Forging the king's sword: Military education between tradition and modernization: The case of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, 1871-1918.

摘要

Analytical study of Prussian military history suffers from the document-lean environment created by the destruction of the Reichsarchiv in Berlin in 1945. In the case of the Prussian military school system, no collection of grade reports, no policy memoranda, no applications for admission survived the effects of the Royal Air Force. Yet the importance of the Prussian officer corps and the cadets who filled its most notable positions make an analysis of the social background and formative process in the Kadettenanstalten important to the understanding of the attitudes and actions of Germany's military leadership.;The trappings of the Cadet Corps, which provoked much criticism from liberals and socialists in Wilhelmine Germany, remained staunchly royalist to the end. The schools infused their graduates with both a powerful, if reactionary, moral code and an egalitarian sense of competition. The conflicts that existed in their society and were reproduced in the schools influenced former cadets as they faced the turmoil of the 20th Century. While numerous factors affected their performance, the behavior of Cadet Corps graduates reflected the tensions that evolved in their alma mater.;A computer analysis of biographical sketches of the more than 11,000 Prussian cadets who graduated from the system between 1871 and 1918 provides a key to that understanding. Blended with such archival material as survived and memoirs of former students, the analysis reveals that the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps served two purposes. It continued its traditional and much-criticized role as educational support for sons of the aristocracy, but it also evolved, in the second half of the 19th Century, as a conduit for upward mobility. Inside the schools, the social class bias that pervaded Prussia did not exist. Nobles and protestants received preferential treatment for admission to the schools, and upon graduation were posted to the most desirable regiments. But, based on merit, cadets were placed in one of the two advanced programs, the Prima or Selekta, that were generally accepted to lead to General Staff service and high command.