Oh yes, very different.

German boys were trained to be soldiers from very early on. This document, titled "German Military Training" was written by the US War Department's Military Intelligence Service and published in September of 1942. It goes into a lot of details about German military training.

Since it is fairly long and I have read it myself, I will do the best to paraphrase: In the first few pages it discusses how the entire Nazi regime worked within the culture to create a society that already had training for war. At age 10 boys would begin participating in programs through the Jungvolk (Young Folk) that taught many of the values and principles deemed important for future German soldiers, such as loyalty, patriotism, and strength. At age 14 they would then move to the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) where they would get a taste of the military. This was done through a variety of means. The boys where taught a military mindset, which focused on discipline and fearlessness. Students in the Hitler Jugend were also taught military tactics and regularly took part in training missions and mock combat. At this point in the paper it has a few paragraphs from a pre-war American observer who was allowed to study the training of Hitler Jugend. The observer explains that a 16 old boy was able to command a force of 30 other boys in military like operations on par with an experienced American officer and this troop of boys between the ages of 14 and 16 practiced military precision that rivals that of regular soldiers. There are several statistics given that show how over the course of one year, 6 million teenagers participated in sporting events, and that each year 135,000 youths were taught aviation, 295,000 youths were taught military vehicle operations and mechanics across 1,300 shops. In addition, 78,000 youths were taught naval operations each year and there were 30,000 outstanding marksman in the Hitler Yugend. The Hitler Yugend also had its own rifle school and was regularly supplied with military grade firearms. In addition, there were 3,540 outdoor camps held each year in which youth would participate in war games and survival. At this point it is very clear that by the time a man was even old enough to fight, he was already very experienced in orienteering, survival, military order, weapon use, and combat scenarios. It is no wonder then that Nazi Germany had one of the finest armies in human history. At age 18 the Hitler Jugend would serve in the Arbeitsdienst (Labour Force) for 6 months. There they would learn agriculture, construction, or manufacturing. This was meant to teach them a trade as well as reinforce discipline and free up other men for front line service. When World War II began almost all members of the Arbeitsdienst were brought into the army under various Baukompanien (these were military construction battalions). To quote page 9 of the document "When German youths, at 19, were inducted for military service, most of them had already had the equivalent of basic military training, were in excellent physical condition, and had been indoctrinated both with Nazi ideology and military attitudes... ...Furthermore, German boys had received good opportunity to practice and develop quality of leadership, and officer material was already clearly marked out by the time they reached military age."

That is the best paraphrase I can give you and I highly suggest reading the document in its entirety. There is also a lot of other interesting sources about the Jungvolk and Hitler Jugend. This boy here is 12 year old Alfred Zech, a Jungvolk platoon commander who in 1945 was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class for his actions during combat. This photo of an unnamed soldier of the Volkssturm shows a Jungvolk boy that is part of a Tank Close-Combat Squad. This is a fairly well known photograph of Hitlerjugend soldiers captured in combat by American forces. This image of Volkssturm soldiers shows Hitlerjugend sporting Waffen SS uniforms and combat decorations.

Command doctrine was one of the key differences in Allied and German training at the upper echelons of leadership. One of the major differences between German and Allied armies was command philosophy known as Auftragstaktik (mission tactics). Essentially, Auftragstaktik was a decentralized command structure in which an supreme commander devises a mission and leaves responsibility up to his subordinates to carry it out. This stemmed from both the experience of late WWI infantry breakthrough tactics (Stoßtruppen) and the long historical pedigree of independent command within the Prussian Army. Von Seekt, the interwar architect of the German Army, described Auftragstaktik as :

in contrast to the order that interferes in details of practical execution, the designation of the objective to be attained, with allocation of resources, but with full freedom for the accomplishment of the mission. This was based on the sound idea that he who bears responsibility for success must also pick the way to get there.

Much of the officer training within the expanded Wehrmacht stressed a degree of operational independence and deemphasized the importance of orders. Throughout the early period of the war, many German commanders such as Rommel were struck by the rigidity and inflexibility of their counterparts.

Auftragstaktik imparted to the Wehrmacht a greater tactical flexibility and responsiveness that its opponents often lacked. Training often emphasized commanders on the spot to seize initiative and work towards a larger operational goal. One of the clearest successes of this command philosophy compared to its rivals was during the Battle of Sedan in 1940. The 10th Panzer divisions attempts to cross the Meuse River had largely failed and were held up by a series of French bunker complexes. The only group to successfully cross the Meuse was a small pioneer detachment led by Feldwebel (sergeant) Walter Rubarth. Although lacking officers to direct him, Rubarth knew enough of the general plan and led his 11 man team to destroy seven bunkers and open a breach in the French lines. In contrast, the commander of the 55th French Infantry division (the main French unit in Sedan), Pierre Lafontaine, was lethargic and waited for orders. This was typical of French command tactics which emphasized immediately stopping the enemy followed up by a methodical clockwork operations. To paraphrase the official Bundeswehr study of the 1940 campaign, Lafontaine had everything he needed for a successful counterattack except an order from a superior.

Especially after Vietnam, Auftragstaktik became an item of almost totemic worship within American military circles. In particular, the idea that every soldier should and could think two grades above him was very appealing for the smaller, all-volunteer force. However, much of this 1980s celebration of Auftragstaktik is misplaced. On the surface, it looks as if Auftragstaktik allows soldiers from privates upwards to seize initiative, but this was not how the Germans employed it. German doctrine still stressed Normaltaktik of standard formations and drill alongside the looser Auftragstaktik. It's also important to note that Auftragstaktik gave field officers greater latitude in operations, but less so enlisted men. The success of Auftragstaktik in 1940 came as surprise to many within the Wehrmacht and inculcated a series of bad operational habits of commanders exceeding their authority (this was pretty much Rommel's career- in France, when he received orders to halt, he simply turned off his radios). It was also less suitable for a large-scale war of attrition that the Germans found themselves in after 1941 as Allied quantitative superiority mitigated the advantages of German flexibility.

Sources

Citino, Robert Michael. The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich. Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas, 2005.

_. Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.

Corum, James S. The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans Von Seeckt and German Military Reform. Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas, 1992.

Frieser, Karl-Heinz, and John T. Greenwood. The Blitzkrieg Legend: the 1940 Campaign in the West. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2005.