The Command and General Staff College inducted the German Army chief of staff into its International Hall of Fame May 9 at the Lewis and Clark Center here. Lt. Gen. Jorg Vollmer is a 2002 graduate of the Advanced Operational Art Studies Fellowship at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Vollmer is the first graduate of a SAMS course to be inducted into the hall of fame. Thirty-two international officers have graduated from SAMS programs since 2001. The fellowship is the equivalent of graduating from a war college.
Brig. Gen. John S. Kem, provost of the Army University, hosted the ceremony and noted that since 1980 CGSC has welcomed officers from 154 countries or roughly 79 percent of the members of the United Nations. He said "solving the complex problems of the future will require close cooperation."
In his acceptance speech, Vollmer recalled the year he was at Fort Leavenworth, 2001-2002, changed the world with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. However, he warned the more than 1,300 CGSC and SAMS students in the audience the world has also changed in the time they have been at CGSC with the Russian invasion of the Crimea in 2014, the rise of ISIS/ISIL in 2014, and terrorists attacks in Paris, Copenhagen, Ankara, Paris (again), Brussels, and other locations in 2015 and 2016.
Vollmer said Europe today faces a double threat: Russia from the East and terrorism and the resulting refugee crisis from the South. He said that NATO must stand ready with brigades and divisions to conduct maneuver warfare to deter the threat from the East. He borrowed the words of German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz saying the center of gravity for NATO is cohesion. He noted more than 5,000 German soldiers have rotated in and out of deployments.
He concluded his talk with three final thoughts: 1) Fight the narrative that the West caused Putin's outrage. NATO and the European Union didn't take anything, he said. The countries that joined exercised their free will to do so. 2) All parties [in NATO] must provide troops to both threats. He noted the German's were beneficiaries of a united NATO when they reunited East and West in 1990. 3) Build trust and confidence in each other. He said we must all stand together as a free community of nations. "If an army stops learning and stops adapting, it is losing," he said.
Prior to his current position, Vollmer commanded the German Field Army. He has commanded Regional Command North in Afghanistan, the German Army Special Operations Division, Mechanized Infantry Brigade 37, 373 Paratroop Battalion, Logistics Support Command for IFOR and SFOR, and two mechanized infantry companies. He has also been the chief of staff of the 1st German/Netherlands Corps, Chief of Army Concepts, and head of the Exercise and Training Center.
The International Hall of Fame provides a prestigious means of recognition for international officer graduates of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, who, through military merit, have attained one of the highest positions of importance in their respective countries' armed forces, or who have held an equivalent position by rank or responsibility in a multinational military organization. Vollmer joins 262 international officers from 71 countries who have already been enshrined in the Hall. Fifteen members of the hall have served as heads of state.
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