• According to General Gunther Blumentritt, such a scheme presupposes a common outlook based upon “a body of professional officers who have received exactly the same training during the long years of peace and with the same tactical education, the same way of thinking, identical speech, hence a body of officers to whom all tactical conceptions were fully clear.”
• Furthermore, a la General Blumentritt, it presupposes “an officers training institution which allows the subordinate a very great measure of freedom of action and freedom in the manner of executing orders and which primarily calls for independent daring, initiative and sense of responsibility.”
• Without a common outlook, superiors cannot give subordinates freedom of action and maintain coherency of ongoing action.
• A common outlook possessed by “a body of officers” represents a unifying theme that can be used to simultaneously encourage subordinate initiative yet realize superior intent.