U.S Airforce Employee handed personal information to the German tax court resulting in a $300,000 Judgment

This gave me the chills when I read it, I was stationed there for 5 years from 1986 to 1991 and I had dealings with the German court system,hey speeding tickets add up.  I lost every one because I was an American and it didn't matter that a couple of them were bogus, I still had to pay, and JAG was no help, and from what I heard, I wasn't the only one with that problem.  The SOFA Agreement supposed to give us some protection from the local laws because we are Americans stationed there.  One of the things was we didn't pay the "Zolle" or fuel tax on the gas, I was already paying a dollar a gallon for super unleaded back then and a few other things that were tax exempt.  And another thing was the agent Dirk, makes me wonder where his loyalty was, to his job or to his homeland.  If I was his boss, I would find a way to can his ass, but to fire him in Germany is an expensive proposition because of the job protections they have.

     After reading this, it reinforced my attitude that we need to pull the rest of our troops out and send them to Poland or back to the States.  President Trump had the right idea but the Germans didn't want us leaving because we are a revenue source for them, ..hey someone has to pay for all the benefits for the "refugees" you know.  I have a bunch of good memories of Germany back during the Cold way, but after the Cold war, I heard everything changed and the Germans didn't want us there anymore.

Ramstein Air Base. (U.S. Air Force)

16 Nov 2021

Stars and Stripes | By John Vandiver

STUTTGART, Germany -- The German tax collectors wanted to know it all: commissary expenditures, on-base gasoline purchases, visits to a Ramstein Air Base fitness center, discounted airline flights to the United States.

And special agent Dirk Roessling, a German employee of the U.S. Air Force's Office of Special Investigations at Ramstein, obliged in a five-page report that ended up being used against a U.S. military-affiliated family in tax court.

The report shows a U.S. military agency collaborating with German authorities to collect German income tax penalties on U.S. military paychecks -- a practice the State Department considers a violation of a multinational treaty.

"It felt like there was a mole on the inside," said the American, who worked as a military civilian at Ramstein under the NATO Status of Forces Agreement before moving to the U.S. in 2020.

Added his German wife: "They knew everything. I feel like they are Stasi people working there," a reference to the secret police of communist East Germany during the Cold Wa

The couple, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being retargeted by collectors, are among an untold number of Americans connected to the military in Germany who have been financially ruined by local tax offices.

The amount they paid, much of it related to penalties connected to so-called base "privileges," was 248,452.99 euros, or roughly $300,000, the couple said.

The cooperation of the Air Force's OSI branch at Ramstein came to light after Stars and Stripes was provided a copy of the purchase records covering four years that Roessling sent the Neustadt finance department in 2018.

The Neustadt office is where Rheinland-Pfalz tax dispute cases are litigated.

The couple lost their case in tax court in Neustadt in 2020. The court determined that the American wasn't in Germany "solely" for his job and that he had no intention of returning to the U.S., where he now lives, the family said.

Mike Goff, a retired Air Force senior master sergeant who serves as an advocate for the affected military community in Germany, said he was "astonished" that any U.S. military office handed over information about on-base purchases by a SOFA-protected American "to share with a foreign country's most feared agency."

U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a statement that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations "does not comment on pending legal matters."

Roessling, the special agent who sent the report to the tax authorities, did not respond to a request for comment.

More than one year after the U.S. government lodged a diplomatic complaint that German finance offices are misinterpreting the SOFA in their attempts to tax military personnel, there is still no end in sight to what has become a revenue stream for some German garrison towns.

"At this time, we cannot get into specific discussions," a U.S. State Department spokesman told Stars and Stripes in a statement. "However, we can assure you that the U.S. government has expressed at very high levels our eagerness to see the long-standing issue resolved. We will continue to engage with our German partners on this matter."

In September, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters during a visit to Ramstein Air Base that he was unaware of the matter but that he would look into it. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin raised his concerns with his German counterpart during a Pentagon meeting in June.

While diplomatic talks drag on, there are new questions about how much cooperation U.S. military investigators should give when German authorities pursue these tax cases.

The dispute centers on how to interpret the NATO treaty, which puts the pay and benefits of those with military visas off-limits to local tax collectors.

No other country with large concentrations of U.S. forces, including Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea, has tried to collect income tax on military paychecks, which are already taxed by the U.S. government.

But some German authorities say the treaty leaves the door open to taxing Americans who have personal reasons for being in Germany.

Being married to a German, sending children to local schools or having lengthy tours of duty are some of the factors considered in tax liability cases.

Certain groups of military civilians, such as teachers, are especially at risk because their positions don't come with tour length restrictions, and they can spend their whole careers abroad.

For American personnel, getting into a tax battle with the Germans involves more than just pay. Finance offices use base amenities to inflate bills.

Things like access to discounted gas, Defense Department schools for children, tax-free shopping and free gyms are among the privileges that get factored in.

"This is what the (German finance offices) use to tack on upwards of 15,000 euros to our fellow Americans' income to squeeze more illegal money out of them," Goff said.

Both USAFE and U.S. Army Europe and Africa say they are unaware of requests by local tax offices for purchase records from base authorities for use in tax assessments against personnel.

That raises the question of whether German tax officials are approaching U.S. military investigators with felony allegations of tax fraud as a means of accessing the records, which can then be redirected to noncriminal tax dispute cases at issue in the SOFA dispute.

Under the SOFA, the military must provide information in certain cases, such as when goods are being sold on the black market.

The SOFA provisions also apply when a person or business is already subject to German taxation.

For example, the military would have to provide records pertaining to on-base concessionaires who are accused of not reporting income and purchases to German authorities.

Yet Ramstein's OSI office appears to have gone a step further, sending information on a military-affiliated family that it acknowledged in its letter to German finance officials had "full entitlement" to privileges.

The Landstuhl-Kusel finance office, which oversees matters in the Ramstein area, defended its methods.

In a statement, it said it seeks information for tax cases "based exclusively" on what is "permitted under procedural law" and provisions in the SOFA.

German authorities haven't revealed how much money they've collected from American personnel over the years or how many people have been targeted in all, but in the Ramstein Air Base area alone, there were roughly 400 cases as of last year.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/11/16/us-air-force-employee-handed-over-couples-purchase-records-leading-300000-tax-bill-germans.html

Paranormal Nazi guerilla organization.

There was a secret organization that the Nazi's formed toward the end of the war, it was based on the paranormal, the Nazi's had this fascination with the occult, for example the organization Todt, their forced labor organization, a variation of that name means "death or dead". and since they worked many of their workers to death since they were conscript or slave labor, it kinda fits the name.

Three German soldiers returning from training exercise, France, October 1941.

It is said that “desperate times call for desperate measures,” and no one was more desperate than the members of the Third Reich in 1945 during the final months of World War II.
Even Adolf Hitler knew the Allies were advancing on Berlin. The thought both terrified and enraged him.

Hitler had always been a big believer in the occult, numerology, the zodiac, and more. But by the final months of the war, his belief morphed into a kind of obsession.
His preoccupation with these matters was well known to his men. They catered to it by delving into subjects like the existence of the Holy Grail, witchcraft, and werewolves.
Hitler was fascinated by werewolves, but he believed in them the same way Germanic folklorists did, namely that werewolves were merely “flawed, but well-meaning characters who may be bestial, but are tied to the woods, the blood, the soil,” says Eric Kurlander, author of Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich.
Werwolf – ruins of Hitler’s headquarter near VinnytsiaAccording to Kurland, Hitler used werewolves and wolves as symbols of German strength and purity against those seeking to destroy them.
Hitler co-opted the image of the creatures often. In one instance, he named a plan to destroy his enemy’s supply chain “Operation Werewolf.”

He also created a group of paramilitary soldiers – werewolves – to confuse and frighten the advancing Allies and the Soviets, against whom he was losing badly on the Eastern Front.
By late 1944, even Hitler and his top men, including Joseph Goebbels, knew the war would soon be over. They realized that they couldn’t pull victory from the jaws of defeat.
9 March 1945: Goebbels awards a 16-year-old Hitler Youth, Willi Hübner, the Iron Cross for the defense of LaubanInstead, they chose to delay the inevitable in the hope that they could devise a more favorable scenario for Germany. Historian Perry Biddiscombe explains in his book, Werewolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944-1946 that Goebbels came up with the idea to exploit the werewolf legend.
In early 1945, Biddiscombe notes, broadcasts began nationwide urging citizens to join the “werewolf movement.” He describes one broadcast in which a woman, posing as a werewolf, says, “Lily the werewolf is my name. I bite, I eat, I am not tame. My werewolf teeth bite the enemy.”

16-year-old Willi Hübner being awarded the Iron Cross in March 1945.Photo: Bundesarchiv,

It might sound a little absurd now, but some Germans back then were eager to join up because the propaganda stoked fears they already had about the victors.
However, many Germans were largely tired of the war, worn out by years of deprivation and conflict. They just wanted the whole thing to be over.
The Allies took the threat seriously as well, even though General Patton declared it “bunk.”

SS Officer Otto Skorzeny, who helped organize and train the paramilitary “werewolf” forces       that were never successfully deployed

Goebbels controlled the media, and he fuelled confusion and fear by alleging that Nazi werewolves – the paramilitary – were doing real damage. However, any damage that was done was mostly to the German citizenry.
Biddiscombe estimates that several thousand injuries resulted from the werewolf campaigns. They targeted folks who welcomed the Allies and did substantial damage until 1947.
Kurlander finds this period in Germany’s history particularly intriguing. “It’s fascinating to me,” he told Smithsonian.com, “that even when everything is coming down around them, the Nazis resort to a supernatural, mythological trope in order to define their last-ditch efforts.”

Germany at the end of World War II was a chaotic place largely destroyed by Allied bombs. Its people were exhausted from years of Nazi rule and a war that left them hungry and poor.

German refugees in Bedburg, near Kleve, 19 February 1945

The history of the so-called Nazi werewolves does not really seem as bizarre as it might in the context of a different country and a different leader. But with Hitler, all bets were off; even his own men didn’t know what he might ask of them next.
If the Allied soldiers were never actually as hurt by the werewolves as he had hoped, his own people suffered because of them. It is another chapter in the long saga of Nazi rule, and the damage it caused to the German people.

Some of the German subs that didn'tsurrender immediately after the war.

This ties in with the article that I posted last week about Germany and it rolls with some of the articles that I have posted about Postwar Germany.

German U-boats were the scourge of the high seas in the Second World War. The Atlantic was always a contested battleground with the threat of a wolf pack nearby.
These insidious machines managed to escape the crippling naval limitations imparted by the Treaty of Versailles. After the end of the First World War, Germany was limited to six battleships of no more than 10,000 tons, six cruisers, and twelve destroyers.
The torpedo is the weapon most commonly associated with submarine warfare, and rightfully so. But the U-boat also came with a deck-gun, which was often used to deadly effect when the U-boat breached the surface.

Convoy escorts and anti-submarine aircraft, November 1941

The eminence of the U-boat was enough to make even staunch Winston Churchill admit that the German U-boat was the only thing that he truly feared. Even so, the primary missions of U-boats were to disrupt supply lines by attacking convoys carrying reserve weapons, troops, and especially food supplies.
The total tally of ships sunk during the Second World War by U-boats included nearly 3,000. Of these, 2,845 were merchant ships and less than 200 were warships.

Oblique aerial photograph taken from Short Sunderland Mark III, EK586 ‘U’, of No. 10 Squadron RAAF during an attack on German type VIIC submarine U 426 in the Bay of Biscay.

The U-530 was a Type IXC/40 submarine and considered an improvement on its smaller predecessors. It required a full complement of 48 soldiers to run smoothly. It had six torpedo tubes and a full armament of 22 torpedoes. It also came standard with an anti-aircraft gun, SK C/32 naval gun, and 180 rounds of ammunition. In terms of communications, it sported a FuMO 61 Hohentwiel U Radar Transmitter.

The U-530 joined the 10^th flotilla and later on the 33^rd flotilla. The crew of the U-530 was active through several patrols, where they racked up two kills and did serious damage to a third ship before being one of the final U-boats to surrender in July 1945.

An Argentine Navy boarding party inspects German u-boat U-530, July 1945.

The crew ignored the order to surrender from Admiral Karl Donitz, who had taken control after the death of Adolf Hitler. Instead, they traveled to Argentina and surrendered on the 10^th of July at Mar del Plata. The reason behind the captain’s insubordination still isn’t known, but several mysteries float around the submarine’s final journey.
For example, the journey took two months longer than it should have. When the U-boat finally reached its destination, the crew had no identification, the submarine’s log had disappeared, as had the deck gun.

A German type XXI submarine, U-2502, comes under cannon fire from a De Havilland Mosquito FB Mark VI during an attack on four surfaced U-boats and an M-class minesweeper escort in the Kattegat by 22 Mosquitos of the Banff Strike Wing. U-2502 received only slight damage, but a type VIIC submarine was sunk, a type XXIII seriously damaged and the minesweeper left burning.

The rumor mill churned out a story that endures to this day: that the U-530 had taken a peculiar detour to spirit Hitler and Eva Braun to safety. It was then accused of sinking a Brazilian cruiser, although that accusation would later be disproved when the cause was found to be an accident aboard the cruiser.
Upon surrendering, the U-530’s crew was immediately interned prior to being sent back to Germany. The fate of the U-530 was sealed by a torpedo from an American Submarine which used it for target practice.

A soldier of the 7th Cameronians is dwarfed by half-completed U-boats in the docks at Bremen, 28 April 1945.

However, the U-530 was not the last of the U-boats to surrender.
The U-977 was a Type V11C U-boat with a displacement of 769 tons, five torpedo tubes with 14 torpedoes, and a naval gun with 220 rounds of ammunition. It was not as powerful as the U-530.
With the war winding down and the threat of meeting a terrible end at the hands of victorious Allied forces, the captain headed off to Argentina on August 17^th, 1945. The escape route saw the U-977 travel from Norway to Bristol, through heavily defended Allied waters.
The U-boat traveled underwater for 66 days, making a total of 99 days at sea, before they arrived at Mar del Plata on the Argentinian coast to surrender to the Argentinian authorities.

Germany submarine U-977 in Mar del Plata

Rumors, not unlike those that swirled around the U-530, circulated around that the U-977 had also served as a transport for top Nazi authority figures, including Hitler and Eva Braun, as well as Nazi gold. Regardless of the veracity of the claim, the U-977 suffered a similar fate to the U-530 and was sunk to the bottom of the ocean, courtesy of the US Navy.
   The War ended but the effect of the U-Boats on warfare in WWII far exceeding their numbers and manpower.

When Porche tried to build a "Jeep" for the West German Military.

I shamelessly clipped this from Car and Driver.  I thought it was a neat article especially since I have been posting a bunch of articles during Postwar Germany, I thought it kinda tied in with them.

When West Germany was formed out of the ashes of Hitler's Third Reich in 1949, responsibility for its defense fell to the Western Allies. As tensions with Stalin's Soviet Union only seemed to be increasing, it was decided that the Bundesrepublik Deutschland should be allowed to arm itself, leading to the formation of the Bundeswehr, a new German defense force, incorporating a new army, a revived Luftwaffe, and a naval service simply referred to as Marine. The new service needed a Jeep, a role that had been largely performed during World War II by the Beetle-based Kübelwagen. DKW's awkward-looking Munga won the competition to serve as light-duty mobility for German troops, beating out upstart sports-car manufacturer Porsche's very interesting Jagdwagen.

Known by its Porsche type number, 597, the Jagdwagen (literally, "hunting car") pulled a page from the Volkswagen playbook. Where Ferdinand Porsche's Kübelwagen borrowed heavily from his design for the VW Beetle, his son Ferry used his company's 356 in much the same way. Given that the 356 itself can be seen as a radical evolution of the Beetle, it's not a stretch to claim that the Kübelwagen and the Jagdwagen trace their roots to the same seed.

But while the VW had Nazi win-at-all-costs fanaticism and the industrial might of the state-owned KdF-Stadt at Fallersleben behind it, Porsche's company had only its Stuttgart works and contract production at Karmann available, likely making the Jagdwagen a more expensive proposition, especially from the perspective of a relatively new government in the midst of rebuilding a nation.

However, for the expense, there was real capability on offer. Its 356-derived 50-hp flat-four engine was connected to a five-speed transmission, but that wasn't the end of it. The front wheels were capable of engaging with the powertrain on the fly. Given all-wheel traction, a short wheelbase, and generous approach and departure angles, the Jagdwagen was capable of climbing a 65 percent grade

Early prototypes, introduced in January 1955, featured a very high sill without doors, giving the Jagdwagen a measure of amphibious capability, although its motorboat capabilities weren't developed to the extent of the Kübelwagen’s fishy-flutter cousin, the World War II–era Schwimmwagen, which featured a propeller. Later prototypes from 1957 favored ease of ingress and egress over amphibious prowess, and they were equipped with doors.

Weighing in at a mere 1874 pounds, the flyweight military vehicle offered impressive dynamics for its day, but the Bundeswehr ultimately determined that the nifty Jagdwagen and its Goliath co-competitor were less a match for the country's needs than the simple, dumpy Munga from DKW. Nevertheless, it stands as the first Porsche-branded vehicle with four driven wheels. Porsche's Stuttgart facility had assembled four-wheel-drive Schwimmwagens during the war years and had developed the all-wheel-drive Cisitalia Grand Prix car shortly after the war.

Of the 71 Jagdwagens constructed, roughly 50 examples are known to exist still. And today, of course, the remnants of DKW are part of Audi, Porsche's sister brand in the Volkswagen Group portfolio. Porsche didn't build another vehicle with four driven wheels until the all-mod-cons 959 of the 1980s, but today it largely sustains itself building sport-utility vehicles such as the Cayenne and the Macan, the latter of which is based on Audi’s Q5.

Without the Munga-contract money that flowed into Ingolstadt bolstering Auto Union's postwar fortunes, today's Audi might never have existed, there might have been no Volkswagen Golf, and Porsche might well have wound up having to develop the Macan from scratch. Which, if we're honest, probably would've been just fine with Porsche.

Fighting that continued after the surrender of WWII

This is part of my series of articles that I have written in the past about postwar Germany right after the end of WWII and before Germany was formed as a republic in 1951.  The surrender didn't happen immediately, there were cases of German U-boats that didn't know of the surrender until weeks later.

It’s easy to imagine that once World War II officially ended, the defeated Germans forces were so anxious to get home that they dropped their guns where they stood, stripped off their uniforms, and quickly surrendered from exhaustion, hunger, and stress.
Not quite.

Many German soldiers were caught by surprise when Hitler’s second in command, Karl Donitz, signed the instrument of unconditional surrender in Berlin in 1945. By then, as we know, Hitler himself was dead of a self-administered cyanide dose in his bunker, along with his mistress, Eva Braun.

But trying to stop a war in its tracks is a little like coaxing a hippo into doing a pirouette: impossible. In reality, it took months for the war to end. In some cases, Germans were terrified of surrendering to the Russians, from whom they feared the worst treatment. In total, the surrender took four months to go fully into effect and halt all skirmishes.

Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945

General Alfred Jodl signing the capitulation papers of unconditional surrender in Reims.

When the fighting ceased on the Russian front, many German soldiers raced to reach Allied forces, fearing the Soviets would be merciless in their treatment of POWs. Along the coast of Gdansk, they fought not for Hitler anymore, but for their very lives. Finally, they had to surrender to the Red Army in early May.

 Captured German battle Standards displayed on Red Square after the Surrender.

As the Germans retreated, brief but fierce battles broke out on the Balkan and even on some occupied Greek Islands. As news of the Allied victory spread, men serving on the German U-Boat 234, loaded with half a ton of uranium intended to aid the Japanese, headed for America instead. Its captain, Johann-Henrich Fehler, was terrified of being caught by the British or Canadians and felt the U.S. would be less harsh in its treatment of his crew. Two Japanese men on board killed themselves, rather than face detention in a POW camp.

U-234 surrendering. Crewmen of Sutton (DE-771) in foreground with Kptlt. Johann-Heinrich Fehler (left-hand white cap)

Another incident that took place rather slowly was the British recapture of the Channel Islands. Churchill was in no rush to round up the Germans, who had occupied the islands since their invasion in 1940, saying “let them starve.” Eventually, there was a peaceful surrender in mid-May.

Crowds of people gathered outside the General Assurance Corporation building in St Peter Port, Guernsey to welcome the British Task Force sent to liberate the island from German occupation, 10 May 1945.

The bloodiest incident that took place after Germany’s defeat was a mutiny on the Dutch isle of Texel.
Germany had forced some Georgian citizens into service during the war, as part of its Atlantic Wall Defence Force. However, on April 5^th, the Georgians launched a mutiny in an effort to shed themselves of Germany’s control. Resisters killed 800 German soldiers while they slept.

Two wounded Georgian soldiers at Texel in 1945

This infuriated the Germans, who sent 2,000 troops to the island to squash the rebellion. And squash it they did, at the cost of 565 Georgian men, 120 Dutch citizens, and 812 German soldiers. The long-awaited Allied invasion finally happened on May 20^th.

Perhaps the best-known individual from the war’s conclusion is U-Boat Captain Heinz Schaffer, who wrote a book about his exploits, “U-977 – 66 Days Under Water.”
Schaffer was given the unappealing assignment of steering his sub to Britain in a suicide mission designed to destroy all the British boats he could before he himself was destroyed. But when he got word that Germany was defeated, he headed instead for Argentina, where he hoped to find asylum. Unfortunately for him, the Argentine government immediately turned him over to the Americans, who kept the sub as a kind of macabre war memento.

Germany submarine U-977 in Mar del Plata.1945

 

An almost humorous incident took place on Bear Island, in the Arctic. A small group of German soldiers had been sent there to set up a weather station, but when their radio transmission failed, they could not stay in touch. Finally, a small band of Norwegian sealers found themselves in the curious position of being surrendered to, four months after the war was declared over.

Last but not least is Japanese operative Hiroo Onoda, who must be included in any round up of the final events of World War II. Onoda was sent to the Philippines to hinder the enemy in any way he could. He heard about his country’s defeat in a timely fashion but decided he wanted no part of it. Instead, he chose to keep undermining the Allies and so he headed for the hills to escape. He managed to hide there until 1974 when a Japanese official finally went to the Philippines to retrieve him.

Japanese imperial army soldier Hiroo Onoda (R) offering his military sword to Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos (L) on the day of his surrender, March 11, 1974.

 

George Marshall on True Leadership

I ran across this article on true leadership surfing the web and I decided to post about it and add some information.  I knew who George C. Marshall was and I got some more information from Wiki.

Born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Marshall was a 1901 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. After serving briefly as commandant of students at the Danville Military Academy in Danville, Virginia, Marshall received his commission as a second lieutenant of Infantry in February, 1902. In the years after the Spanish-American War, he served in the United States and overseas in positions of increasing rank and responsibility, including platoon leader and company commander in the Philippines during the Philippine–American War. He was the Honor Graduate of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course in 1907, and graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College class.
In 1916 Marshall was assigned as aide-de-camp to J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Western Department. After the United States entered World War I, Marshall served with Bell while Bell commanded the Department of the East. He was assigned to the staff of the 1st Division, and assisted with the organization's mobilization and training in the United States, as well as planning of its combat operations in France. Subsequently assigned to the staff of the American Expeditionary Forces headquarters, he was a key planner of American operations including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

“I am certain in the belief that the average man who scrupulously follows this course of action is bound to win great success.”
George Marshall must be one of, if not the most underappreciated leaders in American history, and certainly of the 20th century.Most people today have no idea who he was and what effect he had on Post WWII America.  Here is some information,

Not only was he the military genius in charge of the US Army during World War II and the most directly responsible for its success, he was considered the primary leader of the Allied War effort by every major Allied leader. Roosevelt found him indispensable as his Army Commander, Winston Churchill called him the “true architect of victory” in the War, and even Stalin claimed he’d personally trust his life to Marshall.
It was Marshall who, from a standing start of a few hundred thousand soldiers, raised an army of millions and oversaw the major operations that would lead to the liberation of Europe.
Churchill put Marshall’s best qualities — his leadership in the worst of times — on display when he wrote:

“There are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of General Marshall … He is a great American, but he is far more than that … He has always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement and disillusion. Succeeding generations must not be allowed to forget his achievements and his example.”

Marshall is now mostly known for his genius Marshall Plan as Secretary of State, which sought to re-build Europe (including Germany) in the aftermath of the war thus being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

Before World War II, Marshall had a long and distinguished military career, including as the primary aide to General John J. Pershing, the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. And during this time, Marshall wrote a letter that perfectly exemplifies the qualities of a great leader. It would go on to be included in his posthumously published World War I memoir, Memoirs of My Services in the World War, 1917-1918.

Here, Marshall lays out the four qualities required to be a successful leader in a war situation.
What strikes the most about them is that they are neither complicated nor available to a select few nor specific to war at all. They are simply hard. And if Marshall’s life is a testament to anything, it’s that the ability to do hard things at the right time is the essence of a great leader.

November 5, 1920
General John S. Mallory
15 University Place
Lexington, Virginia
My Dear General Mallory,
Last summer during one of our delightful rides I commented on the advice I would give a young officer going to war, based on my observation of what had constituted the success of the outstanding figures in the American Expeditionary Forces, and you asked me to write out what I had said. A discussion with Fox Conner this morning reminded me of my promise to do this, so here it is.
To be a highly successful leader in war four things are essential, assuming that you possess good common sense, have studied your profession and are physically strong.
When conditions are difficult, the command is depressed and everyone seems critical and pessimistic, you must be especially cheerful and optimistic.
When evening comes and all are exhausted, hungry and possibly dispirited, particularly in unfavorable weather at the end of a march or in battle, you must put aside any thought of personal fatigue and display marked energy in looking after the comfort of your organization, inspecting your lines and preparing for tomorrow.
Make a point of extreme loyalty, in thought and deed, to your chiefs personally; and in your efforts to carry out their plans or policies, the less you approve the more energy you must direct to their accomplishment.
The more alarming and disquieting the reports received or the conditions viewed in battle, the more determined must be your attitude. Never ask for the relief of your unit and never hesitate to attack.
I am certain in the belief that the average man who scrupulously follows this course of action is bound to win great success. Few seemed equal to it in this war, but I believe this was due to their failure to realize the importance of so governing their course.
Faithfully yours,
George C. Marshall
Major, General Staff
Aide-de-Camp