Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany)

Wehrmacht
Active	16 March 1935 – 8 May 1945
Country	Nazi Germany
Type	Armed forces
Engagements	Second World War

The Wehrmacht was the armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 until the German surrender in May 1945. It replaced the Reichswehr during German rearmament and fought the Second World War. The Heer formed its army, while the Kriegsmarine controlled naval forces. The Luftwaffe operated military aviation.

The Wehrmacht carried out Germany's campaigns and administered occupied territory. Its commands cooperated with Nazi police and SS organizations. On the Eastern Front, military authorities implemented criminal orders, supported the murder of Jews and deliberately subjected Soviet prisoners of war to lethal conditions.

Formation and command

The Treaty of Versailles restricted the size and equipment of the Reichswehr after the First World War. Adolf Hitler's government accelerated rearmament after 1933 and restored conscription on 16 March 1935. The armed forces were reorganized under the name Wehrmacht. The Reichsheer became the Heer, and the Reichsmarine became the Kriegsmarine. The Luftwaffe appeared publicly after having been developed in secret.

Rearmament brought rapid growth in military personnel and weapons production. New army formations were raised after conscription returned. Aircraft production and naval construction also increased as the Nazi government rejected the post-war restrictions on German military strength.

Hitler held ultimate authority over the armed forces. In 1938, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht replaced the Reich War Ministry as his principal military command staff, with Wilhelm Keitel as its chief. The service high commands retained control over much of their own planning and forces, so the OKW did not function as a single general staff for every theatre.

Military intelligence was handled by the Abwehr under the armed-forces command until 1944. The Abwehr controlled special-purpose units used for infiltration and the seizure of important positions. Baulehr-Bataillon z.b.V. 800 developed into the Brandenburg formations during the war.

The Waffen-SS remained institutionally separate from the Wehrmacht. Its formations nevertheless fought alongside Wehrmacht units and could be placed under military operational command during campaigns.

Second World War

Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Wehrmacht ground forces advanced from the west while the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on 17 September. The last major Polish field forces surrendered on 6 October.

German forces invaded Denmark and Norway in April 1940. The western offensive began on 10 May, when the Wehrmacht entered the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg before advancing into France through the Ardennes. France signed an armistice on 22 June.

The Wehrmacht entered the Balkans in April 1941 after the Italian campaign against Greece failed to secure an Axis victory. German forces occupied Yugoslavia and Greece before continuing operations in the Mediterranean. In North Africa, German formations fought alongside Italian forces until the Axis surrender in Tunisia in May 1943.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in Operation Barbarossa. The initial advance reached the outskirts of Moscow, but Soviet counterattacks ended the expectation of a short campaign. A renewed German offensive in 1942 ended with defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad. After the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, Soviet forces retained the strategic initiative and drove the Wehrmacht westward. Operation Bagration destroyed much of Army Group Centre in 1944.

The western Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944. By the end of that year, the Wehrmacht was retreating on both main European fronts. Its final major western offensive began in the Ardennes in December and failed by January 1945. Allied armies crossed the Rhine in March while Soviet forces advanced toward Berlin.

Occupation and war crimes

Wehrmacht operations were part of German occupation policy. Military authorities controlled territory behind the front and cooperated with Nazi police and SS organizations. German occupation relied on forced labour and mass execution. Military reprisals killed civilians in areas where resistance or partisan activity occurred.

Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the German military issued orders that rejected established protections for captured personnel and civilians. The Commissar Order required the execution of captured Soviet political commissars. Wehrmacht authorities confined Soviet prisoners of war without adequate food or shelter and transferred prisoners to the SS for execution.

Military commands supported SS killing units with transport and supplies. Wehrmacht personnel also established anti-Jewish regulations in occupied territory and carried out shootings. Anti-partisan operations were repeatedly used to kill civilians and destroy settlements.

The Wehrmacht's participation in occupation crimes contradicted later claims that the German armed forces had remained separate from Nazi criminal policy. Former officers promoted that account after the war, and it became known as the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.

Collapse and dissolution

Berlin fell at the end of April 1945. German forces surrendered in the west on 7 May and in the east on 9 May. In western Europe, 8 May became Victory in Europe Day.

The Wehrmacht stopped operating as an armed force after the surrender. Allied occupation authorities disarmed its formations and dismantled the military institutions of Nazi Germany. The Allied Control Council formally abolished the remaining Wehrmacht structure in 1946.

Allied courts prosecuted senior commanders for crimes committed during the war. The proceedings examined criminal orders and the conduct of German formations in occupied territory. The later rejection of the clean-Wehrmacht myth placed the armed forces within the history of Nazi occupation and mass murder.

See also

• Nazi Germany
• Second World War
• Reichswehr
• Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
• Waffen-SS