Fritz Kraemer

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In 2004 the founder of the World Security Network, Hubertus Hoffmann, published a book about his 25-year mentor, Fritz Kraemer, entitled Fritz Kraemer On Excellence. Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist, with Contributions from Alexander M. Haig Jr., Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Kraemer Bryant; Sven Kraemer, Wilhelm-Karl von Preussen, Edward L. Rowny and Donald Rumsfeld (World Security Network Foundation, 2004).

Fritz Kraemer was Henry Kissinger's mentor, having fostered his interest in political philosophy and history.

Kraemer had:

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.[1]

Fritz Kraemer’s theory on "provocative weakness", as summarised on the WSN website, is as follows:

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.... 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".[2]

It is but a short step to see how Kraemer's influence helped to shape Kissinger's foreign policy as national security advisor and secretary of state in the Nixon administration in the US. Kraemer's obituary in The Guardian reports:

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."[3]

Kraemer is said to have been outraged by his former protégé Kissinger's policy of détente.[4]

The obituary says that apart from Kissinger, Kraemer's

protégés 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.

Edward Lansdale was a key theoretician of counterinsurgency and Vernon Walters had a habit of turning up where coups took place.

Hoffman is an international patron of the British neoconservative organization, the Henry Jackson Society,[5] along with Bruce P. Jackson, Carl Gershman, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Clifford May, Richard Perle, and R. James Woolsey.

A 1975 Washington Post profile is is one of the few sources on Kraemer. This states that in 1948 he went to work with the National Resources Board — a predecessor to the National Security Council, where:

Kraemer has exhorted the officers of the U.S. government, and the military officers who serve it, to standards which are increasingly rare in, and, indeed, are often mocked in, contemporary society. The standards, simply put, are intensely moral: a code of honor, duty and patriotism quite similar to that which Prussian officers lived by. Moreover, Kraemer is a strong Christian in the metaphysical sense that he believes there is a moral order in the universe and that benevolent and satanic forces are at work.[6]

The Post article also states that Kraemer worked in the Counter Intelligence Corps School at Oberammergau, and that there, he and Kissinger "worked at first on the de-Nazification program, and then on the chore of identifying and analyzing Soviet and Communist influence in Western Europe, especially in labor unions."[7]

Sven Kraemer

Fritz Kraemer's son Sven Kraemer is former Director of Arms Control for the National Security Council and a long-time member of the Center for Security Policy's Board of Advisors.[8] The WSN website states that Sven Kraemer has "followed in the footsteps of his father as a Pentagon advisor".[9]

Sven Kraemer

Fritz Kraemer's son Sven Kraemer is former Director of Arms Control for the National Security Council and a long-time member of the Center for Security Policy's Board of Advisors.[10] The WSN website states that Sven Kraemer has "followed in the footsteps of his father as a Pentagon advisor".[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Godfrey Hodgson, "Fritz Kraemer: Brilliant geopolitical strategist who launched Henry Kissinger's rise to power", The Guardian, 12 November 2003, accessed February 2009.
  2. ↑ Klaus Naumann, "[Enhance Patriotism and Overcome 'Provocative Weakness' in Europe Now!]", World Security Network website, 8 December 2004, accessed February 2009.
  3. ↑ Godfrey Hodgson, "Fritz Kraemer: Brilliant geopolitical strategist who launched Henry Kissinger's rise to power", The Guardian, 12 November 2003, accessed February 2009.
  4. ↑ Godfrey Hodgson, "Fritz Kraemer: Brilliant geopolitical strategist who launched Henry Kissinger's rise to power", The Guardian, 12 November 2003, accessed February 2009.
  5. ↑ http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/content.asp?pageid=37
  6. ↑ "The Iron Mentor Of The Pentagon - Why even Henry Kissinger needs Dr. Fritz Kraemer", Washington Post, 2 March 1975, archived on the Political Friendster website, accessed February 2009.
  7. ↑ "The Iron Mentor Of The Pentagon - Why even Henry Kissinger needs Dr. Fritz Kraemer", Washington Post, 2 March 1975, archived on the Political Friendster website, accessed February 2009.
  8. ↑ "Watch this space: Center's Sven Kraemer warns Senate against reviewing MFN for China", Center for Security Policy, 6 June 1996, accessed February 2009.
  9. ↑ Hubertus Hoffmann, "Fritz Kraemer book parties in Washington and New York: Wolfowitz, Schmitz, Rowny and more", WSN website, accessed February 2009.
  10. ↑ "Watch this space: Center's Sven Kraemer warns Senate against reviewing MFN for China", Center for Security Policy, 6 June 1996, accessed February 2009.
  11. ↑ Hubertus Hoffmann, "Fritz Kraemer book parties in Washington and New York: Wolfowitz, Schmitz, Rowny and more", WSN website, accessed February 2009.
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