Document created: 11 December 03
Air University Review, March-April
1973
Brigadier
General Heinz Waldhecker, Luftwaffe
The “horseshoe nail decree”
Many an event from the time of
our military ancestors proves that not all problems with which the commanding
authorities of the Federal Armed Forces have to deal are new. We may realize
that fact with some regret, but often with a smile, too.
We were pleased recently to receive a letter from Brigadier General Heinz Waldhecker, Commander of the Air Force Department, German Armed Forces Staff College, enclosing a copy of an item taken from Truppenpraxis, Number 7,1970, page 496.
General Waldhecker, a regular reader of Air University Review, referred to Lieutenant Colonel Edward Stellini’s article appearing in our issue of March-April 1972 (page 26) and quoting Benjamin Franklin’s axiom of the “horseshoe nail.” The adage inspired him to send us another “horseshoe nail” story. His letter reads, in part, as follows:
In the German Forces, too, the horseshoe nail proved significant as the symbol of “bureaucratic lengthiness” in a directive by the then [1925] Chief of Staff Reichswehr, Generaloberst v. Seeckt. . . . This paper has entered German military history under the term “Horseshoe nail decree.” Undoubtedly, however, the horseshoe nail played a different role ion General v. Seeckt than for Benjamin Franklin.
We thought our readers would enjoy this amusing anecdote, which probably has
more relevance today than it had in 1925.
THE EDITOR
Chief of the Army Command
5th December, 1925
No. 250/12.25 Army Command Staff
To all
Chiefs and Department Heads of the
Inspectorate of the Army Command
In my opinion office routine within the Army Command is becoming lengthy and time-consuming. Even decisions made by myself through oral communication or written marginal notes take several days before they are prepared and forwarded to me; often they even take weeks to reach their destination. Frequently I am astonished that my instructions have not yet reached the field forces. Petitions addressed to me are repeated, because the answer has not been received, although some time has passed. I certainly do not blame this delay on a lack of diligence; rather I attribute it to increasingly intensifying bureaucratic practices. We are beginning to lose the advantage of centralization compared to the variety of decentralized authorities and other independent agencies of pre-war times. I am afraid that, instead of correspondence from house to house, now correspondence from room to room is developing. Above all, I am afraid of a vanity developing within the departments that requires hearing and being heard on all and sun-dry items and does not permit a new shape of horseshoe nail to be recommended until T 1, 2, 3, 4, A.A., Wa J.W.G. in the legal departments 1 to 7, and Frieko* have delivered their comments in writing and until differences of opinion have been settled by a discussion among the officers in charge of departmental sections. Even more am I afraid that, on the part of the departments and inspectorates, their action must wait until all units have been consulted individually on the “horseshoe nail” in question. When, finally, the exclusively competent Veterinary Inspectorate submits the “horseshoe nail” to me for decision, after all the agencies concerned have consented to such submission, either a hundred horses have been made lame unnecessarily in the meantime or the old, time-proven horseshoe nail remains, and thus all the work of the ministry and the field forces has been a sheer waste of time.
*Translator’s note: These are special departments within the former Ministry of the Army.
I request all authorities of the Army Command to understand this horseshoe nail as a symbol and to assist me so that we are protected from a bureaucratic lengthiness that is not in consonance with the military profession.
Armed Forces Staff College
Hamburg, Germany
Brigadier General Heinz Waldhecker, Luftwaffe, is Commander, Air Force Department, German Armed Forces Staff College, Hamburg. During World War II he served as a pilot and was a unit commander at the end of the war. He returned to the Luftwaffe in 1956 and served as an Air Traffic Controller until entering general staff officer training in 1959. Following staff duties at intermediate-command levels, he was assigned as an air defense instructor at the Staff College. General Waldhecker served as deputy commander and chief of staff of an air division until his present assignment in 1969.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor