Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht was the name of the German armed forces during the Third Reich, under Adolf Hitler. Created in 1935, it succeeded the Reichswehr, which was the armed services during the Weimar Republic (the form of government Germany had after WW1).

In 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich, the German armed forces were made up of only 98,000 men, because the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have more than 100,000 armed men. However, by September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, Adolf Hitler had 2,900,000 troops at his disposal as World War II broke out.

The Wehrmacht was divided into three branches; the Army (Heer), the Navy (Kriegsmarine), and the Air Force (Luftwaffe). The Army was the strongest branch, with 70% of men and resources, and was under the Oberkommando des Heeres (German Army’s High Command), whose commander in chief was Walther von Brauchitsch until 1941, when Hitler took over.

However, to implement the Blitzkrieg (Lightning War), the Wehrmacht depended on the Luftwaffe and its ground-attack aircraft for air support when launching a fast offensive. The Waffen-SS, which was the SS’s combat arm, was not part of the Wehrmacht, for it was an independent armed force whose members were highly trained but also politically motivated.

Below, an armored unit of the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union in the Summer of 1941, during Operation Barbarossa.

The Wehrmacht in action (real WW2 footage)