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“Dialogue in Hamburg” – Initiative for the Future at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College

A two-day event held at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College on February 16 and 17, 2012 marked the successful start of a campaign to strengthen the dialogue with the German armed forces on issues of arms technology and defense management. Billed as "Dialogue in Hamburg", the event was organized by the Initiative of the Future, a forum launched by the German Association for Defense Technology.

After welcome and opening speeches by the Command and Staff College´s director of education, Brigadier Karl Heinz Schreiner, and the chairman of the German Association for Defense Technology, retired General Rainer Schuwirth, the spokesman of the Initiative, Dr. Patrick Fitschen, introduced the Initiative, its objetives and its members. In his guest lecture, Ralf Hastedt emphasized the close ties between defense and security politics and the defense industrie. Hastedt is Director of Sales in Germany at PLATH GmbH, the Hamburg-based solution provider for tactical and strategic systems.  

The second part of the event took place at the PLATH offices the following day. In his lecture on “Training and Education at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College: Current State and Future Prospects,” Brigadier Schreiner presented the Command and Staff College as the top military academy for the German armed forces to an interested audience of approximately 40 members of the Initiative for the Future and the German Association for Defense Technology. Presentations by PLATH then provided insights into the area of engagement and operations of a globally active medium-size German company, with a special focus on skills and solutions in the fields of communications intelligence and analysis techniques.