Watching the Rhine: U.S. Army military attache reports and the resurgence of the German army, 1933-1941

The current historiography of American participation in World War II unaccountably neglects pre-war military attache reports on the German army. Although historians have described the influence of military intelligence like ULTRA on Allied military operations, they have not yet considered whether the United States Army had enough information about Nazi rearmament before 1941 to prepare adequately for war.;This dissertation tries to find an answer in the work of the Military Intelligence Division and the American military attache reports written about developments in the German army from the time that Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in January, 1933, until Germany declared war on the United States in December, 1941. The attache system comprised an organization for gathering information and an organization for decision-making. Evaluating how each operated permits the reconstruction of an unofficial American intelligence doctrine.;The evidence suggests several tentative conclusions. Military attaches were chosen haphazardly and trained insufficiently. The U.S. Army favored quantification at the expense of explanation, did not understand how the Germans were developing what Martin van Creveld calls "fighting power," did not understand how the Germans were organizing technology, and were unable to formulate adequate long range predictions. The attaches did an adequate job estimating German capabilities but were not as successful in predicting German intentions. Neither their background, training, nor support from the Military Intelligence Division prepared the attaches for asking the questions that would have enabled army intelligence to understand the dynamics of Nazi rearmament.;Philosophical and intellectual biases prevented the military intelligence bureaucracy from asking the right questions and passing them on to the attaches for answers. As a result, the files of the Military Intelligence Division were filled with information instead of intelligence. The American army was unable to recognize the threat Nazi Germany represented and therefore suffered an intelligence failure more drastic than that of Pearl Harbor.