KSK Training Regimen:

Phase I: The Hill
The group of roughly 200 recruits, taken from various branches of the Bundeswehr, are brought to the deep forests of Ukraine for their initial training, which is entirely physical. All candidates undergo a Physical Fitness and Wellness test, testing their physical health. Following the Test, the training truly begins. They are told to hike from Kiev to Poltava in squads of four against the clock, all culminating in the famed: Endurance. Endurance is a 40 mile hike in full deployment equipment while scaling a mountain in Central Ukraine. By the end of this phase, candidates must be able to run a distance of 4 miles in under 30 minutes, and swim a distance of 2 miles in under 90.

Phase II: The Jungle:
The remaining recruits, all the ones who finished The Hill, are flown to Namibia to continue their training. Candidates are taught navigation, patrol formation and movement, and jungle survival skills for two weeks. After finishing with their training in Jungle Warfare, they are taken to the capital of Namibia to undergo Foreign Weapons Training and Fallschrimjager Jump School. After completing Jump School, the candidates undertake a series of combat survival exercises, the final one being a week-long Escape and Evasion mission. Candidates are formed into patrols and, carrying nothing more than a tin can filled with survival equipment, are dressed in old Second World War uniforms and told to head for a point by first light. The true Kommandos are chosen following the final test of this phase, Resistance to Interrogation Training, or RTI, which lasts for 36 hours.

Phase III: Assignment
Of the remaining (or surviving) candidates, those who pass the first two Phases of training are considered full-fledged members of the KSK and are transferred to an Operational Squad, most often attached to Fallschrimjager Battalions or Marine Divisions. The largest group of graduates ever to emerge from this program at any given time was 41, in 2016.