HITLER’S TWO ARMIES
Sprinting toward Belgrade amid the Third Reich’s April 1941 invasion of Yugoslavia, two distinct military formations sought to outrun each other. On one flank was the Heer, the traditional standing army of Germany; on the other the Waffen-SS, the armed paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party.
The upstart latter organization won the race to the Yugoslav capital. Entering with a reconnoitering force of just six men, SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Klingenberg of the 2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” even managed to bluff his way into capturing the city. Days earlier the Luftwaffe had bombed Belgrade, killing upward of 2,200 civilians. Believing Klingenberg’s threat the city would be subjected to further bombardment by aircraft and heavy artillery, Belgrade’s mayor capitulated. When Heer troops arrived, they were understandably irked, having prepared for a lengthy and complex assault.
It would not be the last time Adolf Hitler’s two armies found themselves competing head to head.
In order to understand why the Nazis employed what were essentially two distinct ground armies during the war, one must consider the nature of the Nazi state itself.
Despite impressions of Hitler’s German state being one of monolithic centralized control, nothing could be further from the truth. A firm believer in the Darwinian concept of “survival of the fittest,” the Führer actively encouraged competition among the various state and party organs, engendering fierce rivalries—such as that between Heinrich Himmler’s Gestapo (secret police) and Wilhelm Canaris’ Abwehr (military intelligence)—that often resulted in recrimination, betrayal and, in Canaris’ case, execution.
It stood to reason, therefore,
