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Heeressoziologie

The Prussian Officer Corps under Frederick the Great (1740–86)

In the Frederician era the history of the old Prussian army reached its culmination. In this period the political and functional integration of the social elites into the army structure was also completed. The creation of a bureaucratic military organization and the orientation of the domestic economy to the needs of the army had already been completed in the formative phase under Frederick William I (1713–40). Thus a long process of centralization was concluded and the military as a total organization had emerged. Characteristic of the old Prussian example is the mismatch between the sizing of the army and the state’s resources. The resulting overstretch produced on the one hand a high degree of efficiency, but on the other hand a certain one-sidedness with considerable feedback on political culture. The first half of Frederick the Great’s reign was marked by the high-stakes gamble of the Silesian conquest; the ordeal of the Seven Years’ War brought the still relatively young Prussian kingdom close to the abyss. A supporting element of the ultimately successful Prussian army was the officer corps, endowed with high social status, whose internal development in the years 1740–86 will be outlined in the following lines [1].