Abstract
The experience of military violence in the ISAF operation is not only something essentially new to the society and the armed forces in Germany but also and particularly to the deployed soldiers. It is the soldiers who have theoretically practiced the use of violence as part of their profession and their service in the Bundeswehr for decades during the Cold War. For the first time since the end of World War II, they have now been forced to actively use violence in extreme situations in Afghanistan. Due to the seriously deteriorating security situation even in northern Afghanistan, ever since 2009 soldiers are no longer mere passive victims of violence during ambushes but are also confronted with having to kill, if necessary. Military leaders have had to lead in combat and take on responsibility for their subordinates and actions in extreme and complex situations. Based on anthropological research on military leaders with combat experience, this paper looks at the special challenges that Bundeswehr superiors have to face surrounding combat situations. It further analyses how operational and combat experiences are interpreted by these commanders and how they have an impact on Bundeswehr culture in theatre as well as at home. It is the military leaders who have served in extreme situations who are now striving for an official recognition of the sociocultural paradigm shift that has taken place during deployment. They do not want their Afghanistan experience to become a ‘blueprint’ for all further missions, but they do not want to accept unchanged cultural traditions of German armed forces still adhering to values, norms and behavioral patterns developed in Cold War times either.
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Notes
- 1.
Combat is generally understood as a brief armed confrontation between hostile forces. During the mission in Afghanistan, the term combat was sometimes interpreted more widely when it came to awarding the combat medal, because this medal is also awarded for having suffered terroristic or military violence under very high personal danger. For example, passengers of a vehicle that drove over an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and was damaged in the process would also earn the service medal “combat” (interview with Captain 26, Afg. 2012).
- 2.
- 3.
The expression ‘soldiers returning from Afghanistan’ has been used intentionally in this context, because not all interview partners see themselves as veterans (Sussebach 2014).
- 4.
For a critical analysis of former Bundeswehr elites and their disposition to the use of force, see Schmidt 2015.
- 5.
At this point I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the soldiers who have supported my research project and allowed me valuable insights into their experiences, sociocultural practices, emotions and thoughts.
- 6.
During research, I have met only few women with combat experience. Also, female soldiers rarely serve in the so-called protection companies outside the camps that were most heavily involved in combat situations. For example in 2010, more than two thirds of the female soldiers of the 22nd contingent in Afghanistan performed supporting functions and thus mainly served within the camp. Langer et al. (2011, p. 12), however, were able to ascertain in the course of an empirical study in Afghanistan in 2010 that a gender-specific difference between men and women with combat experience cannot be statistically proven. According to them, both groups display a similar willingness to use violence themselves after a prior exposure to violence. In other words, the data suggest that “the real physical experience of military violence tends to erase gender-specific effects of socialization” (Langer et al. 2011, p. 15). This result was also supported by my male conversation partners who were unable to detect any gender-specific differences during combat. For an excellent and comprehensive book on women in NATO military forces, see Obradovic (2014).
- 7.
For further accounts and insight views of combat see Koelbl (2011, 2014) and Würich and Scheffer (2014), Brinkmann et al. (2013) and Brinkmann and Hoppe (2010). Apart from scientific analyses, a broad range of documentations, reports, photo exhibitions, documentaries and movies, radio features, theatre plays and even Graphic Novels have been created about the mission in Afghanistan. Taking a closer look at these different approaches to the mission/war in Afghanistan would be worth a separate research project.
- 8.
The interview passages quoted in this text have been edited slightly in order to remove empty phrases that disturb the reading flow, unless they contribute anything essential to the meaning of the respective statement. However, I have tried to repeat the soldiers’ expressions as accurately as possible.
- 9.
“Be able to fight so that you do not have to fight” was the motto of an ‘army of peace’ which mainly concentrated on deterrence after the Second World War (see also Hellmann 2015).
- 10.
- 11.
For the purpose of simplification, the generic masculine is used in this text; however, it equally refers to women.
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Tomforde, M. (2017). Cultural Dimensions of Violence in the Military. In: Holenweger, M., Jager, M., Kernic, F. (eds) Leadership in Extreme Situations. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55059-6_9
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