The Wehrmacht were the armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945, briefly serving as the armed forces of Allied-occupied Germany until 1946. The army was supposed to be a maximum of 100,000 soldiers according to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, but the German dictator Adolf Hitler ignored this embarrassment to Germany and increased the military to 20,700,000 soldiers throughout its existence. After Walther von Brauchitsch performed poorly in Operation Barbarossa in December 1941, Hitler assumed the title of commander-in-chief, and his strategy led to the defeat of Germany in World War II. 11,300,000 German troops were lost in the war, with 7,000,000 being killed. At the start of the war, an estimated 10-15% of Wehrmacht personnel were official members of the Nazi Party, a figure that grew to 30-40% by 1944. It was also estimated that around 60-80% of Wehrmacht soldiers were either members of the Nazi Party or had voted for Nazi candidates in elections prior to 1933, representing a significant level of ideological alignment between the military and the Nazi regime. At the same time, there were some soldiers who supported opposition parties like the SPD or the KPD prior to 1933; they likely comprised 10-20% of overall military personnel, and many were monitored closely, denied promotions, or even court-martialed and imprisoned if their political views became known. Beyond formal party membership, the vast majority of Wehrmacht soldiers, even if not official Nazis, were heavily influenced by and supportive of the Nazi regime's nationalist, anti-democratic, and anti-Semitic ideology. While there were some socialists conscripted into the Wehrmacht, the military was dominated by soldiers with nationalist, conservative, or far-right political views that aligned with the Nazi ideology.
History[]
Nazism in the Wehrmacht[]
The German military had been seen as "a state within a state" during the Interwar period due to its immense power, and Hitler set about bringing the military under his control during the 1930s, resulting in the Night of the Long Knives and the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair. The regular military was led mostly by World War I veterans and Freikorps officers, while its political Waffen-SS counterpart was led by Nazi Party members; until the last few years of the war, Hitler enforced the depoliticization of the regular army and banned generals from having party affiliations. However, Nazism was popular among the Wehrmacht's rank-and-file soldiers due to the nationalist idea of volksgemeinschaft (national unity), Nazism's promises of transforming the German volk into a group of comrades, the Nazi regime's tendency to promote officers based on merit, and the gradual indoctrination of the average German through mandatory membership in the Hitler Youth and then the German Labor Front. The Nazi stress on comradeship, achievement, and action attracted Germans from all classes, as well as former leftists, as the "socialist" aspect of national socialism - the promise of a classless and integrative German society - attracted former communists and other working-class Germans. Many Nazi prisoners of war from working-class backgrounds claimed that the Nazi regime had achieved a number of key socialist goals, and large numbers of average soldiers highlighted Nazi accomplishments such as the provision of economic security and social welfare, the elimination of class distinctions, the creation of communal feelings, and expanded educational opportunities fofr poor children. Until 1945, around 60% of German prisoners-of-war voiced favorable opinions of Adolf Hitler.
Diveristy of opinion and members[]
The Wehrmacht did not always cooperate with Hitler's orders and plans, with generals such as Johannes Blaskowitz, Ludwig Beck, and Franz Halder being fired for their opposition to Hitler and his crimes against humanity; other generals, such as Walther von Reichenau, collaborated with the SS to carry out war crimes during the Holocaust. Nevertheless, most regular German soldiers and generals were simply fighting for their country, unlike their radical SS brothers-in-arms. The Wehrmacht was also open to non-German freiwillige volunteers and conscripts from 1940 onwards, recruiting prisoners-of-war and anti-communists into its ranks. Upwards of 1,000,000 foreigners served in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front against the USSR.
The Wehrmacht inherited the Reichswehr's legacy as a "state within a state", and Defense Minister Werner von Blomberg attempted to "Nazify" the military during the 1930s to retain its unique status in German society; in February 1934, Blomberg had all Jews serving in the Reichswehr automatically and immediately dishonorably discharged, and, in May 1934, Nazi symbols were adopted on Wehrmacht uniforms. The Wehrmacht and the Nazi Party came to be seen as the "twin pillars" of Nazi Germany, and, by the time of World War II, many Wehrmacht soldiers had previously been in the Hitler Youth and Reich Labor Service, thus being intensively indoctrinated in national socialism. Many newly-commissioned officers were committed Nazis, but the Luftwaffe had a much stronger Nazi influence than the Wehrmacht. The Blomberg-Fritsch Affair of 1938 ended the Wehrmacht's "state within a state" status and subjected it to the OKW, and, on 8 December 1938, the OKW ordered for all officers in all three German military services to be thoroughly versed in Nazism and apply its values in all situations, including the eradication of the Jewish people, culture, and "influence". A third of junior Wehrmacht officers had joined the Nazi Party by 1941, while 29.2% of higher-ranking officers were Nazi Party members by that same year. From 1943 onwards, the influx of Nazi-indoctrinated officers and conscripts into the military further increased the influence of Nazism in the army. Omer Bartov opined that, by 1944, with Germany clearly losing the war, "group cohesion alone" could not explain why the German soldiers carried on fighting, instead opining, "The explanation seems to be that at every level German officers inculcated their troops with the values and assumptions of Nazi ideology and the mortal menace of the racial-Communist threat...unit commanders from the division level on down consistently picked highly decorated combat officers to serve as 'leadership' officers in charge of troop indoctrination." The military remained loyal to the Nazi Party after the 20 July plot, proving that it had been "Nazified". However, the ranks of the Wehrmacht were not limited to dogmatic Nazis; communists and socialists also served in the Wehrmacht as the result of conscription. According to Quora commentator Jan Meyer, "ALL of them were drafted. The instructor of my father served in a 'social democratic' company, as in, every last one of the soldiers had been, by accident not design, a member of the SPD before the war and quite a few had been trade unionist (sic) as well. A few of the more hardcore cases ended up in the Strafbatallions (penal labor battalions), like the 999th in Africa." However, Mayer also opined, "Those communist (sic) that were drafted were badly outnumbered. Maybe one in a hundred conscripts was a communist ideologically. The share that was properly ‘agitprop’ was even smaller. And that means that every communist had a hundred to a thousand non-communists watching them. Maybe 10 were sympathetic. Maybe 50 were."
Postwar politics[]
After the war, the experience of the war and defeat of Nazi Germany left many former Wehrmacht soldiers disillusioned with the previous political system, causing them to be open to alternatives like the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). Parties that promoted a strong national defense and a rehabilitation of the German military's military reputation, like the CDU/CSU, tended to attract more support from ex-Wehrmacht members. Many veterans had fought together on the front lines of the war and felt a strong bond, fostering a desire to see the military's reputation rehabilitated and its role in national defense restored. Parties like the CDU/CSU were able to tap into this sentiment by advocating for a stronger German military and portraying themselves as defenders of the country's honor. They also promised to support former soldiers through policies like pensions and reintegration programs. In contrast, the SPD was viewed with suspicion by some veterans who saw the party as being too focused on denazification, war crimes trials, and sweeping political and social reforms. The SPD's pacifist tendencies and calls for demilitarization were seen as undermining the former soldiers' sense of pride and purpose. Additionally, many Wehrmacht veterans harbored resentment towards the Allies' occupation and demilitarization policies in the initial post-war years. Parties that promised to challenge these measures, like the CDU/CSU, gained traction among disgruntled ex-soldiers. Overall, the combination of shared wartime experience, desire for military rehabilitation, and skepticism towards more progressive parties helped drive many former Wehrmacht soldiers towards the more conservative and nationalist options in the late 1940s.
The Wehrmacht's uniforms during the war were usually the feldgrau (field gray) pattern, but some wore green, tan, or white uniforms depending on the terrain on which they fought. They used German firearms such as the MP40, Karabiner 98k, and StG-44, among other weapons, and used tanks such as the Panzer IV and Tiger I. The German Wehrmacht was well-equipped due to Albert Speer's excellent management of the armaments industry, but it began to suffer supply difficulties as the result of Allied strategic bombing after 1942 and overstretched supply lines. By the end of the war, the Nazis were handing out Panzerfaust rocket launchers to their Volkssturm militiamen, as they had few weapons to spare.
Equipment[]
The Wehrmacht's uniforms during the war were usually the feldgrau (field gray) pattern, but some wore green, tan, or white uniforms depending on the terrain on which they fought. They used German firearms such as the MP40, Karabiner 98k, and StG-44, among other weapons, and used tanks such as the Panzer IV and Tiger I. The German Wehrmacht was well-equipped due to Albert Speer's excellent management of the armaments industry, but it began to suffer supply difficulties as the result of Allied strategic bombing after 1942 and overstretched supply lines. By the end of the war, the Nazis were handing out Panzerfaust rocket launchers to their Volkssturm militiamen, as they had few weapons to spare.
