, these programs must begin 

early in an officer's career and then be reinforced in intermediate-level and senior-level 

professional military courses.101 Are tactics only taught once? Of course not. We should 

apply a similar procedure for promoting critical obedience. 

The Senior Officer's Responsibility

The higher the rank, the more responsibility an officer has. The senior officer is not only 

responsible for his own professionalism but for the climate of his command. He also 

takes part in the selection of junior officers for higher functions. In addition, he mentors 

and guides his immediate subordinates. These important tasks have a lot to do with 

coaching and counseling. Senior officers have even more responsibilities, but not more 

time. We know how stressful the life of a senior officer can be. However, the senior 

officer may not rely an written reports or casual acquaintances only. The senior 

commander has to go out and become familiar with a certain command climate, known 

in a soldier's slang as "the air that a staff breathes" or "the smoke of a training exercise." 

If the senior leader tries to find out the atmosphere which a subordinate leader is 

responsible for, he will see where a shoe pinches and will know how to coach the 

persons in charge. Senior officers, thanks to their immense experience as soldiers and 

their professional knowledge as officers, often have a very good sense for the 

"temperature" of a command climate. The command climate is crucial for a prosperous 

relationship between a superior and subordinates. It is the center of gravity for the 

senior officer's coaching, counseling, grading, and selecting of subordinate leaders and 

sets the stage for critical obedience.

IV. CONCLUSIONS

Obedience to orders is a high military virtue, without which an army is merely a mob.102

The reliability achieved through obedience is an essential characteristic of effective 

military operations; however, obedience is not absolute. Orders must be based upon 

law and morality. Soldiers Are obligated to disobey illegal or immoral orders.

Do we always and instantly see that a given order is illegal or immoral? No, at least not 

in all cases. If we sense that "something could be wrong," we should follow a three-step 

process: (1) a phase of inquiry, when we inform ourselves about the rules and 

regulations; (2) a phase of communication, when we talk to the superior and tell him our 
concerns; and (3) a phase of moral courage, when we decide to obey or to disobey and 

to bear the consequences. The complex society in which today's armed forces live and 

the variety of missions soldiers could have to accomplish in the future will cause many 

questions regarding law and morality. A critical attitude will better solve the problems 

the military will face than adhering to strict obedience or accepting) only "just criticism." 

Modern leaders must take all criticism, the good and the bad news. The principle of 

critical obedience is not new. Generals Beck and Tresckow and Colonel Stauffenberg 

lived according to this principle. They can serve as our role models because they 

maintained integrity and moral courage till the bitter end. They did not intend to become 

conspirators, but Hitler's Nazi regime left them no choice. Critical obedience (criticism is 

the salt of obedience) starts with ourselves. Like Abraham Lincoln, we should not fear 

criticism but take it as a chance to learn more about ourselves and our organization in 

order to do a better job. Life is a long journey of errors and failures, chances and 

adventures. Criticism can help us improve our leadership style and avoid our making 

the same mistake again. Military institutions should enhance this learning process by 

giving role models the chance to teach, by encouraging critical thinking, and by making 

the students (our future senior leaders!) aware of how important a good command 

climate is for promoting critical obedience.

NOTES

1. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority, 125.

2. Ibid., 134.

3. Ibid., 163.

4. There are some misconceptions. First, often only Stauffenberg is mentioned in 

connection with military resistance to Hitler. See, for example, John Keegan, The 

Second World War (New York: Viking, 1960), 394-95. Second, military authors 

emphasize too much the role Field Marshal Rommel and Generals HaIder and Speidel 

played in the plot against Hitler. See, for example, Louis L. Snyder, Hitler's German 

Enemies... (New York: Berkley Books, 1990), 189-209, or James E. Swartz, Military 

Review (September 1992):82. Part of the "Rommel myth" is based on General Speidel's 

memoirs. Speidel never played an active part in the conspiracy but simply had 

connections to General Stülpnagel. and Lieutenant Colonel von Hofacker, who tried to 

convince Rommel to join the plot and to enter a separate agreement with the Western 

Allies. Hans Speidel, Ausunserer Zeit (Frankfurt/M und Berlin: Ullstein, 1990), 174. 

General Speidel is mentioned as an "Anti-Nazi General" and "the only survivor of the 

inner circle of the conspiracy" in Correlli Barnett's Hitler's Generals (New York: 

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989), 65. In vain, we look for an essay about General 

Tresckow! Fortunately, there are some publications that put things right. See, for 

example, James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci, Target Hitler, the Plots to Kill Adolf Hitler

(Westport, CT, and London: Praeger, 1992), 9-12; Peter Hoffman, "Beck, Rommel, and 

the Nazis: The Dilemma of the German Army," Limits of Loyaty, edited by Edgar Denton 

III (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980), 118-23; and Gerd R. 
Ueberschäu, "Rommel zwischen Loyalität und militärischern Widerstand," 

Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau (6/1980), 191-92. 

5. Peter Hoffmann, German Resistance to Hitler (Cambridge, London: Harvard 

University Press, 1988), 74.

6. Ibid., 81.

7. Ibid., 88.

8. Dorothee von Meding, Mit dem Mut des Herzens, die Frauen des 20. Juli (Berlin: 

Siedler Verlag, 1992), 103-4.

9. Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler (Hinsdale, IL: Henry Regency 

Company, 1948), 78.

10. For a complete biography of General Beek, see Gert Buchheit, Ludwig Beck, ein 

preussischer General (München: List Verlag, 1964). 

11. William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany 

(New York: Ballantine Books, 1989), 509. 

12. Allen Welsh Dulles, Germany's Underground (New York: The Macmillan Company, 

1947), 25; and Gert Buchheit, 61-62. 

13. Hans Speidel, Aus unserer Zeit (Frankfurt/M und Wien, 1977),69. 

14. Erich von Manstein, Soldat im 20. Jahrhundert (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 

1983),51.

15. Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Offiziere gegen Hitler (Zürich/ Wien/Koblenz, 1946),70.

16. Hoffmann, German Resistance to Hitler, 75.

17. Buchheit, 350-53.

18. Hoffmann, German Resistance to Hitler, 128.

19. Graf J.A. Kielmansegg, "Widerstand im Dritten Reich-Eine Erinnerung zur 

vierzigsten Widerkehr des 20. Juli 1994," Allgemeine Schweizerische Militärzeitung (7/8 

1984),387. 

20. For General Tresckow's biography, see Bodo Scheurig, Henning von Tresckow, ein 

Preusse gegen Hitler (Frankfurt/M und Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1987). 
21. Ibid., 77.

22. Ibid., 115.

23. Ibid., 124-25.

24. Ibid., 126.

25. Ibid., 135-36.

26. Schlabrendorff, 114-15; Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, Soldat im 

Untergang (Frankfurt/M, Berlin, und Wien: Ullstein Verlag, 1977), 87, 133; and Peter 

Hoffmann, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder (Stuttgart: Deutsche 

Verlags-Anstalt, 1992), 263. 

27. Scheurig, 155.

28. Ibid., 167.

29. Ibid., 167-68.

30. Ibid., 210.

31. For Colonel Stauffenberg's biography, see Wolfgang Venohr, Stauffenberg, Symbol 

der Deutschen Einheit (Frankfurt/M und Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1986); and Peter 

Hoffmann, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder.

32. Hoffman, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Büder, 251.

33. Eberhard Grein-Funk, Soldat und Ethik (EOS Verlag St. Ottilien [Deutschland], 

1988), 30.

34. Hoffmann, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder, 302-3.

35. Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Briefe an Freya (Münich: Beck, 1991), 580; and 

Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff, 144. 

36. Ulrich de Maizière, In der Pflicht. Lebensbeticht eines Deutschen Soldaten im 20. 

Jahrhundert (Herford/Bonn: Mittler & Sohn, 1989), 76. 

37. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Memoirs (New York: Collier Books, 1981),378

38. Hoffmann, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder, 395.

39. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), 21-22.
40. Hans Rothfels, German Opposition to Hitler (Hinsdale, IL: Henry Regency 

Company, 1948), 161.

41. Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), 306-

7; and Richard W. Harrison, Fallen Stars: Eleven Studies of Twentieth Century Military 

Disasters, edited by Brian Bond (London, Washington, New York: Brassey's, 1991), 18-

19. 

42. Tuchman, 326,344.

43. Richard Holmes, Acts of War. The Behavior of Men in Battle (New York: Free Press, 

1985), 320.

44. Ernst Jünger, In Stah1gewittern (Berlin, 1940), 272.

45. Humphrey Cobb, Paths of Glory (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 

1987), 165.

46. Ibid., 166.

47. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War. A History of United States Military 

Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 231-32. 

48. Ibid., 232.

49. Kenneth Macksay, "Hobart," Churchill's Generals, edited by John Keegan (New 

York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991),246. 

50. Ulrich Zwygart, Menschenführung im Spiegel von Kriegserfahrungen (Frauenfeld 

[Schweiz]: Huber Verlag, 1992),34. 

51. Walter Charles de Beaulieu, Generaloberst Hoepner (Neckargemdnd: Kurt Vowickel 

Verlag, 1969), 252. Field Marshal Paulus decided differently at Stalingrad, facing the 

question whether to obey Hitler and fight to the last bullet or to disobey and withdraw. 

Paulus, in a brief survey, said after World War II: "Does the fact that his troops are in a 

position that is hopeless, or threatens to become so, give a commander the right to 

refuse to obey orders? In the case of Stalingrad, it could by no means be asserted with 

certainty that our position was hopeless or even-except at the very end-that it 

threatened to become so. How then, could I later have demanded obedience, or even 

felt justified in doing so, from one of my subordinates in a situation of, in his opinion, 

similar danger?" Walter Görlitz, Paulus and Stalingrad... (Westport, CT: Greenwood 

Press, 1974), 285. 

52. G.F.G. Stanley, "Obedience to Whom? to What?" Limits of Loyalty, edited by Edgar 

Denton III (Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980), 4. 
53. Günther Weisenborn, Der lautlose Aufstand (Rowohlt, 1962),111. 

54. Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 443-44.

55. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations 

(New York: Basic Books, 1992),310. 

56. Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the 

Army (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990), 98. 

57. James B. Stockdale, A Vietnam, Experience: Ten Years of Reflection (Stanford, CA: 

Hoover Press, 1984), 127.

58. Leonard F. Guttridge, Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection (Annapolis, MD: Naval 

Institute Press, 1992),289-90. 

59. Ibid., 292-94.

60. Ruth Linn, "Conscientious Objection in Israel During the War in Lebanon," Armed 

Forces and Society 12, no. 4 (Summer 1986):496-97. 

61. Martin Braun, "Planung und Verlauf der alliierten streitkräftegemeinsamen 

Landkriegsoperationen," Der Golfkrieg (Hrsg. Hartmut Zehrer) (Herford/Bonn: Mittler & 

Sohn, 1992), 121. 

62. See Willi Schwanitz, Ein Recht auf Widerstand? (Bern: Schweizerisches Ost-Institut 

No 21, 1984), 29; and Kielmansegg, 386.

63. Schlabrendorff, 110; see also Hoffmann, Limits of Loyalty, 124.

64. Mann, Deutsche Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt/M, 1958),478.

65. Helmut Kohl, "Mahnung und Verpflichtung des Deutschen Widerstandes," Presseund Informationsdienst der Bundesregierung (14.11.1987), 1054. 

66. Alfred T. Mahan, "The Military Rule of Obedience," The American Military: Readings 

in the History of the Military in American Society, edited by Russell F. Weigley (Reading, 

MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 41. 

67. Ibid., 35.

68. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitaty Relations (New York: Vintage Books, 1957), 73. 

69. Ibid., 76-77.
70. Ibid., 78.

71. Walzer, 315-16.

72. Ibid., 326-27.

73. Nico Keijzer, Military Obedience (Netherlands: Sijthoff & Noordhoff, Alphen aan den 

Rijn, 1978), 280.

74. Ibid., 280-84.

75. Malham M. Wakin, ed., "The Ethics of Leadership," War, Morality, and the Military 

Profession (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981), 206-7.

76. Ibid., 208.

77. Stanley, 19.

78. R.M. Hare, "Can I Be Blamed for Obeying Orders?" War, Morality, and the Military 

Profession, edited by Malharn M. Wakin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981), 450.

79. Harold M. Hyman, "Arms, Men and the Constitution," Constitution (Spring 1989):57, 

61.

80. Anthony E. Hartle, Moral Issues in Military Decision Making (Lawrence: University 

Press of Kansas, 1989),118.

81. Ibid., 121-22.

82. Ibid., 83.

83. Ibid., 148.

84. John E. Shephard, "Thomas Becket, Ollie North and You," Military Review (May 

1991):32.

85. Speer, 244.

86. Frederick M. Franks, "Matters of the Mind and of the Heart," Military Review (March 

1993): 10.

87. "A command climate is a shared feeling, a perception among the members of a unit 

about what life is like. This perception is based on their understanding of how they will 

be treated--whether the leadership cares about them personally and professionally." 

U.S. Department of the Army, FM 22-1.03, Leadership and Command at Senior Level 

(Washington, DC, June 1987), 63. 
88. James E. Swartz, "Morality: A Leadership Imperative," Military Review (September 

1992 :82.

89. John C. Bahnsen and Robert W. Cone, "Defining the American Warrior Leader," 

Parameters (December 1990): 26. 

90. Hartle, 143-44.

91. Arthur W. McMaster, General Officer Decision Making: An Inquiry into U.S. Army 

General Officer Approachability (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1986), 

34. 

92. U.S. Department of the Army, FM 22-103, Leadership and Command at Senior 

Level, 81.

93. J.F.C. Fuller, Generalship, Its Diseases and Their Cure... (Harrisburg, PA: Military 

Service Publishing Co., 1936), 88. 

94. According to Field Marshal von Manstein's aide, Alexander Stahlberg, Manstein 

used these words in a conversation with Colonel Stauffenberg. Alexander Stahlberg, 

Die verdammte Pflicht (Frankfurt/M und Berlin: Ullstein, 1990), 270. The German 

Admiral Rolf Johannesson said, "Moral courage is needed anytime, during war and 

peace!" Rolf Johannesson, Offizier in kritischer Zeit (Herford/Bonn: Mittler & Sohn, 

1989), 126. 

95. Stephen Nathanson, Should We Consent To Be Governed? A Short Introduction to 

Political Philosophy (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1992), 100. 

96. Fritz Wille, Führungsgrundsdätze in der Antike (Zürich: Schulthess Verlag, 1992), 

35-36. 

97. Marshal de Belle-Isle writes to his son: "Look to purifying morals but do not think 

that they can be established through orders. They must be taught by example and 

inspiration." U.S. Department of the Army, FM 22-103, Leadership and Command at 

Senior Level, 22. E.B. Sledge remembers the example of his captain in World War II: 

"He had a rare combination of intelligence, courage, self-confidence, and compassion 

that commanded our respect and admiration,... (he) quietly told us what to do. We loved 

him for it and did the best job we knew how." E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed at Peleliu 

and Okinawa (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 40. 

98. Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 138.

99. Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier Statesman of the American Century 

(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989),25. 
100. See Kathleen D. Ryan and Daniel K. Oestreich, Driving Fear Out of the Workplace 

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991), 153-67. 

101. McMaster, 34.

102. Jerold E. Brown, "Discipline: The Execution of Private Eddie D. Slovik," Combined 

Arms in Battle Since 1939, edited by Roger J. Spiller (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College Press, 1992), 83; and Martin E. Blumenson and 

James J. Stokesbury, Masters of the Art of Command (New York: Da Capo Paperback, 

1975), 321. 

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