Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (left) at the Washington book party of Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann. The surprise guest of honor spoke about the values of former Pentagon strategist Fritz Kraemer.

Only a year after the funeral of American hero Fritz Kraemer at Arlington National Cemetery, more than 100 friends and admirers, officers and journalists gathered at the Army Navy Club in the heart of Washington D.C. at the invitation of Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, author and President of the World Security Network, for the presentation of the book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence. Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist.

The evening began with an outstandingly delivered speech by his daughter, Madeleine. Sometimes emotional, sometimes light-hearted, she told of how Old Fritz came across in her childhood from the viewpoint of his only daughter.

Sven Kraemer, who followed in the footsteps of his father as a Pentagon advisor, stressed the value system and the call for an elite committed to responsibility instead of privileges.

They both wrote important contributions for the book about their father.

The guests were greatly impressed by Lieutenant General (Ret.) and former Ambassador Ed Rowny who, in spite of his visual handicap, offered an engaging, dynamic, and entertaining description of his encounters with Fritz Kraemer in the fifties, which are recorded in his imminently readable contribution to the book.

The surprise guest of the evening was Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who at first eavesdropped on the speeches at the entryway and toward the end of the evening honored the importance of Fritz Kraemer’s work in the defense of America’s values.

A completely different crowd came together at the invitation of Sharon Handler, Mark Robinow, Hans Janitschek and Hubertus Hoffmann in New York City. More than 100 bankers, diplomats, movers and shakers from Manhattan celebrated Fritz! The book on Fifth Avenue with a view of Central Park by night. Everyone agreed: it is precisely in today’s materialistic times that his calls for values, intellectual goals, and an elite to take on responsibility are more important and more current than ever.

Encounter the ideas of Fritz Kraemer along with contributions by Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Kraemer Bryant, Sven Kraemer, Wilhelm- Karl Prinz von Preussen , Edward Rowny, and Donald Rumsfeld in the limited first edition of Fritz Kraemer on Excellence.

Order your own personal copy at the special WSN price now!

Fritz's children Madeleine and Sven (left) both delivered brilliant and emotional speeches at the book party in memory of their father. There, they met Alain Blaikley for the first time, who arrived for the reception from London and was a longtime friend of Fritz Kraemer’s brother who lived in the U.K.

Speech by Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, President of the World Security Network Foundation and author of Fritz Kraemer On Excellence, at the book parties in Berlin, Munich, Washington DC and New York

Ladies and gentlemen, please let me welcome you to the presentation of Fritz Kraemer on Excellence !

Today, and later while reading this book in the comfort of your home, I invite you to join me on a journey to an almost forgotten world—a world of values, principles, and ideals.

The world of a missionary, a gifted mentor, and a Pentagon strategist!

The re-election of George Bush, so surprising for many, shows just how great the desire of millions of people actually is for orientation and moral values.

And it also shows that elections can be won on this basis.

For the next 30 minutes let us forget about Michael Moore!

Madeleine (left) greets American hero, Ambassador, and Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ed Rowny (center) and his wife, who spoke about Old Fritz and contributed to the new book. He is a Member of the International Advisory Board of World Security Network.

Enter the world of a last Prussian who demanded passion, sacrifice, honor, and duty.

The most significant messages of Fritz Kraemer for all of us are:

• Which code of honor one pursues is important, not material riches.
  
  
  
• Character counts, not position and title.
  
  
  
• What is important is not pure power and career, but inner independence and personal courage.
  
  
  
• Voters aren’t only driven by their wallets; they also long for absolute—non-material—values.
  
  
  
• Being overly intellectual and overly educated leads to a loss of reality.
  
  
  
• Be an independent person and say what you think, work to form reality and take on tasks for society.
  
  
  
• The individual has a soul; he is not merely a “homo-economicus.”
  

Fritz Kraemer observed a spiritual vacuum in our highly developed democracies—a soulless society, which is rich and fat, and has therefore become soulless and unwilling to sacrifice for the community.

Admiral Hubertus von Puttkamer, Defense Attaché at the German Embassy in Washington DC, discussing the values and aphorisms of Fritz Kraemer. Kraemer, who was born in Germany, helped to liberate his former Heimat from the Nazi totalitarians as an American soldier and to defend it within the NATO alliance against the threat of the Soviet Union for over 30 years as strategic advisor in the Pentagon.

He criticizes the “Cleverling.”

• People who “know it all” but understand nothing.
  
  
  
• And the intellectuals that can argue over everything and nothing, pro and contra, right and left or exactly the opposite.
  

Essential values such as dependability, responsibility, and honor can’t originate from intellectual thinking, but from faith alone.

Let’s be honest with each other, don’t feelings move us more than material things?

Don’t worldly possessions in fact produce pleasant feelings?

Don’t many in this room feel the need for a satisfying—perhaps even a missionary task—that brings satisfaction precisely because we do so well materially?

Kraemer expects of the professional managers in politics an “internal fire,” courage, and a portion of adventurousness—and above all an “inner musicality” and independence.

A statesman should—if necessary—sacrifice his career to remain true to his heartfelt convictions.

Kraemer was an enthusiastic and gifted “talent scout.” In 1944, he discovered Henry Kissinger, who like himself was an emigrant from Germany, and supported and developed him for 30 years.

Kraemer, as Kissinger states in this book, was the greatest single influence during his formative years, and will be a part of his life as long as he lives.

In the early 70s, Kraemer placed a young lieutenant colonel next to his protégé Kissinger: Alexander Haig, who went on to become Secretary of State in the Cabinet of Ronald Regan, and is also a contributor to this book.

The Fritz Kraemer book party in New York City attracted bankers, diplomats, journalists, and elite movers and shakers of the Big Apple to the Fifth Avenue Apartment of WSN Vice President Hans Janitschek

For 25 years, I listened to my guru, Fritz Kraemer, for nights on end.

After hours of listening, an almost metaphysical power came over the heart and mind, a power that encouraged a young, unformed person to follow his values and ideals.

I compare this to a computer program which, over years, was transferred onto empty hard drives—window washing by Fritz Kraemer, so to speak.

Kraemer’s central concern was urging people to “look for men and women of excellence.” Encourage, develop, and support young people so that they will become a responsible elite in all aspects of life and do great things for society.

This is the motto and goal to which this new book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence is dedicated, which you can purchase only here as a limited first edition.

The World Security Network Foundation, which I founded in New York, is also dedicated to this goal. It is a network of the info-elite in foreign and security policy.

Each week our newsletter, the largest of its kind dealing with analyses of foreign and security policy in the world, goes out to 160,000 readers, of which 45,000 are professors and alumni of elite universities; 36,000 businessmen and women; 32,000 journalists; and 15,000 experts and politicians.

With its scholarship program, WSN supports young people, who get to know decision makers in American politics in New York and Washington.

The recipient of this year’s scholarship was Dmitry Udalov, a nineteen-year-old whiz kid from Moscow.

Together with 8 research institutions, we are developing “Codes of Tolerance” to support a cooperative partnership of the cultures of the world.

Tonight, I would kindly ask you to support our work by purchasing the book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence.

Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (left) speaks at the Washington book party of Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann (right).

Speech by Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Book Party of Hubertus Hoffmann Fritz Kraemer on Excellence

I am pretty certain that I first met Fritz Kraemer at Sven's house, but I don't think he paid me a whole lot of attention. My recollection of the first serious conversation with him is when I went to work in the Defense Department .I had one of those experiences like Ed Rowny described when somebody said, "You had better go talk to Fritz Kraemer!" And I went to that little office, and I became a recipient of his incredible, copious reading of intelligence. I only recall that it always seemed to me that he was one or two steps ahead, if not more than that, of the kinds of products coming out of our official intelligence community. And Fritz was almost invariably right. I was a great beneficiary of that.

And I am sure there are many people in this room-and many people outside of this room-who have benefited from his inveterate teaching, because Fritz was a teacher-he was constantly teaching.

The other thing I remember, he was never interested in being an upper-grade. I think he considered it dangerous to accept any higher commissions.

And the third thing which I remember vividly, though I never saw it, but only heard Sven and Fritz describe it, is that image of the young Fritz Kraemer with his Imperial flag and cross going out in the middle of swastika-bearing, and hammer and sickle-bearing fascists and communists and getting himself beaten up-and doing it over and over again. That is what he was about. That is what his life was about-a recognition that there is evil in the world and you have to struggle against it.

I don’t think it is doing him an injustice to say he seemed always to be a prophet of gloom. He was, I think, a pessimistic man. And it is remarkable, given that outlook, how much of what he spoke for, fought for, and defended ultimately triumphed. I suppose he would say that is because, "I was always thinking about how things could go wrong. And I’m not sure that they didn’t."

The other day, I stumbled by accident on an article from 1984 that appeared in Foreign Affairs. It talks about how, apparently, judging from opinion polls, the Americans think their President is doing a great job and is reasserting American leadership in the face of aggressive Soviet expansion. But what they don’t understand is that he is an idiot and 70 percent of Europeans recognize that he is. And that it is difficult to describe to Americans just how low they have sunk in the esteem of Europeans. If you didn’t know that it was written about Ronald Reagan, you would have said how little things change.

Lieutenant General William Boykin, a veteran of the Army's top secret Delta Force, now the top Pentagon military for intelligence in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, discussed the new book Fritz Kraemer On Excellence at the Army Navy Club in the U.S. capital

The thing that hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is that there still is evil in the world.

It is a fascist totalitarianism not fundamentally different from the way it was in the last century-no more God fearing than they were.

They are people who worship death frankly, and not life.

People who worship the devil, I believe, and not God.

They are an evil that has to be confronted.

And fortunately, we do have a president that is prepared to see it the way I think Fritz Kraemer would have seen it, and is prepared to confront it. I believe his spirit still lives.

In the Talmud, I think somewhere it says that those who have passed away still live among us in the deeds that they have done and in the hearts of those who have cherished their memories. I know that there are hundreds and hundreds of people who have been touched by Fritz Kraemer and who not only still cherish his memory, but I believe have had their lives effected by his ideas and his example. It is a privilege to be counted among them.

Army and Navy Club, Washington DC, November 15^th, 2004

Joseph Schmitz (center), Inspector General in the U.S. Defense Department, is one of the new men in the Pentagon Fritz Kraemer identified as “the responsible elite” in America with high moral values to prevent “provocative weakness” by America and the Free World

Remarks by Joseph Schmitz, Inspector General U.S. Department of Defense

Like many others, Fritz Kraemer has had a profound influence on my life. It is an honor to play a small role in this celebration of both the man and, as he would have preferred, the principles for which he fought to the very end.

A year to the day after the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, immediately after the Pentagon ceremony honoring “America’s Heroes Lost September 11, 2001,” I had another unique honor associated with Fritz Kraemer. As I escorted Dr. Henry Kissinger through the Pentagon to his waiting car, I mentioned to Dr. Kissinger that I had recently queried one of his mentors, Fritz Kraemer, about what he thought was the most dangerous “domestic enemy to the United States Constitution.” Fritz had unhesitatingly answered, “Relativism”; and upon hearing this, Dr. Kissinger unhesitatingly replied, “I agree.”

This past Summer, when I informed Secretary Rumsfeld about the Fritz Kraemer book project, he enthusiastically offered a letter he had written to Sven Kraemer after his father’s passing the year before. The text of that letter is reproduced in the book we celebrate tonight. It’s classic Rumsfeld: “His courageous and brilliant career was an example to us all. I had the highest respect for him and valued my relationship with him greatly. I feel fortunate that I was able to benefit from his insight.”

I too feel fortunate to have benefited from the insight of Fritz Kraemer. Having inspected the book that we celebrate tonight, I am pleased to report that it captures not only the greatness of the man, but the profound spiritual faith, vision, and the principles behind the man. That is how old Fritz would have wanted it.

Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann presenting his new book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence in the Parliamentary Society at the Reichstag in Berlin

The new book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence. Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist was presented for the first time to an interested and enthusiastic public in Berlin, Munich, Washington D.C. and New York.

In the venerable Parliamentary Society across from the Reichstag (the House of Parliament) in Berlin, General (Ret.) Klaus Naumann, former Chief of Staff of the German Federal Armed Forces and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, presented his thoughts on patriotism and the Kraemer aphorism of „provocative weakness“ in Europe to more than 100 guests - including ambassadors, members of the German Parliament and the Federal Ministry of Defense.

Friedrich Merz, Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU opposition party in the German Parliament, one of the most prominent and popular politicians in Germany, added his thoughts on the Kraemer book and on moral values in politics.

In Munich, more than 200 guests attended the book presentation at the private home of the author and World Security Network founder Hubertus Hoffmann. In attendance was a colorful mix of military officials such as former KFOR Commanding General (Ret.) Klaus Reinhardt; representatives of industry including Dr. Thomas Enders, Member of the Board of EADS; members of the academic community represented by Prof. Werner Weidenfeld CAP Institute and Prof. James W. Davis Jr., of the Geschwister Scholl Institute at Munich University; as well as journalists and prominent actors such as Uschi Glas.

Those who attended complimented both the elegant appearance of the book and its outstanding contents. The newspapers Münchner Merkur and Passauer Neue Presse spoke of a successful “homage to a great Pentagon strategist” and “a book whose optical elegance is matched by its excellent content.”

Order Fritz Kraemer on Excellence now as a Christmas gift at the preferential price here! You will receive delivery within a few days.

The contribution of General (Ret.) Klaus Naumann, former Chief of Staff German Federal Armed Forces and Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee to the presentation of the book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence in Berlin

General (Ret.) Klaus Naumann in Berlin: "Provocative weakness: Fritz Kraemer's warning is as relevant as ever"

First of all, let me congratulate Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann on his splendid, well-done book "Fritz Kraemer On Excellence"
(www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/fritzkraemer) .

With it, he has created a monument to a man for whom values—a moral/ethical system of coordinates and convictions—comprised the hallmark of his life, values that Fritz Kraemer would not surrender under any circumstances. People of this caliber are the exception in all ages, but today among our superficial, value-free, “me” generation they ought to be a protected species.

To think about values anew seems particularly necessary in light of recent events. The greatest power on the planet has just decided to turn to values for orientation in an election more moving than ever before. That is the true message of the U.S. election, that Fritz Kraemer is more up-to-date than ever. It is worth reflecting on this transformation, if one takes the effort, so as not to widen the gap between Europe and the U.S.A. In this respect, the book " Fritz Kraemer On Excellence" is appearing on the market at just the right time.

One of Fritz Kraemer’s values was patriotism. I never had the chance to speak at length with him about this, but after reading this book I am convinced that it was patriotism which drove Fritz Kraemer from Germany. And moreover, that as a German patriot who could not accept an unjust German regime pulling his nation into the abyss, he took up arms in order to fight against the Germans who had devoted themselves to the Nazi regime. I can appreciate what an enormous weight this decision carried, as in my own life I too was confronted by it in my mind. Being a soldier in a divided Germany ultimately meant having to fight against the soldiers of the former GDR—the unjust German regime of the second half of the 20th century. I am thankful that a fortuitous turn of historical events that began with the fall of the Berlin wall fifteen years ago today, combined with a diplomatic policy that relied on strength and dialog, spared me of having to honor my fundamental commitment.

It is patriotism and standing for inalienable values that makes people ready to put their life on the line. Patriotism means more than the love of a country and its people, patriotism develops through the knowledge of the achievements of a country seen in the entirety of its history. Further, patriotism is based on respect for human beings and their rights. Patriotism can develop only where there is law and order and where the citizens of a country are protected against the power of the state by the power of law. Patriotism never places itself over others, and patriots never allow themselves to be misused in the suppression of the free will of other people by violence.

Fritz Kraemer recognized this was no longer possible in the Germany of the thirties, and therefore he went to America. He became an American patriot that never asked what the state could do for him but always and only what he could do for his state—another distinguishing mark of patriots, who always place serving before earning.

Dr. Friedbert Pflüger, Foreign Affairs Spokesman of the CDU/CSU, and other members of the Bundestag attended the Fritz Kraemer on Excellence book party in Berlin

Fritz Kraemer saw with great clarity that a weak state and a disoriented society do not stand a chance of survival in a world where power is used to impose one’s will upon others. From this arose his theory of “provocative weakness”. Fritz Kraemer’s central argument in this regard is as follows: “If our state becomes so weak that its enemies no longer fear retaliation, then its enemies will become aggressive and our friends will no longer believe in our guarantee of protection.”

His conclusion was clear and simple: One must stay strong and powerful if one wants to protect oneself and wants to pursue one’s goals.

"Power is not a privilege", he once said, "but an obligation". I would like to add that power is not an “evil” as some in Europe would make it out to be—provided it is grounded in law and order. Power without law and order becomes arbitrary; preventing this is the duty of the powerful.

Fritz Kraemer’s advice to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, “No provocative weakness, please! ” was perhaps not all that necessary with respect to Rumsfeld himself, but instead towards we Europeans—and first and foremost towards the Germans.

Provocative weakness, like a coin, has two sides. One side is the will of a state to sustain its position and to protect its values and convictions; the other side is the practical capability to do so. Europe lacks both.

The willingness to avoid conflicts at any price is large, perhaps because the instruments necessary for the exercise of power are missing.

The U.S.A. does not lack either military power or the will to use it; however, it does lack the insight that none of the problems of this world can be solved by military power alone, and that problems cannot be solved by giving priority to the protection of America over the protection of individual rights and freedoms.

The transatlantic balance has been lost in the debate over the question of the balance between hard and soft politics. America’s problem is the provocative use of one-dimensional power, but Europe’s problem is provocative weakness and this at a time in which the dangers and risks are greater and more unpredictable than they were at any moment of the Cold War. We stand, as do our American allies, in a conflict with an enemy who wants no more and no less than to force us to give up our social and legal order. In such a situation, one can not allow oneself to succumb to provocative weakness as it produces vulnerability—it downright attracts terrorism—it forces the U.S.A. to unilateralism, and it makes us at the same time powerless but dependent on the U.S.A. Admittedly, there is the one or the other showoff in world politics who drivels about a multi-polar world in which America’s power is supposed to be hemmed in. But they overlook in this instance that a multi-polar world can hardly ever be a stable one.

Uschi Glas, one of most famous actresses in Germany (right) and Pete York, former drummer of the U.K. Spencer Davis Group ("Keep on running") with his wife Mecky, along with generals, managers, journalists and professors enjoyed the Fritz Kraemer book party in Munich

The book "Fritz Kraemer On Excellence" should prompt we Germans to contemplation. Nevertheless, we are the ones who are ready to throw values over board. Here, it has become the trend to first ask what the prevailing opinion of the moment is and then to make decisions accordingly.

Even those who vaguely remember that the founding fathers of this state wanted to create and protect a foundation of values because they had firsthand experience of where things lead to when all values disappear.

Where are the voices in the public sphere who dare to hold up a value like “pride” in the incredible reconstruction and reconciliation efforts of the Germans as a basis for a new German patriotism, or that have the courage to mention a completely different subject, to refer to marriage as an institution worthy of protection?

Where are the politicians who meet the fundamental requirement of our parties to find majorities for the solution to problems instead of satisfying the masses with comfortable but increasingly unaffordable promises?

Is it not a sign of an alarming provocative weakness that we accept all this? We stick our heads in the sand, and this at a moment in which the powers of persistence and of earlier times want to bomb our postmodern world into a global conflict.

Fritz Kraemer was right when he says: “When he fears for his existence, the bourgeois has only one wish: acquiescence to the power that threatens him.”

We must remember that giving in to violence and injustice never produces calm and peace, but rather more injustice and more violence. Which day in German history illustrates this better than 9 November, particularly if I think of 9 November 1938?

We must develop the political will to overcome provocative weakness in Europe, and we must realize in this respect that the real problem of Europe is Germany’s powerlessness.

However, in this case, will alone does not move mountains; we also have to do something regarding the other side of the coin, namely the instruments. Let’s think of Fritz Kraemer’s assertion: “Nothing is possible without power.” That is not an appeal for a one-sided orientation towards military power; rather, it is a stimulus to think whether we can meet our political demands in Europe and in the world if we continue to disregard the military power of Germany as seen since1992. If we do so and do not help the Defense Minister in the realization of his reforms, then we will consciously produce provocative weakness. If we manage in a condition of such strategic weakness to offend the only power able to help us in our time of need, then if things should ever again become unpleasant, we should not be surprised if Germany is initially without political influence and perhaps suddenly finds itself standing alone in the rain.

Tatjana Hoffmann (right) with friends in Munich discussing Fritz Kraemer's demand for an elite to take on responsibilities in our society.

I think it is high time to remember Fritz Kraemer and to take this book to heart. We have to consider how one can repair the transatlantic relationship not by simply and unconditionally agreeing to everything that is concluded in Washington, but by finding ways where one can or must act together for the protection of common interests.

I think Europe should try to use America’s power in order to balance its provocative weakness. In this way, Europe could gain time to take long overdue steps in pursuing the elimination of the most urgent weaknesses, thereby gaining time to consider how one could restore the balance between hard and soft politics in the thinking of the transatlantic partners. Once these steps have been taken, we would then be able to and indeed would have to consider how to defy the tempests of the restless years ahead of us together with the U.S.A.

Fritz Kraemer knew the situation: “To fanatics, heroism means a fight they know they will lose.” But he also had the answer, an answer that he formulated following 9/11: “May we develop the spirit, the will, the courage, and the lasting tenacity to make it obvious to the destructionists that we are no paper tigers.”

It is well worth it to read "Fritz Kraemer On Excellence", which I hope will find broad circulation. Hubertus, you have brought an important book to the market at the right time and for that again, congratulations !

Preview and Order Fritz Kraemer On Excellence here

Friedrich Merz, Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU in the German Parliament: "Values are precisely what characterize this book from the first page to the last"

A speech by Friedrich Merz, Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU in the German Parliament, for the Berlin book presentation Fritz Kraemer on Excellence

Even today, in some quarters of Berlin, one can still see the extent of the wounds and destruction left behind by the Nazi regime and the extent of the losses to lament, in particular of Jewish families and of splendid personalities.

I would like to congratulate my friend of many years, Hubertus Hoffmann, on his book Fritz Kraemer on Excellence. Kraemer was a man who would certainly have become one of the new democratic intellectual elite in Germany following the Hitler regime. This fact is what that impressed and occupied me most during the reading of the book.

Even in the first paragraph of the contribution by Henry Kissinger, the word "values" occurs. Values are precisely what characterize this book from the first page to the last—a book about a man with values, and about a man who lived them. He did not belong to an ancestral elite, but to a performance elite. His grounding consisted of three terms: substance, excellence, and character. We find this in all of the stations of his life. And out of this arose the conflict with his pupil Henry Kissinger. Fritz Kraemer lived the role of a moral ethicist, his pupil the role of a practical politician with an ethic of responsibility who had to accept essential compromises, the judgment of which must be left to history. Both of them, however, are distinguished by independence of thought and action.

There are indeed some parallels to today’s world in the contents of this book:

First of all, there is Kraemer’s commitment to serving both the state and society—the demand not to first consider one’s own needs, but to first think of the democratic community and to be of service to it.

Weakness provokes, only strength stabilizes peace. That was certainly the most important and pragmatic thinking to shape American postwar politics and the transatlantic relationship.

Had this American policy—inspired by Fritz Kraemer in the Pentagon—not been persistently maintained and held on to for four decades, we would not be standing here today in the historic building of the Parliamentary Society in Berlin, which stood exactly at the wall in East Berlin. After 1989, we would have stayed in Bonn with the German Bundestag because Germany would still be divided. The 9th of November, the day of the fall of the Berlin wall, should also be a day of gratitude to our French, British, and American friends who never let themselves be distracted from this course.

Dr. Fritz Kraemer: Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist.

In Berlin, Munich, Washington D.C. and New York the nonprofit World Security Network Foundation (New York) presented the latest book by its founder and president, the German businessman Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, on the legendary Pentagon strategist Dr. Fritz Kraemer: Fritz Kraemer On Excellence.Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist. The book includes contributions from Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, and Donald Rumsfeld (USD 99,-; exclusive first limited edition, online orders and preview at www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/fritzkraemer).

Fritz Kraemer was for thirty years the éminence grise in the Pentagon. He discovered and mentored over decades the American Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig. They have provided outstanding descriptions for this book detailing the extent of the positive influence and impressions this German emigrant made on them.

Henry Kissinger: “Fritz Kraemer was the greatest single influence of my formative years. He shaped my reading and thinking ,awakened my interest in political philosophy and history.An extraordinary man who will be part of my life as long as I draw breath.”

Alexander Haig said of him: “I can think of no individual before or since whose patient tutelage made a more meaningful contribution to the shaping of my own worldview”

And the U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld praised Kraemer as, “The true keeper of the Holy Flame at the Pentagon. His courageous and brilliant career was an example for us all.”

Author and protégé of Dr. Fritz Kraemer for 25 years: Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, Founder and President of the World Security Network Foundation in New York.

Hubertus Hoffmann—protégé of Fritz Kraemer for twenty-five years—conducted numerous background conversations with his mentor during the last decades in Washington and molded the wisdom of this “philosopher at the Potomac” following his death last year into this outstanding book.

Fritz Kraemer on Excellence is the antithesis in book form of Michael Moore’s satire Fahrenheit 9/11, as it explains the necessity, based on decades of experience, for America to be strong and vigilant, and not to reveal “provocative weakness” in the face of fanatics. Diplomacy is impossible without the power to back it up; weakness aggravates and therefore leads to war.

Kraemer pleads vehemently for a new elite of young people to take on responsibility in the world and in society, people who aren’t driven by privilege but by carrying the burden of responsibility.

This exclusive first edition, limited to 2,000 copies, impresses through its unconventional and progressive design, which one normally finds only in expensive art books. Bound in luxurious grey linen with a real monocle on the cover (Kraemer’s distinguishing trademark), it is elaborately laid out in black-and-white and contains on its 204 pages more than 300 photos, most of which have never been published. These bring Fritz Kraemer and his world of ideals into the living room.

Please, have a look at the preview of the exclusive first edition of "Fritz Kraemer On Excellence. Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist" here!

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- At a time when the Bush administration is trying to repair relations with Europe, it's fitting that the European who applied the highest virtues of the Old Continent to the service of U.S. foreign policy is being memorialized in a new book.

I met Fritz Kraemer (1908-2003) only twice. But, like for so many others -- most notably, Henry Kissinger -- this was a life-changing experience. In an age of hyperbole, how do you describe the most remarkable man you have ever met?

Brains and talent? Common and overrated, as Kraemer would have been the first to tell you. An encyclopedic command of information? Useless without moral principles to guide one's actions. All of the above plus physical courage? Now we're getting somewhere. Add selflessness, intuitive brilliance, plus moral courage of the highest order, and you will begin to know who Fritz Kraemer was.

My first encounter with Kraemer came in the mid-1980s, when I worked on the foreign desk of The Washington Times and Kraemer had been invited to address a lunch meeting of reporters and editors. Who was this Kraemer, staffers wondered before the event. The word filtered through that he was an anti-Nazi German Christian monarchist who had fled the Third Reich and served in the U.S. Army during World War II -- when he "discovered" the talents of a young soldier named Henry Kissinger -- and subsequently had a career as a senior civilian Pentagon analyst.

Time has dimmed the details of that meeting, but not the electrifying effect it had on me. Two things stick in my mind. The first was that Kraemer used his obvious flair for the dramatic not for self-aggrandizement or ego gratification, but rather as a teaching tool. Picture a Prussian aristocrat with a monocle and a sonorous voice who half unsheathes a sword cane and places it with determination on the table in front of him. You WILL pay attention to what he says.

The second was what Kraemer had to say about diplomats. Never trust a diplomat, he warned, because by training and inclination they are people who believe every dispute can be settled by negotiation and compromise -- and that's simply not true. If two men want to marry the same woman, for example, no compromise is possible.

I left the meeting hoping our paths would cross again. That did not happen, but I thought about him from time to time over the years. After Sept. 11, 2001, it occurred to me that if anyone had anything sensible to say about the attacks, it would be Kraemer. By that time, he was 93. Was he still alive? I found a phone listing in Northwest Washington, but became sidetracked for some reason and did not call for an interview until June of 2003, shortly before his 95th birthday.

By that time the urgency of 9/11 had faded, and I was interested in doing a feature profile of Kraemer the man -- moral exemplar, geo-strategist and counselor to generations of U.S. foreign policymakers.

The task proved more complicated than I anticipated. I identified myself as a UPI reporter, explained my purpose, and told him I remembered him and his sword cane vividly from the Washington Times luncheon. He was skeptical, put me through a series of general questions, and finally said he could see no reason to talk with me since I had mentioned only the trivial detail of the sword cane. I reminded him of what he had said about diplomats and told him that I had repeated his warning to others.

It's hard to say when a man like Kraemer is impressed, especially over the phone, but he seemed to be. In any case, I passed the test and he agreed to be interviewed.

But not over the phone. He would have none of that. I must come to his house. He was a night person. Could I come over around 8? And no tape recorders. I could take notes.

On the appointed evening, I parked in the driveway behind Kraemer's ancient Cadillac and left the tape recorder in the car, hoping he would relent. My hopes were dashed when the old man summoned me to his chair and patted me down under my jacket for a wire.

Despite the heat and the domestic setting, I had put on a suit and tie. Another test passed. A previous interviewer had shown up in flip-flops, shirttail out. Bad move.

Before allowing me to interview him, Kraemer interviewed me. Through questioning, he learned that I had served in Vietnam. One more test passed. Kraemer was explicit about this.

For the next four hours, Kraemer held forth, speaking in publishable paragraphs. I was spellbound, deeply regretting the absence of a tape recorder, for I am someone who finds it hard to listen intently and write and the same time. At the end of the session, the only words of Kraemer on my legal pad were: "I have a natural mistrust of people who are very intelligent." The idea was that the very intelligent can come up with high-order rationalizations for craven behavior, and only the truly brilliant recognize that brilliance is nothing.

Fortunately, much of what Kraemer had to say is now recoverable in the book "Fritz Kraemer on Excellence: Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist," by Hubertus Hoffmann, head of the World Security Network. Hoffmann, a German businessman, put the book together from correspondence and recorded conversations with Kraemer going back to 1979. It's a book I can recommend to everyone, but unfortunately, it's available now only in a limited memorial edition that costs $99 (worldsecuritynetwork.com/fritzkraemer). It is to be hoped that a reasonably priced mass-market edition will follow.

I was determined not to mention Kissinger's name because mentor and protégé, once so close, had been estranged for some 30 years. Nevertheless, Kraemer told me the story of their meeting. In 1943, at age 35, Kraemer had been drafted and was assigned to Gen. Alexander Bolling's 84th Infantry Division. In 1944 the "Railsplitters" were training at Camp Claiborne, La. Although only a private, by this time Kraemer had earned two doctorates: one in jurisprudence from the University of Frankfurt, and another in political science from the University of Rome. For most of the 1930s, Kraemer had been senior legal adviser to the League of Nations at the league's Legal Institute in Rome.

So Bolling agreed to Kraemer's request to address the division about the importance of fighting Naziism. Among the thousands assembled was another refugee from Germany, a 19-year-old private who wrote Kraemer a brief note saying that Kraemer was right and asking if he -- Kissinger -- could help.

In later years, Kraemer was to say: "My role was not discovering Kissinger. My role was getting Kissinger to discover himself. (At 19) Kissinger knew nothing, but understood everything." Others, Kraemer said, know everything but understand nothing.

The 84th Division arrived in continental Europe in November 1944, where it suffered almost 70 percent casualties -- battle and non-battle -- in less than seven months. To me Kraemer said, unbidden: "Kissinger was a good soldier who faced danger bravely."

But Kissinger was only one of many topics on which Kraemer expounded. It wasn't quite a monologue. He answered my questions thoughtfully, but he seemed eager to give me the full Kraemer curriculum, now available in Hofmann's book: for example, that man is not simply an economic animal with material wants and needs, but a spiritual one.

By 1 a.m. I started to fade. He showed disappointment when I excused myself, saying I had to work the next day. As we said goodbye, I wondered if I would see him again.

"The Lord God keep you," he said as I was at the door about to leave.

I found my hand inscribing a cross in the air, returning his blessing.

Shortly thereafter, on July 3, 2003, I called to wish him well on his 95th birthday. Three months later, I read that he was dead. He had passed away on Sept. 8, some six weeks after our meeting -- about 17 years after the Washington Times luncheon. I thanked God for having prompted my call for an interview.

Kraemer's son, Sven, graciously agreed to my request to attend the memorial service at the Chapel at Fort Meyer, Va., and the interment at Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 8, but he denied my request to write a story about what was, after all, a family funeral. Now, however, Sven Kraemer's eulogy -- as well as Kissinger's -- is published in Hoffman's book.

Sven said his father, as a young man, had "publicly denounced Hitler's National Socialists as barbarian pagans and their communist rivals as proletarian thugs. He sometimes carried his small German imperial flag with its Christian cross of Malta into their street demonstrations as a provocative alternative to both swastika and hammer and sickle. Both sides would beat him bloody."

He talked about how his father had gone into combat as a 36-year-old infantryman, and that what Fritz Kraemer most remembered about the Battle of Bulge was the bitter cold and the mortally wounded young men of both sides calling out to their mothers in English and German.

Kraemer's New York Times obituary states that he was captured in the Battle of the Bulge. "Soon after he was taken, he convinced his German captors that an Allied victory was imminent and persuaded them to surrender themselves and the town to him. For this he received a Bronze Star and a battlefield commission."

A 1975 Washington Post profile states that Kraemer was made occupation officer of Oberammergau after the war. There he overheard neo-Nazis boasting of how they would return to power. He "seized one by the throat and forced him to discard his symbolic 'Edelweiss' boutonniere." Can you imagine the fuss if an American officer was filmed doing something similar in Iraq today?

Kissinger, obviously deeply affected, spoke movingly at the memorial service.

"Fritz Kraemer was the greatest single influence of my formative years," Kissinger said. "His inspiration remained with me even during the last 30 years, when he would not speak to me."

Kissinger said after the 84th Division reached Europe, Kraemer arranged for him to be transferred to the intelligence section. "We worked together and, after work, we walked the streets of battle-scarred towns at night during total blackouts while Kraemer spoke of history and postwar challenges in his stentorian voice -- sometimes in German, tempting nervous sentries."

Kissinger said the source of their later estrangement was the natural tension between the prophet and the policymaker. "For the prophet, values are eternal, independent of time. For the policymaker, absolute values must be approached in stages, each of which is by definition imperfect."

But was this a high-order rationalization by the very intelligent Kissinger? After the funeral, a source close to both men told me the real reason for the estrangement was Kissinger's habit of saying one thing to one person and another thing to someone else.

Oct. 8, 2003, was a perfect early autumn day. After the memorial service, we assembled outside the chapel for the long walk to the gravesite. Kissinger and his wife stood directly behind the caisson. Should I? I hesitated, then decided it was the right thing to do.

"Dr. Kissinger?"

"Yes."

"I spoke to Kraemer this summer. I didn't mention your name, but he said you were a good soldier who faced danger bravely."

Kissinger's face, and that of his wife, showed profound emotion.

"Thank you," he said.

Provocative weakness

WASHINGTON TIMES. March 4, 2005. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is fond of telling reporters that "weakness is provocative" in explaining the administration's Ronald Reagan-esque policy of peace through strength.

A new book shows where the defense secretary may have borrowed the phrase. "Fritz Kraemer on Excellence," by Hubertus Hoffmann, is a celebration of work of the World War II combat veteran and noted defense strategist who died in 2003 at age 95.

The book quotes Mr. Kraemer as warning American leaders against the "provocative weakness" embodied in the Munich deal between British leader Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler that "was the first step on the road toward World War II."

Mr. Kraemer also noted that "brilliant fools" in international foreign policy circles "never understood the devastating effect of provocative weakness on a totalitarian dictatorship like the U.S.S.R."

After the September 11 attacks, Mr. Kraemer stated that he had been warning for years that military and diplomatic "provocative weakness" in the West encouraged "aggressors and fanatics to venture forward further and further, due to their growing conviction that they did not have to fear any hard reaction from the U.S. and its allies, all absolutely deficient in willpower, all seemingly paper tigers rather than fighting entities."

"May we develop now the spirit, the will, the courage and the lasting tenacity to make it obvious to the destructionists that we are not paper tigers," he said.

When Mr. Kraemer met Mr. Rumsfeld at a 2002 swearing-in ceremony, he told the defense secretary: "No provocative weakness, please."

The book, which comes with a replica of Mr. Kraemer's trademark monocle embedded in its book cover, quotes a note from Mr. Rumsfeld as saying Mr. Kraemer was "an example to us all."

"I feel fortunate I was able to benefit from his insights," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

The book was published by the World Security Network Foundation in New York and is available at www.worldsecuritynetwork.com.

Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are Pentagon reporters. Mr. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at bgertz@washingtontimes.com. Mr. Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.

Copyright © 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

Henry Kissinger (l.) und Fritz Kraemer 1945 als Soldaten in der 84. US-Infanterie Division.

Buch über Fritz Kraemer, der zum wichtigen Berater Henry Kissingers und Donald Rumsfelds wurde

„Er bleibt für mich der Leuchtturm, der in der Wirrnis des Augenblicks uns die Transzendenz weist.“ Henry Kissinger, der morgen Gast im Medienzentrum sein wird, sagte dies über seinen wichtigsten Lehrer und Mentor Fritz Kraemer. Die Amerikaner nannten ihn „the Prussian“. Eigentlich passte der Sohn aus großbürgerlicher, bismarckisch konservativer Familie mit seinem Monokel, seinem stolzen Selbstbewusstsein und dem kurzen Haarschnitt nicht ins Bild Amerikas. Und doch hat dieser deutsche Emigrant, der als Soldat ins geschlagene Deutschland zurückkehrte, das Bild Amerikas von der Welt vielleicht mehr verändert als jeder andere. Geboren 1908 in Essen, war Fritz Kraemer ab 1933 Jurist beim Völkerbund in Rom und kämpfte dort für das Völkerrecht. 1939 emigrierte er nach Amerika, um dort für eine Weltordnung aus der sittlichen Idee der Freiheit zu werben und die Amerikaner zu einer Weltführungsrolle zu bekehren.

Sehr erfolgreich und mit viel Wirkung auf viele wichtige Personen, vor allem im Pentagon, ist ihm dies gelungen. Dem im letzten Jahr Verstorbenen wird jetzt eine umfassende Würdigung zuteil. Der Autor und Schützling von Fritz Kraemer, der Münchner Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, der auch Gründer und Präsident der World Security Network Foundation in New York ist, hat bei der Passavia in Passau einen voluminösen, optisch wie inhaltlich hervorragenden Band drucken lassen (der Münchner Buchgestalter Hermann Gruber hat in den Leineneinband sogar ein benutzbares Monokel eingearbeitet). Die Beiträge darin stammen von Alexander M. Haig, Henry Kissinger, US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld, Edward L. Rowny, Wilhelm-Karl Prinz von Preußen, Sven Kraemer und Madeleine Kraemer Byrant.

Das von Hubertus Hoffmann herausgegebene Buch „Fritz Kraemer on Excellence: Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist“ ist in Deutschland über die Internetadresse www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/fritzkraemer zu bestellen. (204 S., über 300 Fotos, 99 US-Dollar).

Passauer Neue Presse

At a reception recently, an Army general who was about to retire was asked by a friend of mine what he intended to do in his new life, without all the challenges of being a leader in war and peace.

He thought for barely a minute before the answer came back. "I'm going to write a book," he said serenely, apparently without giving the whole business a moment of further thought.

Being in a smart-aleck mood - and having gone through the inhuman struggle of writing columns and books for a questionable "living" for many years - I dropped my usual courtesy and came right back at him. "Yes," I said with a sardonic smile, "and when I retire, I'm going to be a general."

He kept on chatting without giving my immensely clever retort even an angry nod. Soon he moved away - probably to get right to the typewriter to write that best-selling book!

I mention this chance encounter now, in the middle of the presidential campaigns, because it seems to me to be instructive of the sickness in these contests: the idea that our leaders have to be "just like us," that they have to have the same kitchen tables and sit around them wringing their hands over the same problems, that none of them can be superior in the slightest way or we will kill them dead (as we used to say on the South Side of Chicago) with the moniker of "elitist." This is the infantile sense of the most important political campaign in the history of the greatest nation on Earth.

It's not that we're striving for higher and more respected levels, it's that we need to bring everybody down to lower ones. Genuine abilities and accomplishments have to be ignored and diminished, lest anyone look superior, even in a specialized knowledge or craft. How the genuinely talented Barack Obama made it to this level is just amazing. His problem is not his race, fellow citizens, it's that he's so elegant and smart.

When John McCain named Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate (someone, frankly, I had never heard of before), she was introduced at the party meeting with, "She's a mom like you." In effect, she is a woman, and that, in our species, is interchangeable. Hillary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, Sarah Palin, all are moms. Exactly what being a mother has to do with running a country, sending the military on missions around the world and regulating the economy is left for us to imagine.

Was nothing valuable given to our nation by leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Douglas MacArthur, Dean Acheson and the first President Bush, elitists all, who brought character and dignity to public service?

The problem is not democracy, but that we have come to have "egalitarian democracy," a term I first became familiar with from Fritz Kraemer, the Pentagon thinker who was Henry Kissinger's mentor. As he is quoted in Hubertus Hoffmann's excellent book about him: "We don't want people to be exceptional, to tower above others. We want mediocre - and with time, increasingly mediocre - people that don't differ from each other. In other words, we want a deeper and deeper average."

Kraemer was born in Prussia and throughout his life advanced, most often without giving an inch to any other conceptions, the cry for an elite, because, he said, "the ideal of an egalitarian society has quite simply led to a loss of quality."

" 'Excellence' in Latin means to stand out, but we do not really look for genuinely outstanding people who are 'taller' than the average. There is, on the contrary, a desire for sameness, for comfortable mediocrity, for conformity, which is inherently intolerant of any kind of superiority. This alone is a great obstacle to the selection of the non-mediocre."

The call for a false sameness, and for the destruction of anyone who dares to be truly superior, has been dominant throughout this campaign. Television hungers for "red meat," which is truly a cry for the destruction of the different. The media in general set up every campaign event as not a chance to understand an issue or clear one's thinking, but as a Roman gladiator's fight, in which the weak only inherit the wind. Remember how, at the Democratic Convention, leaders recalled over and over their miserable childhood experiences instead of their ability in overcoming them? To appear to know something that the mob does not marks the thumbs-down of the conflict.

But would it not be better to acknowledge that we are all different - we are not "all moms" or any other single thing - and that we should seek out the superior to rule our nation instead of the less talented?

The problem is this: Once you start with the egalitarian nonsense, which of course is what communist Marxism was all about, it's not only about politics; it's about our whole culture. Everything gets dumbed down for this one Mr. Average Man and Mrs. Mom, whether it's radio or television or public life. That's the price of not recognizing elites.

And that's why generals think they can write books when they retire. We won't recognize that different people have different talents, abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and that we gain by identifying with their strengths, as they gain by immersing themselves in ours. That's not elitism; that's common sense.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney did not appear in person at the Republican Convention in deference to the recent threat to New Orleans. They couldn't care a twinkle the first time around. If that's phony populism, and it is, give me elitists any time.

Georgie Anne Geyer is a nationally syndicated columnist.

On October 24,1972, Pentagon strategist Dr. Fritz Kraemer (left) discussed Vietnam in the Oval Office with U.S. President Richard Nixon, with his protege National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger (right) not amused.

Whether Vietnam, Iraq, or now Afghanistan, wars come and go, but the real battle is a philosophic one between two sects of conservatives. In The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons from Nixon to Obama, authors Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman challenge readers to examine the role of a little-known Pentagon figure named Fritz G.A. Kraemer. Colodny and Shachtman argue that Kraemer was the leading intellectual behind what became known as the neo-conservative movement, witnessed by the fact that Kraemer influenced so many high-ranking conservative figures over the course of six decades.

What we see in The Forty Years War is that Vietnam split conservatives into two groups: those who sought reconciliation with America's adversaries (including not only North Vietnam, but also the Soviet Union and China), and those who thought weak-kneed political leaders were giving away too much to America's adversaries, including restricting military solutions in Vietnam and more generally pursuing policies of détente. Following Vietnam, Henry Kissinger emerged as the best example of a member of the former group, while Fritz Kraemer continued to lead the latter group.

The split occurred during the fall of 1972, at the moment the Nixon administration was closest to reaching a peace agreement with North and South Vietnam. Most importantly, the split was captured on the Nixon taping system. Before publication of The Forty Years War, no attention had been paid to a meeting that took place on October 24, 1972, yet it has all the makings of pure intrigue. At 11:15 am, Henry Kissinger and his long-time mentor, Fritz Kraemer, entered the Oval Office for a private meeting with President Nixon.

To interested observers and professional historians alike, the meeting raises far more questions than it answers. Management guru Peter Drucker referred to Kraemer as "the man who discovered Kissinger." Donald Rumsfeld referred to Kraemer as "the keeper of the flame", and during a speech upon his departure from the Pentagon in 2006, he cited Kraemer's controversial philosophy of "provocative weakness." Kissinger himself referred to Kraemer in an emotional eulogy as "the greatest single influence of my formative years." In 2000, Alexander Haig told James Rosen, author of The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate, that Fritz Kraemer "detests Henry today, even though he was Henry's father in the United States." National Security Council Staff Member Roger Morris stated that it was "probably Kraemer in the Pentagon" who was responsible for Haig's appointment as Kissinger's deputy. After all, neither Nixon nor Kissinger knew Haig previously; however, Kraemer naturally had the ear of Kissinger.

The obvious question, then, is why don't we know more about this shadowy Pentagon figure who seemingly influenced nearly every conservative foreign policy thinker from the Nixon administration forward? Even his death, in 2003, has been no impediment to his influence. Former Vice President Dick Cheney's recent criticism of President's Obama's Afghanistan policy could have come from Kraemer himself.

Start with what we do know. On September 18, 1971, in an Oval Office conversation between Henry Kissinger and President Nixon, Kissinger reminded Nixon that Kraemer had been sending a series of papers related to his theory of "provocative weakness" to the White House, to Henry Kissinger's attention. Kraemer's "provocative weakness" applied to Nixon's foreign policy in the broadest possible sense, including subjects such as Vietnam, China, and detente with the Soviet Union. In the excerpt below, Nixon clearly recalls Kraemer, and asks Kissinger to set up a meeting so that Nixon could meet with Kraemer himself.

Fritz Kraemer's theory of provocative weakness, greatly simplified, goes like this: displaying too much force, such as engaging in an arms race or using excessive force during wartime, are provocative but necessary actions in the face of an irrational adversary. Such displays of strength are preferable to appearing too weak in the eyes of your adversary, which is also provocative since such weakness may incite an adversary to take unnecessarily risky actions that they would otherwise not take. Colodny and Shachtman argue that this philosophy has been an overriding principle of the neo-conservative movement, which has been applied to a variety of international conflicts over the past 40 years.

Fritz Kraemer was placed on President Nixon's schedule, on October 24, 1972, at 11:15 am. Kissinger's deputy, General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., who remained loyal to Kraemer after the Kraemer-Kissinger split, was not permitted to attend. At the start of the meeting, White House Photographer Ollie Atkins captured numerous images, which appear below. They depict Nixon and Kissinger in a jocular mood, clearly enjoying themselves, while Kraemer looked grave, perhaps annoyed that the start of his meeting had been reduced to humor and grandstanding.

During the meeting, Kraemer made it increasingly clear that he was not happy with Nixon's foreign policy, specifically with respect to Vietnam. Kraemer believed that the forthcoming peace agreement had been negotiated according to political timing, as opposed to sound negotiating principles.

Nixon began the meeting by flattering Kraemer. "There are so few people with intellectual capabilities who aren't hopelessly unrealistic. We call them doves, for lack of a better name for it. That's too good of a name for it. They're actually worse. To have an intelligent appraisal by someone who really understands great forces at work in the world...with the Soviets, China, etc., to have that kind of analysis...I appreciate it. It's been very helpful."

Kraemer soon began to lay into Nixon's and Kissinger's strategy in Vietnam, including that crucial concessions had been made-such as not insisting on a North Vietnamese withdrawal from South Vietnam-in order to obtain a flawed peace in time for the 1972 presidential election. Kissinger and Nixon defended themselves.

This meeting was probably the only one to have occurred during the Nixon presidency in which Nixon and Kissinger permitted a rigorous debate, in the Oval Office no less, over the merits of not just Vietnam policy, but Nixon foreign policy more generally. Kraemer knew the issues well enough that both Nixon and Kissinger were forced to defend themselves to someone who represented an increasingly disenchanted sect of conservatives. Kraemer believed, as other conservatives did, that the conduct of Nixon foreign policy had became tainted by short-term political considerations, and that politicians had acted as a restraining influence on military leaders who believed they were capable of achieving a military victory..

The tone of the conversation was not adversarial, but it was clearly elevated. Nixon admitted that Kraemer touched on far more than simply American policy towards Vietnam. "The whole foreign policy of the United States is on the line here," Nixon noted. The half-hour meeting was too brief for what Kraemer had in mind. He made his disagreement known to the president, which ultimately resulted in a split with Henry Kissinger. The estrangement that resulted between the two men, who had met a quarter century earlier after each enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, continued stubbornly even beyond Kraemer's death in 2003.

It is because these two conservative sects split-one led by Henry Kissinger and the pragmatists, and the other led by Fritz Kraemer and later figures such as Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney-as well as the fact that they never resolved their differences before Kraemer's death, that this split continues today. Since Vietnam, wars and have come and gone, but this philosophic battle has never been overcome. Former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of President Obama's policy with respect to Afghanistan could have come from Fritz Kraemer himself. While many in the media have interpreted Cheney's comments on purely political, they miss the greater struggle taking place within the conservative camp. The debate over future American policy towards Afghanistan is merely the vehicle for the latest chapter in the epic struggle.

The Forty Years War should serve as a call to researchers to learn much more about Fritz Kraemer. Perhaps the outcome of this future research will confirm Colodny and Shachtman's view that Kraemer was a sort of ideological godfather to the neo-conservatives. After all, a split in the conservative camp indeed took place, and was never resolved. On the other hand, others may conclude that the emphasis on Kraemer is overdone. Either way, the first step is to learn more about the mysterious figure who was indeed influential to so many American diplomatic and military figures since Vietnam. For that, The Forty Years War indeed deserves credit.

Dear Hubertus,

I have been an admirer of your work for some time, and was already familiar with the book.

As for obtaining materials related to the Fritz Kraemer-Nixon-Kissinger meeting October 24, 1972 in the Oval Office discussion Vietnam, there is no transcript for the meeting. However, I did transcribe the most substantive excerpts, and those are included in the article. I would encourage you to read my original version of the article: http://www.nixontapes.org/kraemer.htm. The text is the same, but there are numerous audio clips from the meeting, and also additional photographs that you may enjoy. I make these materials freely available to the public, so there is never any cost.

In lieu of a transcript, here are the materials I have from the October 24, 1972 FGAK-Nixon meeting:

-original audio: http://nixontapeaudio..org/fgak/806-009.mp3

-summary of conversation: http://www.nixontapes..org/fgak/806-009.pdf

-two important excerpts transcribed in article: 1) http://www.nixontapes.org/fgak/806-009_excerpt.mp3, 2) http://www.nixontapes.org/fgak/806-009_excerpt2.mp3

-a copy of President Nixon's schedule for October 24: http://www.nixontapes.org/fgak/1972-10-24.pdf

Luke A. Nichter, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of History
Texas A&M University-Central Texas

http://www.tarleton.edu/~nichter/

One hot Louisiana day in the summer of 1944, General Alexander Bolling, commanding officer of the US 84th infantry division, was inspecting a training exercise when he spotted a small man, wearing a monocle, perched on a platform, shouting military commands in impeccable upper-class German. "What are you doing, soldier?" asked the general. "Making German battle noises, sir," said Private Fritz Kraemer. The general, impressed by this unusual recruit, attached him to his headquarters.

Not long afterwards, Kraemer - still sporting his monocle and walking stick - approached a company of the 84th, resting after a 10-mile hike. "Who's in command here?" he barked. A lieutenant colonel admitted that he was. "Sir," said Kraemer, "I've been sent by the general, and I'm going to speak to your company about why we are in this war."

One of the soldiers who heard his eloquent denunciation of the Nazis that day was a certain Private Henry Kissinger, then a recent US immigrant and accountancy student. For the first - and only time - in his life, Kissinger was moved to send a speaker a note, saying how good Kraemer's talk had been. It was the beginning of a friendship that was to change both their lives.

Kraemer, who has died aged 95 of kidney failure in Washington DC, became Kissinger's mentor, interesting him in political philosophy and history. He himself went on to have a 27-year-long career as a Pentagon adviser on geopolitics and strategy; he counselled a succession of US army chiefs of staff and defence secretaries, and served on the White House national security staff under 10 presidents. As recently as last year, he was photographed, still with his trademark, silver-topped stick, jokingly saying "No provocative weakness, please!" to Donald Rumsfeld.

After winning a battlefield commission and a bronze star in the US army in 1945, Kraemer rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the reserve. Subsequently, he taught at the Johns Hopkins University school of advanced international studies in Washington, and was much in demand as a consultant on strategy and military affairs.

He was also a legendary political and military talent scout. As well as Kissinger, his proteges included General Alexander Haig, General Creighton Abrams, Lieutenant General Vernon Walters, the polyglot intelligence expert, and Major General Edward Lansdale, reputedly the model for Graham Greene's Quiet American.

Kraemer was born in Essen, in the Rhineland, then technically part of Prussia. His father was a state prosecutor, and his mother was the daughter of a prominent industrialist.

He had a brilliant academic career. He was educated at the Arndt gymnasium in Berlin, then at the London School of Economics and the universities of Geneva and Berlin. He subsequently earned doctorates both from the Goethe University in Frankfurt and from the University of Rome.

He was always flamboyant and eccentric. He was to be seen canoeing on the river Main, with the pennant of the German imperial navy flying from his craft, and he more than once got stuck into street fights with Nazi and communist thugs; as a Lutheran Christian and a patriotic German, he despised fascism and communism alike.

He left Germany in 1933 to work for the League of Nations in Rome, where he wrote a number of works on international law. In 1939, he moved to the US, leaving behind his Swedish wife, Britta, and their son, Sven, who were interned by the Nazis when the second world war broke out.

When the US 84th division, the "Railsplitters", arrived in Germany in early 1945, after the battle of the Ardennes, Kraemer was able to arrange for the young Kissinger to become General Bolling's German-speaking driver. The appointment launched Kissinger into the counter- intelligence corps, and a series of responsible jobs in the postwar US military government of Germany that were to be the making of his career.

During the war itself, Kraemer became an American citizen. Once the conflict was over, he was able to return home and rescue his wife and son, who were living quietly in a village; soon afterwards, their daughter was born. Kraemer stayed on in Germany for two years, analysing documents in preparation for the Nuremberg trials.

Kissinger has said that Kraemer was "the greatest single influence of my formative years". His patron's values, he added, were "absolute". "Like the ancient prophets, he made no concessions to human frailty or to historic evolution; he treated intermediate solutions as derogation from eternal principle."

In truth, the two men's relationship was not without its disagreements. In the years of Richard Nixon's presidency, when Kissinger was at his most powerful, the inflexible Kraemer could not accept his former protege's policy of detente, and they did not speak for 28 years. Last year, however, Kissinger telephoned Kraemer to make it up. He went on to give the address at Kraemer's funeral, and has written that Kraemer "will remain to me a beacon".

Kraemer's wife died in 1998, after 65 years of marriage. His daughter survives him.

· Fritz Gustav Anton Kraemer, geopolitical strategist and public servant, born July 3 1908; died September 8 2003