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	Among the foreign volunteers who served in the Wehrmacht during ] were ethnic Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians along with people from the Baltic states and the Balkans. Russians fought in the ] and non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the ]. These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring and represented about five percent of the Wehrmacht.		Among the foreign volunteers who served in the Wehrmacht during ] were ethnic Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians along with people from the Baltic states and the Balkans. Russians fought in the ] and non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the ]. These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring and represented about five percent of the Wehrmacht.


			===War crimes===
			{{main\|War crimes of the Wehrmacht}}

			Two leading principal tenets of German state political ideology during WW2 were based on ] and ]. The policy of Germany was that the ] represented the "]". ] and ] were subhumans who, along with ], had conspired to prevent the Germanic "master race" from achieving world power. Furthermore, these "subhumans" occupied the '']'' (living space) that rightfully should belong to Germany. Acquisition of new land for German needs,Adolf Hitler wrote in '']'', "was possible only in the East... The new Reich must again set itself on the march along the road of the ] of old." This was a specific historical reference to German expansion in the thirteenth century in what is modern-day ], and Hitler's quest for soil for the German people could ultimately be satisfied in "] and her vassal border states." Hitler described the struggle for world domination as an ongoing racial, cultural, and political battle.

			Poland and Russia were predominantly occupied by Slavic and Jewish populations. Given the Nazi ideology that land required for Germany's expansion was in the hands of those deemed "racially inferior", massive numbers of war crimes were committed by Nazi Germany on the ] and in conquered territory — in particular, Poland and the Soviet Union. In addition historians point out that traditional stereotypes and prejudice towards these people that existed in pre-Nazi Germany contributed to those atrocities.

			Though the massive exterminations associated with ] were primarily committed by the Nazi German ''political'' armies (the ] and the '']''), the Wehrmacht was also engaged in the Holocaust. Wehrmacht officers and soldiers worked side by side and cooperated with the ''Einsatzgruppen'' in many locations, rounding up Jews and others for internment or execution. In addition to these acts of complicity, the Wehrmacht also committed crimes of its own — including terror bombing of open cities, massacres of civilian population, the ] that called for the summary execution of Soviet political officers, and the execution of ] and of civilian hostages as punishment for partisan activities in occupied regions.

			As the extent of the Holocaust became known at war's end, the Wehrmacht promoted the view that it was "unblemished" by the crimes of the political armies. Though OKW chief ''Generalfeldmarschall'' ] and chief of operations '']'' ] were indicted, tried, convicted, and hanged for their role in war crimes, the ] declared that the Wehrmacht itself was not inherently criminal in the same way as party organizations like the SS. This was seen by many in the German public as exonerating the Wehrmacht, though recent has asserted far deeper Wehrmacht involvement in war crimes, particularly in the East.

	=== Theaters and Campaigns ===		=== Theaters and Campaigns ===
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	==External links==		==External links==
			*
	* – examples of, and information about, camouflage uniforms used by the Wehrmacht Heer, Wehrmacht Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS during the Second World War		* – examples of, and information about, camouflage uniforms used by the Wehrmacht Heer, Wehrmacht Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS during the Second World War
			*
	* — also for secret manuals of Enigma and Cryptography		* — also for secret manuals of Enigma and Cryptography
	*		*

	]		]

Revision as of 12:06, 7 April 2006

File:Wehrmacht flag.jpg

Wehrmacht flag

File:German cavalry.jpg

German cavalry and motorized units entering Poland from East Prussia during the Polish Campaign of 1939

Wehrmacht (listen) ("Defence force") was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. During World War II, the Wehrmacht consisted of the army (Heer), the navy (Kriegsmarine) and the air force (Luftwaffe), with Waffen-SS ("armed SS") and Sturmabteilung (SA) units occasionally added.

Background

Before the rise of the Nazi Party, the term Wehrmacht was used in a generic sense to describe the armed forces of Germany or any other nation.

Article 47 of the Weimar Constitution of 1919 declared the Reichspräsident commander-in-chief of "all Wehrmacht of the Reich", and a reference to the Englische Wehrmacht encompassed all English forces. The term used to identify the German armed forces was Reichswehr.

In 1935, however, the Reichswehr was relabelled as the Wehrmacht, until the defeat of Germany and the end of World War II. Under the Allied occupation and the subsequent remilitarization of the German Federal Republic in 1955, West Germany's newly-created armed forces became known as the Bundeswehr.

Hence the term Wehrmacht is customarily used to identify Germany's armed forces during the Third Reich and World War II, both in German and English.

History

After World War I ended with the capitulation of the German empire, the treaty of Versailles imposed severe constraints on the size of Germany's armed forces. The army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy. The fleet was to consist of at most six battleships, six cruisers, and twelve destroyers. Tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air force was dissolved. A new post-war military (the Reichswehr) was established on 23 March 1921. General conscription was abolished under another mandate of the Versailles treaty.

Germany immediately began covertly circumventing these conditions. A secret collaboration with the Soviet Union began after the treaty of Rapallo. Major General Otto Hasse traveled to Moscow in 1923 to further negotiate the terms. Germany helped Soviet Russia with industrialisation and Russian officers were to be trained in Germany. German tank and air force specialists would be trained in Russia and German chemical weapons research and manufacture would be carried out there along with other projects. Around three hundred German pilots received training at Lipetsk, some tank training took place near Kazan and toxic gas was developed at Saratov.

After the death of president Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, all officers and soldiers of the German armed forces swore a personal oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. By 1935, Germany was openly flouting the military restrictions set forth in the Versailles Treaty, and conscription was reintroduced on 16 March 1935. While the size of the standing army was to remain at about the 100,000-man mark decreed by the treaty, a new group of conscripts this size would receive training each year. The conscription law introduced the name Wehrmacht, so not only can this be regarded as its founding date, but the organisation and authority of the Wehrmacht can be viewed as Nazi creations regardless of the political affiliations of its high command (who nevertheless all swore the same personal oath of loyalty to Hitler). The insignia was a stylised version of the Iron Cross (the so-called Balkenkreuz, or beamed cross) that had first appeared as an aircraft and tank marking in late World War I.

The number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 until 1945 is believed to approach 18.2 million. This figure was put forward by historian Rüdiger Overmans and represents the total number of people who ever served in the Wehrmacht, and not the force strength of the Wehrmacht at any point in time. About 5.3 million Wehrmacht soldiers died on battlefields and approximately 11 million were captured by enemy forces. It is not known how many Wehrmacht soldiers died in captivity.

Command structure

Legally, the Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht was Adolf Hitler in his capacity as Germany's head of state, a position he gained after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in August 1934 and held until his suicide on 30 April 1945. Administration and military authority initially lay with the war ministry under Generalfeldmarschall Werner von Blomberg. After von Blomberg resigned in the course of the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair (1938) the ministry was dissolved and the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW) under Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel was put in its place.

The OKW coordinated all military activities but Keitel's sway over the three branches of service (army, air force, and navy) was rather limited. Each had its own High Command, known as Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, army), Oberkommando der Marine (OKM, navy), and Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL, air force). Each of these high commands had its own general staff.

OKW — Armed Forces High Command

Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

Chief of the Operations Staff - Colonel General Alfred Jodl

OKH — Army High Command

Army Commanders-in-Chief

Colonel General Werner von Fritsch (1935 to 1938)

Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch (1938 to 1941)

Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler (1941 to 1945)

Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner (1945)

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

OKM — Navy High Command

Navy Commanders-in-Chief

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder (1928-1943)

Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1943-1945)

General Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (1945)

OKL — Airforce High Command

Air Force Commanders-in-Chief

Reich Marshal Hermann Göring (to 1945)

General Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim (1945)

War years

Powerful tank and air forces enabled quick successes during early stages of the war when nation after nation was overrun and occupied within weeks (Blitzkrieg). This convinced military leaders that a new concept of broad armament (rather than deep armament) made sense. However, when their powerful adversaries (the United Kingdom, Soviet Union and United States) began offering tenacious resistance the Blitzkrieg tactics could not be applied and the relatively low state of armament became a problem for the Wehrmacht.

The Wehrmacht's military strength was managed through assignment-based tactics (rather than order-based tactics) and an almost proverbial discipline. Today the Wehrmacht is sometimes seen as a high-tech army since new technologies were introduced during World War II including the reprisal weapons, the Me 262 jet fighter and the submarine force, but overall armament levels were low. For example only forty percent of all units were motorised, baggage trains often relied on horses and many soldiers went by foot or (sometimes) used bicycles.

Among the foreign volunteers who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II were ethnic Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians along with people from the Baltic states and the Balkans. Russians fought in the Russian Liberation Army and non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the Ostlegionen. These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring and represented about five percent of the Wehrmacht.

War crimes

Main article: War crimes of the Wehrmacht

Two leading principal tenets of German state political ideology during WW2 were based on racism and anti-semitism. The policy of Germany was that the Germanic people represented the "master race". Slavic people and Jews were subhumans who, along with Communists, had conspired to prevent the Germanic "master race" from achieving world power. Furthermore, these "subhumans" occupied the Lebensraum (living space) that rightfully should belong to Germany. Acquisition of new land for German needs,Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "was possible only in the East... The new Reich must again set itself on the march along the road of the Teutonic Knights of old." This was a specific historical reference to German expansion in the thirteenth century in what is modern-day Poland, and Hitler's quest for soil for the German people could ultimately be satisfied in "Russia and her vassal border states." Hitler described the struggle for world domination as an ongoing racial, cultural, and political battle.

Poland and Russia were predominantly occupied by Slavic and Jewish populations. Given the Nazi ideology that land required for Germany's expansion was in the hands of those deemed "racially inferior", massive numbers of war crimes were committed by Nazi Germany on the Eastern front and in conquered territory — in particular, Poland and the Soviet Union. In addition historians point out that traditional stereotypes and prejudice towards these people that existed in pre-Nazi Germany contributed to those atrocities.

Though the massive exterminations associated with the Holocaust were primarily committed by the Nazi German political armies (the Waffen-SS and the Einsatzgruppen), the Wehrmacht was also engaged in the Holocaust. Wehrmacht officers and soldiers worked side by side and cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen in many locations, rounding up Jews and others for internment or execution. In addition to these acts of complicity, the Wehrmacht also committed crimes of its own — including terror bombing of open cities, massacres of civilian population, the Commissar Order that called for the summary execution of Soviet political officers, and the execution of prisoners of war and of civilian hostages as punishment for partisan activities in occupied regions.

As the extent of the Holocaust became known at war's end, the Wehrmacht promoted the view that it was "unblemished" by the crimes of the political armies. Though OKW chief Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel and chief of operations Generaloberst Alfred Jodl were indicted, tried, convicted, and hanged for their role in war crimes, the Nuremberg tribunal declared that the Wehrmacht itself was not inherently criminal in the same way as party organizations like the SS. This was seen by many in the German public as exonerating the Wehrmacht, though recent evidence has asserted far deeper Wehrmacht involvement in war crimes, particularly in the East.

Theaters and Campaigns

Blitzkrieg
- Battle of Poland (Operation Fall Weiss)
- Phony War
- Invasion of Denmark and Norway (Operation Weserübung)
- Battle of France (Fall Gelb)
- Balkans and Greece (Operation Marita)
Eastern Front (initially Operation Barbarossa)
Western Front (1944-1945)
- Battle of Normandy (ETO: Normandy Campaign)
- Northern France Campaign
- Southern France Campaign (Operation Dragoon)
- Battle of the Siegfried Line (ETO: Rhineland Campaign, Ardennes-Alsace Campaign)
- Central Europe Campaign

Conspiracy to kill Hitler

The military evaded political meddling during most of the Third Reich's history. Most of its leadership was politically conservative, nationalistic and hoped to reconquer territories that had broken away from Imperial Germany. Hitler had promised to rebuild Germany's military strength and officers were mostly sympathetic towards the National Socialist movement. Political influence in the military command began to increase later in the war when Hitler's flawed strategic decisions began showing up as serious defeats for the German army and tensions mounted between the military and the government. Not only did Hitler appoint unqualified personnel to lead his armies, but also gave to his commanders impossible orders, such as to shoot all officers and enlisted men who retreated from a front line. These tensions culminated in the July 20 plot (1944), when a group of Wehrmacht officers led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg tried to assassinate Hitler and overthrow his regime. Following the attempt, Hitler distrusted the Wehrmacht and many officers were executed. Thereafter, every man and woman who approached Hitler was searched from head to toe by his SS guards.

Prominent members

Prominent German officers from the Wehrmacht era include:

After World War II

Following the unconditional German surrender on 8 May 1945 Germany was forbidden to have an army. It was over ten years before the tensions of the Cold War led to the creation of separate military forces in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The West German military, officially created on 5 May 1955, took the name Bundeswehr, meaning Federal Defence Forces, which pointed back to the old Reichswehr. Its East German counterpart, created on 1 March 1956, took the name National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee). Neither side could do without experienced soldiers so each army initially had substantial numbers of officers who were former Wehrmacht members.