General Staff (Switzerland)

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The General Staff was under different names to the army reform XXI responsible for planning and top management organizational unit of the Swiss army and was headed by the Chief of Staff with the rank of lieutenant general . Even after the army reform, there is a corps of general staff officers who are trained in the general staff school to become senior management assistants.

history

Until 1830 the General Staff consisted of 12 to 24 federal colonels and a few lieutenant colonels with experience from service in foreign armies. From 1841 special general staff courses for militia officers were held at the Central School in Thun. In 1865 the Federal Office of Staff was created, a reservoir from which the commanders of the army units and their adjutants were appointed by the general. In 1901 it was named "General Staff Department" and from 1907 was responsible for the war readiness and training of the army.

In 1948, most of the services of the Federal Military Department were combined in the General Staff and Training groups, and from 1968 also in the Armaments group. As primus inter pares , the chief of staff coordinated the three groups and was responsible for the overall planning. With the reorganization of the EMD in 1995, he received additional management competencies and (until the election of the commander-in-chief) military leadership responsibility for the army.

After the Second World War, general staff training increasingly became a prerequisite for taking over an army unit command. Towards the end of the 20th century, the longer periods of service and higher demands led to fewer militia officers taking up training and the proportion of professional officers in the corps rose from around 20% (1900) to 40%. In 2001 the first woman became a general staff officer.

With the Army Reform XXI , the position of the Chief of Staff was replaced by that of the Chief of the Army (CdA), who has a planning and command staff. In autumn 2005, the Society of General Staff Officers (GGstOf) was founded as a specialist civil organization .

The number of general staff officers was:

  • 1875 and 1914: 60 officers
  • in World War I: 100 officers
  • in World War II: 200 officers
  • in the army 61: 700 officers
  • in the army 95: 600 officers
  • in Army XXI: 430 officers

General Staff Officers in the Army XXI

General staff training is open to both militia and professional officers. General staff officers are qualified to serve as command assistants in a staff of middle or upper management. As heads of working groups, sub-groups, sub-staffs or the entire staff, you can implement and carry out the objectives and assignments of your commanding officer.

The general staff courses are carried out by the General Staff School for Higher Cadre Training in the Army (HKA). They usually last three times four weeks in the basic training level and twice three weeks in the advanced training level. The duration of the course is extremely short compared to staff training courses in other armies, so an attempt is made to concentrate the teaching content to achieve an optimization with which the training quality should be on a par with that of other armies. After a complex selection process, commanders from captain level are admitted to the course ; A career committee under the leadership of the army chief decides on admission .

General Staff officers use the abbreviation “i Gst” (in the General Staff) or “EMG” (État-major général) in French and “SMG” (Stato maggiore generale) in Italian as an addition to their degree designation. They wear a black beret and an edelweiss with a Swiss cross as a badge . As a further distinguishing feature, the trousers of the starting uniform (Tenue A) are provided with a 5 cm wide black stripe running along the side of the seam. Higher staff officers (HSO) - i.e. brigadiers, divisional officers and corps commanders - wear two such black stripes on their pleated trousers and a laurel branch as a badge .

List of Chiefs of Staff of Switzerland

Restoration (1815-1830)

Regeneration (1830-1848)

State (1848–)

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Hans Senn : General Staff. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ Third Federal Training Camp. In: Zürcherische Freitagzeitung . August 6, 1824, p. 3 , accessed January 31, 2020 .
  3. ^ Forty-second session, October 21 . In: LR Walthard (Hrsg.): Swiss military magazine . tape 14 , no. 22 . Verlag der LR Walthard'schen Buchlassung, Bern, November 1st, 1847, Military negotiations of the Federal Diet of 1847, p. 345 ( e-periodica [accessed January 31, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Swiss Confederation. In: Eidgenössische Zeitung . March 24, 1852, p. 335 , accessed January 31, 2020 .