In the Bundeswehr’s training context, Einzelkämpfer denotes a soldier trained in survival and evasion while operating as part of a group left to its own resources. The Einzelkämpferlehrgang, abbreviated EKL, is directed particularly at developing military leaders: it prepares them to lead a group cut off from friendly forces back through enemy-held territory. The name therefore concerns independent action without regular support and responsibility for others. A person isolated alone is initially facing an emergency; that condition does not confer a training qualification.
Term, course and group
The Infantry School in Hammelburg trains Einzelkämpfer for the whole Bundeswehr. EKL is directed particularly at young officers and non-commissioned officers. A group left to its own resources may form when soldiers happen to meet after enemy contact. Their previous organisation, equipment and knowledge can differ considerably. Its leader must therefore work with the people actually present, rather than assume the capabilities of a familiar group.
EKL abbreviates Einzelkämpferlehrgang. Older training descriptions also use the functional name Führer einer auf sich gestellten Gruppe, meaning the leader of a group left to its own resources, alongside the colloquial designation Einzelkämpferlehrgang I or EK I. These terms express the basic task: regroup, survive, evade the enemy and rejoin friendly forces. In this context, Einzelkämpfer is neither a rank nor the name of a special unit. Completing the course does not by itself determine who holds military command in a particular mixed group.
Responsibility for a cut-off group
After evading the immediate threat, the group first needs a shared picture of its situation. This includes the people present, injuries and exhaustion, recent direct observations of the enemy and terrain, and the means still usable. The leader establishes who knows the location and who can still walk, carry a load or observe attentively. The leader inventories the available supplies, navigation aids and communications equipment. This determines the next attainable objective and the allocation of tasks.
The leader determines who can perform each task with the available means and explains the next step clearly enough for others to act on it. Navigation, observation, sustainment and helping an injured person require time and hands. Several available people can divide that work; two exhausted soldiers cannot fill a complete roster of navigator, observer, supply organiser and casualty carriers. Tasks may then have to be performed in sequence or temporarily reduced. When a member becomes unable to act, the whole group’s plan changes.
Personal sustainment remains an individual task and also becomes a shared responsibility. Each person must report their condition, remaining supplies and difficulties in time. With the means available, the leader organises water and food, protection and opportunities for rest without silently abandoning every other task. Someone lying down to rest cannot also reliably observe the surrounding area. If there is no capable companion available for that task, the group must account for the limitation when deciding where to remain and how to continue moving.
Discipline directly affects other members. Uncoordinated movement can separate the group; voices, light and rattling equipment can disclose its location. If each person follows a different route or objective, the group may later lack people, supplies or its only navigation aid. Changes of objective and interruptions must therefore reach the other members. Increasing exhaustion, a weaker member or a new enemy observation may require a change of pace, load distribution and route.
Route selection is also a leadership decision for the entire group. EKL includes reaching a rally point by a route chosen by the participants. An unprotected route across open ground can lead to enemy action and then the need to transport a casualty. That transport occupies additional people, slows movement and can make a previously feasible route unusable. The shorter route may then create extra work and danger instead of conserving strength.
What preparation and the course provide
Preparation means developing physical capacity and the individual skills needed before combining them under time pressure and threat. At Helmut Schmidt University, a voluntary preparatory model combined sport and swimming with navigation, knots and lashings, and evasion exercises. That preparation was a separate programme. EKL combines longer movement with equipment, obstacles, enemy pressure and group leadership. A leader who remains able to move must still recognise whether the others can manage the chosen route and task.
Practical EKL tasks include water-obstacle training and lighting a fire with improvised means. Equipment transported across a water obstacle must be protected from getting wet; the shelter-sheet package used for this serves that transport purpose. Such a package does not replace a suitable flotation or rescue aid. Fire may provide heat or allow food preparation, but it requires fuel and time and can make the location visible. These means must therefore fit the situation and the group’s onward movement.
Hunger, sleep loss, equipment loads and uncertainty make the course tasks harder at the same time. The trained leader is expected to keep making decisions and maintain the group’s ability to act under that strain.
Return, EK2 and SERE
EKL’s return objective requires more than movement towards friendly forces. During an actual recovery, the group and the forces receiving it must be able to locate and recognise each other. Smoke can indicate the position to friendly forces; signalling means must be available and those forces must be reachable. Radio contact needs a usable device and a connection; visual signals require a suitable observer and agreed recognition procedures.
The follow-on course Führer eines Jagdkommandos, discussed in connection with EK2, has a different task. It requires completion of the Einzelkämpfer course and prepares leaders to accomplish an assigned mission independently with a reinforced platoon, separated from their own force and its supplies. Whereas EKL’s basic task concerns the return of a cut-off group, the Jagdkommando leader must allocate people and resources to a planned mission, subsequent operations and the return journey.
Survival, evasion and recovery overlap with SERE. The German SERE C profile also covers appropriate behaviour as a prisoner of war; resistance to questioning is treated as an additional module. EKL combines the field tasks particularly with leading a cut-off group back to friendly forces.