According to military historian Peter J. Schifferle, the officer education programs at Fort Leavenworth made an important but little known academic contribution to the Allied victory in Europe in World War II.
Schifferle, a faculty member in the Command and General Staff College, will speak on this topic at 3 p.m. Sept. 8 at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. The event is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow.
Fort Leavenworth has been a vital academic resource to the U.S. Army for the past century, and is regarded as the “Intellectual Center of the Army.” As the home of CGSC, it played a key role in educating the senior-level officers who ultimately led the Army during World War II.
“U.S. success in World War II was not exclusively the result of industrial might and manufacturing capability,” Schifferle wrote in “America’s School for War: Fort Leavenworth, Officer Education, and Victory in World War II,” published earlier this year by the University Press of Kansas. “The earnest desire to be prepared, and the motivation to distill the lessons of unpreparedness, so that the next generation of army officers would not be condemned to repeat the mistakes of World War I, made an important contribution to America’s preparation for the next great struggle. The faculty at Fort Leavenworth was the nexus of this desire and this motivation.”
This program is co-sponsored by the KU Office of Professional Military Graduate Education, the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the Dole Institute of Politics, and the University Press of Kansas.
