Wehrmacht - History, Branches, & Definition

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Creation and structure of the

Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
ARMED
The FORCES OF
Wehrmacht THE THIRD
in World WarREICH
II
WRITTEN
OperationBY: Michael
of the Ray
Wehrmacht
LAST
The UPDATED: Apr 5, 2019 See Article History
clash of commands
Hitler and the Wehrmacht
War crimes and the myth of the

Wehrmacht, (German: “defense power”) the armed forces of the Third Reich. The three primary branches of the Wehrmacht
“clean Wehrmacht”
were the Heer (army), Luftwaffe (air force), and Kriegsmarine (navy).

German Wehrmacht infantryman at the time of the Normandy Invasion of World War II (June 1944).
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Creation And Structure Of The Wehrmacht

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles abolished conscription in Germany, reduced the size of the German army to 100,000
volunteer troops, sharply limited Germany’s surface eet, outlawed its submarine eet, and forbade the creation of a German
air force. When Adolf Hitler rose to power as chancellor of Germany in 1933, he moved quickly to roll back these restrictions. He
began developing German military aviation under the cloak of civilian production, and he worked with manufacturers to
expand German military capacity. Krupp, for example, masked its tank program under the guise of tractor construction. After
the death of Pres. Paul von Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, the of ces of president and chancellor were merged, and Hitler
became supreme commander of German armed forces. German Minister of War Werner von Blomberg, an ardent Hitler
supporter, changed the oath of service for German troops; rather than pledging to defend the German constitution or the
fatherland, they now swore unconditional obedience to Hitler.
Hitler, Adolf
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wehrmacht 1/10
4/28/2019 Wehrmacht | History, Branches, & Definition | Britannica.com
Adolf Hitler addressing a rally in Germany, c. 1933.
  ARTICLE  MEDIA 
dpa dena/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

On March 16, 1935, Hitler reintroduced conscription, effectively making public his previously clandestine rearmament program.
The German army would be increased in size to 550,000 troops, and the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic would be
Introduction
renamed the Wehrmacht. While the term Wehrmacht would most often be used to describe German land forces, it actually
Creation and
applied to thestructure of the German military. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW; Wehrmacht High Command) was
entire regular
Wehrmacht
designed to exercise command and control of the three branches of the Wehrmacht—the Heer (army), the Luftwaffe (air
The Wehrmacht in World War
IIforce), and the Kriegsmarine (navy)—each of which had its own high command.
Operation of the Wehrmacht
Also technically subordinate to the OKW was the Waffen-SS, which comprised the “political soldiers” of the Nazi Party. In
The clash of commands
addition to serving as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, administering concentration camps, and carrying out some of the most
horri c atrocities of the Holocaust, men of the Waffen-SS fought as combat troops alongside the regular army. In practice the
Waffen-SS ultimately answered to SS chief Heinrich Himmler, and its ranks swelled from several hundred men in 1933 to 39
divisions late in World War II. Although they were derisively dismissed as Himmler’s “asphalt soldiers” by the OKW high
command, the troops of the Waffen-SS were superbly equipped and tended to have high morale. In early 1944 the Waffen-SS
made up less than 5 percent of the Wehrmacht, but it accounted for nearly one-fourth of Germany’s panzer divisions and
roughly one-third of the Wehrmacht’s panzer grenadier (mechanized infantry) divisions.


Himmler, Heinrich; Hitler, Adolf

Heinrich Himmler (left) and Adolf Hitler reviewing an assembly of Hitler's personal guard.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
The Wehrmacht In World War II
The Heer was by far the largest branch of the Wehrmacht, and, upon the outbreak of war, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine units
were theoretically subordinated to army command at a tactical level. This did not yield a seamless combined arms approach,
however, as the OKW never functioned as a true joint staff. When cross-branch cooperation did occur, it was often the result of
local commanders creating ad hoc task forces of limited duration.
Coordination was also complicated by the heads of the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, who had no desire to see their
  in importance.
branches diminished  Hitler himself had little interest in sea power,
ARTICLE MEDIA
  and the naval commander in chief, Grand
Adm. Erich Raeder, frequently clashed with the Führer over strategic matters. Other than the invasions of Denmark and
Norway, which were planned and overseen by Raeder, German naval operations during the war consisted primarily of
submarine attacks on Allied shipping. The ships of the German surface eet—from converted frigates to battle cruisers such as
the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to the “pocket battleship” Graf Spee—were largely relegated to commerce raiding in support
Introduction
of the U-boat
Creation campaign.
and structure of Just
the two modern battleships were deployed by Germany during World War II: the Bismarck was sunk
Wehrmacht
within days of putting to sea in May 1941, and the Tirpitz was con ned to Norwegian waters until it was nally sunk by British
The Wehrmacht
Lancaster in World
bombers War
on November 12, 1944.
II



Raeder, Erich
Erich Raeder.
German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv), Bild 146-1980-128-63
Whereas Hitler had a strained relationship with Raeder (who was forced to resign in January 1943), Luftwaffe chief Hermann
Göring had been one of Hitler’s most ardent supporters since the earliest days of the Nazi Party. For this reason, Göring would
hold a place of almost unequaled in uence within the Third Reich, and he would wield near-total control of German air power.
Because Göring openly disliked Raeder, the Kriegsmarine would not be allowed to develop a serious naval aviation capability.
The Graf Zeppelin, the Reich’s only aircraft carrier, never entered service despite being almost completed, and its only
signi cant contribution to the war effort was as a oating timber warehouse.
Third Reich; Hitler, Adolf; Mussolini, Benito

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (left) touring the Eastern Front with German dictator Adolf Hitler (second from right) during World War II. Walking with them
are the German Nazi leaders Hermann Göring (between Mussolini and Hitler) and Wilhelm Keitel (right).
AP/REX/Shutterstock.com
In 1940 Hitler bestowed upon Göring the title of Reichsmarschall des Grossdeutschen Reiches (“Marshal of the Empire”),
further complicating the Wehrmacht chain of command. While the Luftwaffe technically answered to the OKW, Göring now
outranked OKW chief Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. Göring did suffer some diminished prestige as a result of the Luftwaffe’s
failure to knock Britain out of the war during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, but his authority remained unchallenged by
anyone but Hitler until the end of the war.
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, would settle the matter of operational organization within the
Wehrmacht. The Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH; Army High Command) became the de facto theatre command for the war
in the East, while the OKW managed the war in German-occupied western Europe and North Africa. Field Marshal Walther von
 the OKH until
Brauchitsch headed  December 1941, when Hitler forced his resignation
ARTICLE MEDIA
  and took personal command of the
Russian front until the end of the war.
Introduction
Wehrmacht
II




German tanks in the Soviet Union preparing for an attack as part of Operation Barbarossa, July 21, 1941.
AP
Hitler’s contribution to the war in the West was to order the construction of an impregnable “Atlantic Wall” that would stretch
from northern Norway to the Pyrenees. Consumed by the Russian campaign, Hitler paid little attention to the progress of this
directive, even after Oberbefehlshaber West (OBW; Commander in Chief West) Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt complained
about the inadequacy of German defenses in France. Although Rundstedt theoretically had oversight of all German units in
the West, he was hampered by the byzantine and inef cient command structure of the OKW. As Keitel had learned years
earlier, naval and air units remained within the exclusive purview of those branches. In addition, both Panzer Group West
commander Gen. Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg and Army Group B commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel reported
directly to Hitler while remaining technically subordinate to Rundstedt. This jumble of commands would signi cantly hinder
the German response to the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.


Rommel, Erwin
War crimes and the myth of the “clean Wehrmacht”
By the end of the war, more than 17 million troops had served in the Wehrmacht, and the Allies formally disbanded the
Introduction
organization on August 20, 1946. The army accounted for the overwhelming majority of that total (13 million), followed by the
Creation
air force and structure
(3 million) andof the
the navy (1.5 million). In addition, as many as 1 million men, some of them foreign conscripts and
Wehrmacht
auxiliaries, served in the Waffen-SS. Because the Wehrmacht was a conscript force and because so many German men of
IImilitary age had served in it, there was an almost immediate effort to distance the Wehrmacht from the Holocaust and other
crimes of the
Operation Nazi
of the regime. The “clean Wehrmacht” narrative held that the typical Wehrmacht soldier, airman, or sailor was no
Wehrmacht
different
The clash than his counterpart in the Allied forces; he fought for his country with honour and patriotism, untainted by the
of commands
scourge
Hitler andof Nazism.
the This claim went largely unchallenged by the Western Allies, as the West German military became a
Wehrmacht
necessary
War crimescomponent
and the mythof
of the
the Western defense structure in Cold War-era Europe. Moreover, while the SS and Gestapo were
labeled “criminal organizations” at the Nürnberg trials, the Wehrmacht and the OKW were not. Keitel, Göring, and Raeder were
individually tried and found guilty of war crimes, but the judges of the International Military Tribunal ruled that their guilt did
not extend to the organizations that they led or to the men who served under them. The rehabilitation of the Wehrmacht was
made complete by no less a gure than former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, during a trip to West
Germany in January 1951, declared:
Nürnberg trials
The defendants' dock at the Nürnberg trials. Front row (left to right): Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst
Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walther Funk, and Hjalmar Schacht. Back row (left to right): Karl Dönitz, Erich
Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Konstantin van Neurath, and Hans Fritzsche.
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
I have come to know that there is a real difference between the regular German soldier and of cer and Hitler and his criminal group.
For my part, I do not believe that the German soldier as such has lost his honor. The fact that certain individuals committed in war
dishonorable and despicable acts re ects on the individuals concerned and not on the great majority of German soldiers and
of cers.
The postwar German political establishment went a step further by courting favour with the Hilfsgemeinschaft auf
Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS (HIAG; “Mutual Help Association for Former Members of the
Waffen-SS”), a social organization of Waffen-SS veterans. The HIAG wielded outsize in uence in the decades after the war, and
prominent politicians from both the left and the right worked to weave the Waffen-SS into the “clean Wehrmacht” legend.
Prominent in this effort was HIAG spokesperson Kurt “Panzer” Meyer, a Waffen-SS tank commander who had been found
guilty of war crimes for his role in the Normandy Massacres. The HIAG would achieve some success in its primary goal—
winning military pensions for many Waffen-SS troopers—and it would retain signi cant political power into the 1980s.
A 1995–99 art exhibition titled “Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944” (“War of Annihilation: Crimes of
the Wehrmacht 1941–44”) triggered a massive reappraisal of the role of the Wehrmacht in World War II. The controversial
exhibit toured 33 cities in Germany and Austria and was viewed by more than 800,000 people. The Wehrmachtsausstellung
(“Wehrmacht exhibit”) was criticized because of the historical inaccuracy of some of the 1,400 photographs it featured, protests
and riots routinely greeted its arrival, and a neo-Nazi group bombed it during its stop in Saarbrücken. The debate even reached
the halls of the Bundestag, where members recounted their interactions with the Wehrmacht or their experiences as
members of it. The scholarly shortcomings of the rst exhibition were addressed in a second one, which debuted in 2001.
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The following year, the “clean Wehrmacht” myth would be effectively dispelled with the publication of Wolfram Wette’s Die
Wehrmacht: Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden (2002; Eng trans. The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality, 2006). Wette’s
work detailed the Wehrmacht offensives on the Eastern Front, which he characterized as nothing less than a campaign of
extermination against Bolsheviks, Jews, and Slavs. The upper echelons of Wehrmacht commanders were not dragged
unwillingly along with Hitler’s racist agenda but were, in fact, fully complicit with it. By the early 21st century, the myth of the
“clean Wehrmacht” had been shunted from the mainstream of popular consciousness in Germany.
Michael Ray
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
World War II: Forces and resources of the European combatants, 1939
…but the German Army, or Wehrmacht, because of its armament, training, doctrine, discipline, and ghting spirit, was
the most ef cient and effective ghting force for its size in the world. The index of military strength in September 1939
was the number of divisions that each nation could mobilize. Against Germany’s…
logistics: Staged resupply
The Wehrmacht that invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 consisted mainly of slow-moving infantry divisions supplied by
horse-drawn wagons and spearheaded by a few armoured and mechanized units racing ahead. In order to maximize the
capacity of its meagre motor transport, the organic transport of the…
Holocaust: Murder by bullets: the Einsatzgruppen and their fellow mobile killers
…conquered Soviet territories alongside the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces) were 3,000 men of the
Einsatzgruppen (“Deployment Groups”), special mobile killing units. Their task was to murder Jews, Soviet commissars,
and Roma in the areas conquered by the army. Alone or with the help of local police, native anti-Semitic populations,…
Third Reich
Third Reich, of cial Nazi designation for the regime in Germany from January 1933 to May 1945, as the presumed
successor of the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806 (the First Reich) and the German Empire
of 1871 to 1918 (the Second Reich).…
army
Army, a large organized force armed and trained for war, especially on land. The term may be applied to a large unit
organized for independent action, or it may be applied to a nation’s or ruler’s complete military organization for land
warfare.…
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Creation and structure of the

Hitler and the Wehrmacht

War crimes and the myth of the

Creation And Structure Of The Wehrmacht

Himmler, Heinrich; Hitler, Adolf

The Wehrmacht In World War II

Operation of the Wehrmacht

The clash of commands

Hitler and the Wehrmacht

War crimes and the myth of the

Third Reich; Hitler, Adolf; Mussolini, Benito

Hitler and the Wehrmacht

War crimes and the myth of the

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Hitler and the Wehrmacht

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March 16, 1935 - August 20, 1946

Hitler and the Wehrmacht

War crimes and the myth of the

Learn Languages Online

Babbel VISIT SITE

War crimes and the myth of the

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Pearl Harbor attack World War I

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Operation of the Wehrmacht ©2019 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Hitler and the Wehrmacht

War crimes and the myth of the

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