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"Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany" by Doris Bergen is a comprehensive study of the role of chaplains in the Wehrmacht during World War II. The book explores the circumstances in which chaplains operated, including the destructive violence of the German military and the persecution and killing of millions of people. The author investigates why chaplains did not object to the atrocities committed by the Nazis and argues that they legitimized the ideology and individuals responsible for genocide. The book also examines how chaplains sought to strengthen their position within the Nazi regime and how they continued to manipulate narratives after the war. The study sheds light on the role of the Church and Christianity in the murder of six million Jews and highlights the need for further research on military chaplaincy. [Extracted from the article]

Larissa Wegner's book on German occupation during World War I offers a new perspective that challenges existing interpretations. Through extensive research in German archival sources, Wegner argues that the German occupation was not solely a deliberate spiral of terror and compulsion, but rather a result of imprecise legal frameworks, self-fulfilling prophecies, and the German army prioritizing its own interests. The book is structured like a thesis, with five main chapters that examine different aspects of the occupation. While Wegner's work may not convince those firmly entrenched in opposing viewpoints, it is a valuable contribution to the scholarly discourse on German occupation. [Extracted from the article]

Introduction: A wide variety of different types of wearable sensors are being developed around the world and introduced into the armed forces for military purposes. Competing states must rapidly develop ready-to-use systems that are robust, functional, valid, and practical. There appears to be potential for optimizing the successful and effective introduction of wearable sensors into the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) for military medical applications. The purpose of this study was to identify specific options for improving and optimizing the introduction of modern technologies such as wearable sensors into the structures of the German armed forces.Materials and Methods: Nine stakeholders were identified who could provide a qualified statement on the introduction of wearable sensors, of which six agreed to participate in an expert interview. The six qualitative expert interviews, which were conducted for a master's thesis at the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg, were selected on the basis of their thematic involvement and readiness for an interview and provided the basis for exploring processes that can possibly optimize the introduction of wearable sensors into modern armed forces such as the Bundeswehr. These interviews were carried out and analyzed using the Lamnek's method.Results: Six expert interviews were analyzed and the most relevant statements were summarized and presented. Thirteen options for optimization were identified and included, for example, interdisciplinary networking, optimization of information flow, and strategic weighting.Conclusions: Several potential options have been identified that can optimize the introduction of wearable sensors into the German armed forces to a greater or lesser extent. Bundeswehr experts agree that above all structurally relevant improvements such as "development of data analysis standards," "legal requirements," "interdisciplinarity," "acceleration of development," and "centralization and structured cooperation" should play an important role in the implementation of wearable sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Gunshot injuries, blast injuries, and major contusions can cause extensive extremity defects. In countries with damaged or destroyed infrastructure, local national patients with these injuries pose a challenge. Deployed medical facilities of the German Armed Forces provide medical care to these patients as part of their humanitarian activities. Reconstructive techniques, for example, microvascular free tissue transfer, can be used only to a limited extent in such settings, which require safe and simple (outpatient) procedures. The focus of treatment is not on cosmetic aspects but on rapidly restoring function. Low-resource settings require ethical and medical compromises. It is still a topic of the discussion which reconstructive surgical procedures could be performed in a deployment mission and which should be in the portfolio of the deployed surgeon.Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of a sample of 550 patients who received definitive treatment from seven surgeons from a single German Armed Forces hospital during a total of 47 tours of duty (i.e., 94 months) with the International Security Assistance Force in Feyzabad, Kunduz, and Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. The deployed surgeons (authors) were given an Excel spreadsheet and were asked to enter details on the surgical procedures they had performed in the deployed setting on the basis of operative reports.Results: Local and pedicled flaps were used in 73 cases to cover extensive soft-tissue defects and preserve the affected limbs. Improvised distraction osteogenesis was used in 18 patients to manage large bone defects. In 13 cases, bone defects were temporarily filled with a cement spacer (Masquelet technique). Fourteen patients required a combination of soft-tissue and bone reconstruction.Conclusions: Simple surgical reconstructive procedures are available that enable surgeons to preserve the shape and function of an injured limb with limited resources. This emphasizes the need either to make these techniques a mandatory part of training not only for surgeons who are deployed to combat zones and disaster areas but also for surgeons working for civilian relief organizations or to ensure that surgical teams are composed in such a way that these techniques are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post-Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico-strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far-reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During May and June 2001. the World Health Organization reported an outbreak of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in Kosovo. Two of the outbreak foci were located within the German Kosovo Force's zone of responsibility and thus counter-measures were undertaken at the German field hospital in Prizren to prepare for a potential outbreak among soldiers. A risk assessment was undertaken and the following essential issues were addressed; the education of troops with emphasis given to the prevention of tick bites, the establishment of an isolation unit, including barrier nursing and technical safety measures, the establishment of procedures for the safe handling of biological specimens intended for laboratory diagnosis, protocols for the treatment and prophylaxis with ribavirin, protocols for effective disinfection and decontamination, and an "outbreak plan" should the disease spread among soldiers. Using Army Mobile Field Hospital System equipment, a plan was implemented within 72 hours. The procedures described herein are likely to be suitable for the containment of other highly contagious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complicity of the Wehrmacht as an institution in the crimes of the Third Reich, and its participation in that régime's war of extermination, are matters of historical record. Yet conduct and motivation amongst lower-level units are only recently receiving extensive attention. It is a picture which, whilst far from exculpatory, is nuanced and complex. This paper examines conduct and motivation, during 1942, within one of the Wehrmacht security divisions involved in one of the war of extermination's most destructive aspects, the anti-partisan campaign in the Soviet Union. This campaign was directed far more against civilians, through such measures as massive reprisals and large-scale operations often immensely destructive of lives and property, than against actual partisans. That said, multiple influences, including ideological and military doctrine, physical conditions and officers' individual perceptions, shaped actual conduct, and conduct itself ranged from ruthless brutality to measures encouraging popular native support and partisan desertion. One of the paper's key points is that the physical pressures of anti-partisan warfare—inhospitable terrain, insufficient security forces and a ruthless, unseen enemy—did not always translate, as past research has often argued, into brutality. In certain circumstances, they compelled some units to pursue conciliatory policies even more rigorously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]