How long was basic training?

[AcornMan]

Many of the memoirs I have read say basic training lasted a year, but others say it was shorter, more like six months. How long was it typically? Did it ever change? Do you know how long it was in about 1941?

[Christoph Awender]

The basic training was 6-7 weeks and the "job" specific training took then up to 6 months at the beginning of the war (still in 1941). A year basic military training is ridiculous. After a few weeks he knows how to crawl and put on a field blouse etc..
During the war the basic training was shortened to a few weeks already including the basic group tactics and weapon specific training. This resulted in an overall decline of replacement quality mid to late war. This was somehow compensated by divisional schools behind the front where the new arrived replacements were trained when operations allowed it.

\Christoph

[Alex Dekker]

Soldiers of the Volkssturm were trained once or twice a week for four to six hours. Within six weeks they were send to the front. Von Manstein was one of the fieldmarshalls who wanted to get rid of the VS, just because of their lack of training. They marched onwards to death.

[Christian]

The basic training was 6-7 weeks and the "job" specific training took then up to 6 months at the beginning of the war (still in 1941).

Christoph,

Can you clarify this point? I am aware that Pioniere went through 6 months of training but was of the understanding that regular infanterie basic training was quite a bit shorter.

Cheers,

Christian

[sid guttridge]

Hi Christian,

I seem to remember that basic training up to the point where an infantry recruit was transferred from the Ersatzheer to the Feldheer took a theoretical four months. However, as has been pointed out, for certain specialists six or even eight months was required before release to the Feldheer. Of course all this was theoretical later in the war. As has also been pointed out, due to their limitations, replacements reaching the Feldheer usually underwent further operational training near the front before actually being forwarded to their units.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Hans]

Christoph,

re the two years compulsory training, prior to WWII. How would this have been categorised. I can imagine the first 12 months ie, basic training, specialist training etc. Was the 2nd year used to hone skills? Any info.?

- Hans

[Christoph Awender]

The basic training was 6-7 weeks and the "job" specific training took then up to 6 months at the beginning of the war (still in 1941).

Christoph,

Can you clarify this point? I am aware that Pioniere went through 6 months of training but was of the understanding that regular infanterie basic training was quite a bit shorter.

Cheers,

Christian

Hello

What stage of the war? Where from do you have the information that a Pionier had 6 months training and in which stage of the war?

Christoph,

re the two years compulsory training, prior to WWII. How would this have been categorised. I can imagine the first 12 months ie, basic training, specialist training etc. Was the 2nd year used to hone skills? Any info.?

- Hans

Hello Hans

Two years training? Don´t you mistake that with the entire "Dienstzeit" which was set to 2 years in August 1936? Of course they will do manouvers and the daily duty also includes weapon, physical training etc.. but that was part of the normal military life and not part of the training in the Ersatz-unit.

\Christoph

[PaulJ]

Gentelmen,

Perhaps some "basic training" is required here in basic concepts of military training and service.

The following is generally true for all modern militaries, "modern" meaning, national, standing forces that are professionalized and bureaucratized, ie any Western army from sometime in the mid-to-late 19th century:

"Basic Training" is a relatively short period of induction training, designed more to turn civilians into soldiers than to teach them any really useful battlefield skills. Marching, drill, uniform wearing, many inspections, a lot of physical conditioning, learning ranks, rules etc. What is often referred to as "boot camp."

Basic Training is often (but not always) performed by some sort of higher level training system, in mass, with all soldiers mixed together and put through the same training programme, regardless of what occupation or specialty they are ultimately destined for. Sometimes, the selection of what specialty, arm, regiment or what-have-you they will be assigned to is based in part upon an evaluation of their performance in basic training. Typical basic training periods run from six to eight weeks.

After basic training, recruits are then typically passed to specialist training of some sort. This is the specific training in whatever job they will actually perform, for instance infantryman, tank driver, vehicle mechanic, cook, clerk or whatever. This is often done at a specialist school, which is often in a completely different location. The duration of this training obviously varies depending upon the specific skills involved, but generally runs from a couple of months to maybe six (under ideal conditions.)

After completing this trades or specialty training, the newly qualified private soldier may well be put through a final stage, that is some sort of "operational training", ie he may be formed up into his new unit, and there run through a course to prepare him for real duties in his new operational unit.

Those are the general categories of training. It should also be pointed out that "training" would not likely cease with that: during his service, a soldier would likely go on further training courses -- either for further specilties, or more advanced training and possibly for qualification for promotion. Also, the unit itself would "train", ie practice the skills and work it would do, and go on exercises to practice all of that together in the field on "wargames."

It should also be mentioned that some of these could be combined. For instance, infantry training could be all done at a regimental depot, with all of the new inductees given both the basic and specialized infantry training together, in one course with the same instructors, after which they would be sent to the line companies of the unit. Another option was, when forming new units, to collect together the officers and NCOs who would form the cadre for this new unit, give them a batch of new recruits, make the cadre the instructors for the basic and specialty training of those new recruits, and thus have a formed unit that had trained together for a few months at the end of the process.

I think Cristoph is absolutely correct about Hans' reference to "the two years compulsory training prior to WWII". That was two years of compulsory military service, not two years of compulsory training. German conscripts of that time went through the training mill, and were then sent to units, where they served for the remainder of their two year long service period, doing whatever their unit was doing.

[Christian]

What stage of the war? Where from do you have the information that a Pionier had 6 months training and in which stage of the war?

My father was a Pionier and his training time was 6 months in late 1942/early 1943. At that time training time in the Infanterie was no more than about 2 months (according to him) before an individual was sent on to his unit. This is why I am curious about your earlier post.

Christian

[Christoph Awender]

What stage of the war? Where from do you have the information that a Pionier had 6 months training and in which stage of the war?

My father was a Pionier and his training time was 6 months in late 1942/early 1943. At that time training time in the Infanterie was no more than about 2 months (according to him) before an individual was sent on to his unit. This is why I am curious about your earlier post.

Christian

Hello

As you see when you read my post again I spoke from the beginning of the war. The time they had to train new replacements in the winter 42/43 was already significantly less as your father said.
In the research I have done and do I did not find documents which clearly order a certain time of training for certain stages of the war (don´t think there were) but I can see it comparing the various training schedules of the various soldiers I have compiled.
Already mid 1942 they started to incorporate the "job" specific training into the basic training to win time. This means that a recruit 1939 would have done basic tactics of the Infanteriegruppe and platoon after his basic military training while this was already involved from the second and third week on later in the war.
Also the duration of training varied between individual soldiers at the same stage in the war which makes me think that some recruits were sent to the field units earlier than planed to provide needed replacement.

Looking through diaries of german divisions you see comments about the quality of the replacements every time they receive them. These comments get more negative mostly every month. That is why they did additional training (mostly tactics and front specific) in their Divisionskampfschulen behind the lines when the combat situation allowed that. For this purpose they used well frontline experienced NCO´s to compensate the shortened and bad quality training at home. Well , you can guess if that was really working that good.

\Christoph

[UK Lightgunner]

I`v never heard of Basic training only lasting 6 weeks,you`v learnt hardly anything in that time unless is it is contant weapon training perhaps and the only Army to call Basic training `Boot camp` is the Americans,no one in Europe`refers` it as so.

[Christoph Awender]

I`v never heard of Basic training only lasting 6 weeks,you`v learnt hardly anything in that time unless is it is contant weapon training perhaps and the only Army to call Basic training `Boot camp` is the Americans,no one in Europe`refers` it as so.

Well then the veterans I know have produced convincingly good fakes of the documents they have about their training. Anyway I do not want to convince anyone about anything. I just offer information which is always coming from original sources. I do not care what the receiving end is doing with it.

[Christian]

Chritstoph,

Thanks for the clarification.

It is pretty clear on the basis of our information that the training period was dramatically reduced by 1942/1943.

Christian

[UK Lightgunner]

Christoph
I you have so much`clarification `why hav`nt you written the information down and published it here for all to see so here instead of just saying was`6 to 7 weeks `etc etc

[Christoph Awender]

Christoph
I you have so much`clarification `why hav`nt you written the information down and published it here for all to see so here instead of just saying was`6 to 7 weeks `etc etc

I shall do what? I shall write the information down and publish it here? At the moment I am working on the "training and tactics" section for my site and these are hundreds pages of documents. What do you expect me to do? To post the entire training schedules I have just for someone who does not believe me when I post the result of my research on a internet forum??
Many of the documents are very fragile and big and I do not want to harm them by scanning for someone who thinks I am lying. The people who know me for years will know that when I say something I can back it up and it is correct information.
If you have information from reliable preferably original sources that back up your claim we can continue discussing. It would not change the fact that I have in front of me original documents from soldiers which have received 6-7 weeks basic training (without "Weiterführende Ausbildung"), but we could find out the difference.
Here are two samples of how I will reproduce the often bad quality documents for my site and a scan of a part of training regulations for armoured units.

http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/dokumen ... ldung1.jpg
http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/dokumen ... epzkp2.jpg