In the history of military organizations, officers have been selected in just about every imaginable way, and during the recent conflict our own armed forces can hardly be considered an exception. The problem of the proper selection of officer personnel is, of course, one of the most important faced by any army or navy. Our tremendous naval expansion during the recent conflict made this problem particularly acute, and the choosing of men of leadership, character, and ability with speed and efficiency was an extremely difficult task. It was thus of considerable interest to our Navy Department closely to examine and evaluate the results of the German methods of officer personnel selection. While prior to post-war investigation little was known of the details of the German methods, it was known that for fifteen years prior to the outbreak of the war the German Navy had followed a regular scientific procedure in the selection of men for officer training.
The system used by the German Navy was in a way symbolic of German character itself, carefully studied and organized in detail, but cumbersome and inflexible. Unlike our Classification and Qualification tests, their method was based on close analysis of a candidate’s character and personality by trained observers, and on the surface presented what seemed a thorough test of those nebulous qualities desirable in a leader of men. Close study, however, revealed so many flaws inherent in the system that no really efficient, progressive navy is ever likely to use it again, especially considering the caliber of leadership that resulted from its use in Germany. The methods used were, nevertheless, both unusual and interesting.
Shortly after its post-Versailles reorganization, selection of officer-candidates for the new Reichsmarine was begun on the basis of results obtained from a carefully planned program of psychological tests. These tests were designed to show abstract traits of leadership, tenacity, courage, ability to think and act in an emergency, and other characteristics desirable in line officers. They were intended to reveal in each youth who hoped to become an officer the measure of those qualities essential in a leader of men that he possessed, and were not intended to show a particular aptitude or ability, or to prove a candidate’s knowledge of specific subjects.
Sponsored, organized, and directed by the acknowledged dean of German naval psychologists, a Dr. Mierke of the University of Göttingen, a special corps of Marinepsychologen was employed by the navy. These men continued their work until the closing days of the war, and were charged with the testing and selection of officer material. While there was little entirely new in their methods, the comprehensive study of the personality by trained psychologists and its application to the selection of midshipmen was a different approach to the problem of choosing potential officers. The selection of officer candidates remained almost entirely in the hands of these navy psychologists, civilians themselves until the outbreak of the war, although their findings were reviewed and passed upon by naval men. With Teutonic thoroughness, Dr. Mierke evolved a complete three day program of tests that were intended to reveal the good and the bad, the weak and the strong, in each candidate’s character and personality.
The actual testing was carried out at “stations” set up in various parts of the Reich, one of which was located in the Kiel-Wik naval barracks on the outskirts of Kiel, and others were scattered throughout the country, in Munich, Breslau, Berlin, and other large centers.
Dr. Mierke exerted great influence in high naval circles. lie was cooperative and well liked personally, and completely sold the navy on the value of selection of officer trainees by his psychological tests. In fact his system was thought to be so successful that the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht modeled their officer selection systems after it. Mierke was given a free hand, and nearly every officer in the pre-war Nazi navy was selected by his psychologists.
During his final year in school, when about seventeen years of age, a boy applied for officer training, and if his school marks, general record, and letters of recommendation showed promise, the boy was ordered to report to the nearest testing station for his examination. As originally planned, the tests lasted for three days, and were divided into three parts: sport and physical, and written and oral examinations.
When the youth arrived at the testing station, he was assigned to a group of eight, and a psychologist was placed in charge of it. This group took the tests together, the psychologist observing their every move. He used the normal approach of a practicing psychologist, and attempted first of all to obtain the absolute confidence of the boys. Some of the psychologists even slept and ate with their groups during the three days in order better to observe each youth’s personal traits and how he fitted in with the group.
The boys were assembled in the late afternoon of the day before the tests were to begin, and the first evening was spent getting acquainted with one another and with the psychologist in charge. They went sightseeing in the town, or perhaps to a movie, but in any case retired early to prepare for the first day of the examination, normally the sport and physical tests.
The first morning was taken up by a thorough physical examination, and the afternoon was devoted to testing the candidates’ physical prowess. There were the time-honored German gymnastic exercises, sprinting, drill on parallel and horizontal bars. In every case the psychologist observed not only physical prowess and coordination, but also the effort put into each exercise by each boy. Thus if one of the exercises called for “chinning” as many times as possible, a boy who was able to chin himself only five times but struggled hard to do it a sixth was judged to have more character than one who chinned himself ten times but made very little effort to complete an eleventh. Another physical test was climbing over a high barricade with a field pack on the candidate’s back. A boy who was unable to get over, but struggled hard to do so, tried every possible way, and tenaciously stuck at the attempt until exhausted, got a far better grade than one who gave up the attempt after only a few tries.
One test used experimentally was the so- called “Mutprobe," or Courage Test. Each boy was placed in a room alone, ordered to lift a heavy metal bar, and to hold on to it as long as possible. Unbeknownst to him the bar was charged with electric current, and his reaction upon picking up the bar was carefully studied. Some boys quickly dropped it. Some flung it away in fear; others hung on to it despite the shock and pain of the current.
Another type of physical-sport test was one in following directions. A boy was orally given a series of fairly complicated instructions, such as, “Carry this piece of paper over that obstacle, across the ditch, turn left, run until you come to a high tree, turn right, walk until you come to a man in a green coat, and say to him, ‘I have been ordered to deliver this paper to you’.” A boy who carried out his instructions accurately, calmly, and coolly, received, of course, a better mark than one who became confused during the physical exertion of crossing the ditch and then carried out or repeated his instructions inaccurately.
The next phase of the test was written, and consisted largely of themes. The boys were invariably asked to write a short autobiography, which was graded on the basis of style, grammar, composition, and handwriting. German psychologists have for the past thirty years laid considerable stress on character analysis through handwriting. The majority of American psychologists do not agree with these views, and it is interesting that “graphic palmistry” played a role in the selection of German naval officers. The composition was further compared with the known facts of a boy’s life, and various traits thereby interpreted. Thus if a boy who was the son of a store clerk said, in order to make a better impression, that he was the son of a “merchant,” he was recognized as not being as straightforward or intellectually honest as one who came out and frankly admitted a humble background.
The other compositions were on assigned topics, and often the group was shown the picture of a landscape or simple scene, and asked to write a composition about it. In addition to grammar and handwriting, the psychologist judged the boy’s imagination, observation of detail, and ability to organize his thoughts. In addition to the autobiography two further themes were required, one on a concrete and one on an abstract subject, and from these the psychologist could further examine the imagination of each youth and his ability to organize his thoughts.
Perhaps the most unusual part was the oral examination conducted on the third day. This was divided into two parts, individual and group testing. First, each boy chatted individually with the psychologist in a small room. The latter asked the youth to discuss his life history, chatted with him on general topics, and made every effort to put the boy at case and enter into a friendly conversation. Meanwhile unbeknownst to the youth, he was being filmed by a camera hidden behind a picture on the wall. (At one station the right eye of a large picture of Frederick the Great was cut out to make an opening for the lens.) When the film was developed, the facial expressions of the boy while he was talking were studied. In addition to graphology, German psychologists placed considerable emphasis on the study of facial expression and its supposed revelation of character. American psychologists have little time for such indefinite, vague methods through which the Germans claim exact results with this analysis of a facial expression. At any rate, when summing up the boy’s characteristics, this film was shown to the reviewing board of officers, and the psychologist gave a running commentary on each facial expression and gesture, and interpreted what it was supposed to reveal about the boy’s makeup and general character.
After the individual testing had been finished, the final group oral testing was given. This was centered around a roundtable discussion. The psychologist would introduce a topic of discussion at random, such as “German Forests” or “Bismarck as a Leader.” He would then closely observe the course of conversation, which of the eight boys dominated it, and who was the natural leader of the conversation. He was able to judge who had force, imagination, and who could handle and organize ideas when suddenly confronted with an unexpected situation. This was designed to bring out the qualities of leadership of the individuals of the group.
An alternate test was to put each youth in front of from eight to ten enlisted men, and direct him to deliver an impromptu lecture on an assigned topic. Again the psychologist observed how a boy handled himself when faced with an unexpected situation. He also observed how the enlisted men reacted to the candidate, whether or not they listened to him with respect and whether or not he was able to hold their attention.- As in the group oral test, this was supposed to reveal potentialities of leadership and command.
At the conclusion of the examination the psychologist wrote a short summary of each aspirant’s qualities and characteristics. Every trait the psychologist had observed was mentioned, including general appearance and bearing, breeding, and even table manners. The report, together with the film taken during the personal interview, was presented to the naval board of review. The officers considered the findings of the psychologist, and on the basis of the report made the final decision as to whether or not to accept the youth as a midshipman. How exacting this board was, and how carefully the psychological report was considered, varied, of course, from time to time and with different boards. Before the expansion of the German Navy in 1935, approximately one candidate in twenty was accepted, and family background was also a major consideration in its decision. Towards the end of the war the bottom of the barrel was being scraped, and the majority of the candidates were accepted.
After successfully passing the psychological ordeal, a boy completed his Arbeitsdienst, or labor service, and commenced his training before the mast on a squarerigger. He then went on to the old Imperial German Naval Academy at Flensburg for his final training.
This system was one of the cornerstones of officer candidate selection in the Germany Navy, and was in official use from about 1925 until 1941, and in unofficial use from 1941 to the end of the war. In 1941, the selection of officers by this psychological study of personality traits, and the existence of the quasi-official corps of psychologists, was forbidden in Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht, and Reichsmarine by express order of Heinrich Himmler. The order was given that only battlefield commissions were to be given, and that all officers had to rise from the ranks. The background of the breakup of this system that had attempted to institute an elite officers corps by scientific selection is rather interesting. To keep politics out of anything was impossible, and eventually it had to bow before the all-powerful interests of the Nazi party. Many of the young Hitler Youth leaders were refused admission to officer training because of emotional instability that showed up in their tests. Even though a boy had been an ardent and successful Hitlerite, perhaps chief hoodlum of all the little hoodlums in some little Nussdorf or Landstadt, he might be found tense, emotional, uncooperative, unintelligent or overbearing (and when one German calls another overbearing, he must be so), and poor officer material. The disappointed Hitler Youth leader would go back home and complain bitterly to local party headquarters about being refused officer training. The local party Gauleiter would complain to his superior, and eventually a sufficient number of complaints reached central party headquarters in Munich, and the work of the psychologists was forbidden, fundamentally because it ran counter to the interests of the Nazi party.
In the German Navy, however, the chief of officer personnel, a Vice Admiral Karl Rogge, who achieved considerable notoriety in the Allied press for sinking the Egyptian freighter Zam-Zam in 1941 while in command of the raider Atlantis, was convinced of the worth of Dr. Mierke’s system. Rogge was not an ardent Nazi, and by a subterfuge he kept his psychologists, having them transferred to the medical corps and designated as technicians.
This system was, however, cumbersome. To tie up a trained psychologist for three days to test eight boys was absurd. This might have been all very well between 1925 and 1935 when the navy was accepting only a few score midshipmen each year. But when the need for greater numbers of officers became pressing, the system began to break down. After 1939 the size of the groups being tested was increased, the sport tests first curtailed, then abandoned altogether. Each psychologist was required to examine more men than he could handle, and worst of all, the sense of personal contact between psychologist and candidates, upon which the system was based, was lost. Eventually the psychologist became little more than a harrassed clerk, grading papers.
Another unfortunate feature then was that the type of testing required a highly trained psychologist, and the corps of Marinepsychologen could not easily be expanded. At the outbreak of the war qualified men of sufficient training and experience were simply not available to meet the expanding requirements of the service.
American psychologists were surprised at the inexactness of the German methods of drawing conclusions. Each psychologist did his own scoring, following a rough pattern set down by Dr. Mierke. If he were a mediocre psychologist, then his scoring would be mediocre. If he were an altogether bad psychologist, then his analyses would often be false, and a potentially good officer would be turned down and an inferior boy accepted. Our own standard aptitude and psychological tests are scored on a black- and-white, standard, thoroughly tested basis. A man taking the Qualification or Classification Tests will achieve the same grade whether he is taking it in Boston, San Diego or Manila, and the test can be adequately conducted by a person who is not necessarily a highly-trained psychologist. The German results, on the other hand, were a series of coordinated personal impressions, and even a Ph.D. is not infallible.
Some of the psychologists also privately admitted that many boys “boned-up” on the tests before taking them. From friends who had been through the examination they learned what was expected and how to react. During the sports tests one could make all sorts of grimaces, and put on a good show, thus obtaining a good mark. At least some of the psychologists might be fooled, and the tests made valueless.
Although it was modified, the German system was never basically changed to meet the tremendous expansion in the German Navy that took place after 1938. But modification only weakened it further. The concept of revealing the abstract traits of courage and leadership by these tests had many flaws. Basically it was inaccurate, for its standards varied with human judgment and prejudice. The determination of the so-called officer-like qualities by the system used by the German Navy was not one that a military organization faced with rapid wartime expansion, and desirous of obtaining accurate, unprejudiced results should wisely adopt.