This is completely subjective and could be selection bias but to me it seems like every US American I talk to has learned all about the tactics and procedures of some battles. They can give you a pretty exact replay (depending on how much they remember) of important battles like Gettysburg or D-Day.
In Germany, we've never discussed any battle tactics in class. We concentrated far more on the circumstances of the war, what it meant for the people, how it got started and how it was resolved.
Was it always like that in both countries and if not, when did they switch to this?
Optional question: do you think widespread knowledge of the proceedings of some battles is useful or useless/good or bad?
Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.
Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even even different states. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.
Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experience but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.
Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", consider asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" The latter question is often closer to what to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.
Thank you!