Command Decision

In full field kit and mottled grey-green camouflage battle dress, 28 men of West Germany's 19th Airborne Battalion marched through heavy spring rains one morning last week to the bank of the deceptively calm Iller River, just outside the Swabian city of Kempten. Commanding the platoon was a tough but well-liked Stabsoberjaeger (staff sergeant) named Peter Julitz, 24. At the river's edge Platoon Leader Julitz made a quick decision: "We're going to ford the river," he told his men. "In battle, the bridge might be out, and we'd have to be able to do it."

Julitz, a good swimmer, led the way. He had not been present four months earlier when a battalion order was issued forbidding training troops to ford the Iller, and no one present thought to inform him of it. At midstream Julitz went under; only his helmet was visible. Within seconds the Iller's treacherous currents had caught the rest of the platoon.

Death. Sergeant Julitz and three others managed to make it to the opposite shore. But 19 more were carried, struggling and gasping in their heavy combat gear, downstream towards the Iller Bridge. Four were rescued. Fifteen went to their deaths. It was the first major training accident in the history of West Germany's nascent (96,000-strong) Bundeswehr.

Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, who was on his way to his own wedding at nearby Rott-am-Inn when he heard the news on the car radio, rushed to the scene, suspended the battalion and company commanders from duty, appointed a special commission to investigate the case. Then he went on to his wedding (but canceled the parade scheduled in his honor). Chancellor Adenauer expressed his condolences to the dead soldiers' families, and the Bavarian state assembly convened a special session to express its regrets.

Explanations. At Kempten, Platoon Leader Julitz' immediate superior, who had watched the troops enter the river, explained why he had not countermanded Julitz' order: "He had the same rank as I, and I didn't want to contradict him. My fears were for the possible damage to uniforms and boots. I didn't think for a moment that the life and health of the soldiers was endangered."

Watching the hue and cry that swept over West Germany after the incident, the Parisian newspaper Le Monde gloomily saw the accident as new proof of the power of command over Germans: "Command is still the absolute master. Once this command led to crime, today to suicide. It is strange to see how a people can rely so blindly on those who give it orders. Poor Germans!"

Le Monde might be carrying its conclusions a little too far, but Defense Minister Strauss, unhappily ordering all German army flags at half mast on his wedding day, issued an order of the day to his new army: "The tragic deaths show the great responsibility of all superiors in the Bundeswehr and the need to carry out service with clear orders and interdictions."

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