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Democratic Boots. At home, Strauss had to combat a deep-seated antipathy to anything that smacked of militarism. Invited to join the fight against the new threat from the east, the first reaction of German youth was "Ohne mich" (Without me). Soldiers in uniform were booed in public places, and the Socialist opposition attacked every defense measure as a "provocation" to the Russians, and a blow to the negotiations for reunification.
The psychological problems of creating the new German army were unique. Though it was to be a democratic army, its first officers obviously had to be veterans of the old Wehrmacht, nearly all of whom had been willing Nazi servants. Strauss set up a special "Inner Leadership" school in Koblenz where the officers were shown movies of Nazi atrocities, given handbooks on democratic treatment of subordinates. The government provided elaborate legal safeguards for the new soldier's rights and easily accessible channels through which he could air his citizen gripes. A West German soldier is told: "A command must not be followed if thereby a crime or offense might be committed." Last year the Bundeswehr's top officer, General Adolf Heusinger (whose title, with the characteristic euphemism of the new German army, is Inspector General rather than Chief of Staff), publicly praised the "Christian-humanist sense of responsibility" of the officers who joined the wartime 1944 anti-Hitler plot and said: "Their spirit and their attitude are our models." As every German soldier knows, Heusinger was a general staff officer briefing Hitler when the conspirators' bomb exploded in 1944, was wounded by the explosion.
To clear up any doubts about civilian supremacy in the new order, Strauss himself sacked one old-line general last year for refusing to wait for him in his anteroom. At a widely publicized affair, Strauss showed off his new uniforms, almost identical with what the army and Luftwaffe wore in World War II. But the jack -boots were different. "Gentlemen," grinned Strauss, "these boots are fitted with democratic civilian rubber soles."
Interlocking System. In four years at the Defense Ministry, Franz Josef Strauss has organized the fastest-growing military force in Europe. From the foggy shorelines of Flensburg on the Baltic north to Mittenwald on the craggy shoulders of the Bavarian Alps, the old sounds can be heard throughout the day and much of the night, stirring nightmares of the past and mixed feelings about the future. The sounds are the bark of parade-ground sergeants, the whine of fighter planes, the far-trailing echo of strong young voices singing When the Soldiers March Through Town as a paratroop company swings along Franconian roads.