Talk:Hans von Seeckt

message: The (unreferenced) claims made in the section on the training of the Weimar Reichswehr, sounds anachronistic in the portrayal of German army punitive regime during the Empire.
While I am aware of several accounts of harsh disciplining (the beatings and shootings mentioned in the section) in the context of the Prussian Army of Frederick the Great's age, as far as I know, the German Imperial Army was not particularly known for harsh punishment.
To the best of my knowledge, in WW1 among the major powers it was the British, and even more so the Italians,* who used executions for "cowardice" (which could be "shell chock" i.e. ptsd or "battle fatigue") very liberally in contrast to both the Germans and the French.
And referring back to the Frederickian system is anachronistic here, because all "modern" European armies of that age were run on a similar regime of harsh corporeal punishment with the ultimate threat of capital punishment.
(*)I'm unfamiliar with the Russian WW1 military punishment system, so they might have to be included as well)  
Mojowiha (talk) 11:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Basis for the claim that: 'Von Seeckt disciplined this small army much differently than past German armies.'? 

message: I have removed the following: 
"Seeckt made the training standards of the Reichswehr the toughest in the world. Von Seeckt trained them in anti-air and anti-tank battles by creating wooden weapons and staging mock battles under the guise of training the soldiers for reintroduction into civilian life. Von Seeckt disciplined this small army much differently than past German armies. Rather than beat or shoot soldiers for infractions, Von Seeckt forced minor offenders to spend off-hour duties lying under a bed and singing old Lutheran hymns. The Chief also had his men taught in seemingly useless topics like horse anatomy and the art of beekeeping to allow them to be citizens with skills as well as military support crews.
Seeckt has been critiziced  for his training the Reichswehr to fight wars in the distant future rather than training them for possible wars in the present.  Seeckt saw the Reichswehr as detached from politics, neither promoting or denying the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic.  Seeckt saw the Reichswehr as a way to train the army for the future, not as a means to protect Germany while it was under threat of invasion by Czechoslovakia and Poland.  As a result little effort was prepared for war plans should either nation have invaded; Seeckt preferred to train his armies to fight in a mechanized environment that could not exist until Germany rearmed.  Seeckt's logic was that eventually Germany would violate Versaille and rearm and he prepared for that, and although that proved correct, he endangered Germany at the time by not preparing for contigencies in the present.  After Seeckt left the Reicshwehr in 1926, far more effort was paid to preparing the Reichswehr in fighting the potential enemies in the present using equipment already available to the Reichswehr".
Besides for being unsourced, this is rather POVish with all this page about Germany in danger of an attack from Poland or Czechoslovakia. Nobody was planning to attack Germany in the 1920s-30s, so thus Seeckt did not put Germany in any danger. The only reason why the above was added seems to be an effort at moral equivalence, in that Seeckt's plans for aggression against Poland are contrasted with the danger of Germany that was alleged to have faced in the 1920s of Polish aggression. So seen in this light, Seeckt's unwillingess to accept Poland and his repeated calls to partition Poland with the Soviet Union seems more reasonable than what in fact the case. Note also the way in which Seeckt's plans for aggression is presented in such a way as to suggest that Germany was the victim. Germany was put was "endangered" by plans for offensive warfare, but there is nothing about Poles or Czechoslovaks being "endangered". The fact that Seeckt did not see the need to draw plans for a defensive war with either Poland or Czechoslovakia might had something to do with the fact that there was no danger of Germany being invaded by those countries. To repeat, nobody in the interwar era was planning on attacking Germany, and all the plans for aggression came from the German side, so this is really an effort to promote immoral equivalence.--A.S. Brown (talk) 01:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Section

message: I have reverted some rather misleading statements about Seeckt and the Kapp putsch, where Seeckt's open refusal to obey orders is presented very misleadingly as part of an effort to the military out of politics. First thing, Seeckt had no problem about ordering the Army into action against the Communists. In April 1920-a month after the Kapp putsch of March 1920-Seeckt crushed a Communist uprising in the Rhineland. No problem with obeying orders there when the enemy was on the left. If were true that Seeckt only refused to obey orders during the Kapp putsch to keep the Army non-political, then the same should had applied with the Communist uprising. Second, it is true that Weimar constitution said that officers were supposed to be apolitical, but it also said the President was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and no-one does it say about officers having the right to pick and chose one orders to obey. Anyhow, one should not take the formal distribution of power under the constitution too literally. Officially yes, the military was under the control of the politicians. Unofficially, the "state within the state" status of the military meant it was not. A perfect example is when Seeckt ordered in 1920 that no Jews could join the Reichswehr no matter how qualified they might be, which was in total violation of the constitution which banned religious discrimination. Third, the phrase "state within the state" means that the military was not under control of the politicians, not the military was "isolated" from politics. Clausewitz famously declared that war is the continuation by other means. Thus the decision to start a war is always political. Seeckt's starting talks with the Soviet Union on the subject of partitioning Poland-which did not even bother to inform Ebert or any other politician of until two years later-was thus a highly political act. Some "isolation" from politics! Fourth, the POVish nature of the argument can be seen that the line "The same officers who violated the Reichswehreid during the Kapp putsch by disobying Ebert's orders to suppress the putsch were later to claim that the Hitler oath made it impossible for them to resist the Nazi regime." German officers always claimed that oaths were sacred to them and could never be broken, but in fact, these officers were very selective when it came to oaths; a oath to defend democracy could broken at a whim, but an oath to a genocidal dictatorship was sacred and could never be broken. The same officers broke the Reichswehreid in 1920 because they did not believe in democracy and by contrast did believe in Hitler.--A.S. Brown (talk) 02:44, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Kapp putsch

message: I have added a small  detail to the lede.  Hans von Seeckt Kaserne: Having a large barracks named after him was an important salute by the Third Reich to his political and military career and antisemitism. (Possible COI?: I  was stationed in Trenchard Barracks from  1974 to 1977). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:38, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hans von Seeckt Kaserne, Celle