There was a time when German soldiery was feared for its vaunted combat effectiveness. The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld, who later achieved immortality as the prophet of military transformation (The Transformation of War) made his early reputation as a combat historian with an insightful comparative study of WWII German and American combat effectiveness (Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945).

The study demonstrated definitively the combat superiority of the German soldier and the reasons for that effectiveness (now commonly bandied about terms like internal cohesion, individual initiative, Auftragstaktik or “mission-type tactic/orders,” etc.).

Alas, half of century of near pacifism has done its work and the vaunted German soldiery is no more:

Now Germany’s battered military reputation has received a further humiliating blow. According to official reports, the 3,500 troops in northern Afghanistan drink too much and are too fat to fight. A German parliamentary report has revealed that in 2007 German forces in Afghanistan consumed about 1.7 million pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine. [...]

The physical condition of the soldiers was already in question after a German armed forces report found that 40 percent of its soldiers aged 18-29 were overweight, compared to 35 percent of the civilian population of the same age.

The report, published in March, concluded that the Bundeswehr lived on beer and sausages while shunning fruit and vegetables.[Boldface mine.]

Jawohl, deutsche Soldaten!

What (West) Germans do, South Koreans often copy: is overweight and drunk ROK soldiery next?