Hitler's Wehrmacht, 1935–1945

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The Military in the Totalitarian Führer State

Hitler’s Wehrmacht

On 16 March 1935 chancellor of the Reich Adolf Hitler proclaimed German military sovereignty. To his inner circle he described the enormous inner tension that had preceded his sudden decision and how he had hardly been able to sleep for ten days. The organizational preparations for this revolutionary step into the foreign and military policy of the German Reich had occurred much earlier. His intentions and the measures taken against ambassadors of the Versailles signatory powers had been secret up to this point, and revealing them would involve great risk. For this reason, the army leadership had considerable doubts. Hitler, of course, was convinced that he had thoroughly considered all the possibilities. The chief ideologist of the Nazi regime, Alfred Rosenberg, nevertheless believed, If the French had any guts, the bombers would be taking off in Paris right now. Hitler responded, I believe we will prevail.¹

The dictator viewed this spectacular step from a historical perspective. On the same day in 1813 the Prussian king had published the call to my people against Napoleon. Whereas the Prussian army had gone through a fundamental transformation to enter a war that would change the map of Europe, Hitler wanted to create a new army that could lead the fight for world dominance. The Edict for the Buildup of the Wehrmacht proclaimed the birth of an armed force that would deviate from the previous 300 years of continuity.² The year 1935 therefore marked a break in German military history. Within a decade, Hitler’s Wehrmacht experienced extraordinary military successes and defeats. As the steel guarantor of a criminal regime, it shared the responsibility for genocide and war crimes. It lost honor and prestige. In 1945, in a senseless final battle, the army commanded by the Führer collapsed in an orgy of violence and death. It left behind a destroyed continent. The end of the Wehrmacht marked the end of the German Empire.

At the beginning of that decade, the bloodiest in world history, those responsible attempted to disguise this radical move and to make the declaration of war appear innocuous. For the German population, as well as for the Reichswehr, an impression of continuity and necessary change had to be created. Very few recognized the danger that would result from the new stage of this national revolution that, starting in 1933, had changed the German Reich step by step. Still, even the terminology had a suspicious sound to it. The Reichswehr, which had been created as a national defense force in 1920, now became the Wehrmacht and the willing instrument of the Führer state. The Reichswehrministerium (Reich Defense Ministry) and the Reichsmarine (Reich Navy) became the Reichskriegministerium (Reich War Ministry) and the Kriegsmarine (War Navy). The Chef der Heeresleitung (chief of army command) became Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (commander in chief of the army) Werner Freiherr von Fritsch. The Chef der Marineleitung (chief of naval command) became Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine (supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine) Erich Raeder. In and of themselves, these were not unusual designations, even in an international context. But what appeared to come about as part of a normalization process in 1935 was actually far from it.

Organizing for War

Next came the unequivocal and unilateral termination of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With this step, Hitler’s Third Reich threw off all its shackles. Having been demoted to the status of a European midlevel power as a result of the First World War, Germany would now achieve the military emancipation it had always desired. In principle, this had already been acknowledged on the international stage since 1932. The strength and equipment of future forces were supposed to be measured according to the size of the Reich. But what this meant remained an open question. Hitler’s maneuvering ensured that no premature arms race was set in motion. The surprising nonaggression treaty with Poland had relaxed the situation along the eastern border and opened up new latitude in foreign policy. On 27 January 1935 in Warsaw, Hermann Göring was already negotiating for a possible German-Polish military alliance against the USSR. The Reichswehr was interested in beginning the transition phase as soon as possible, but it wanted to avoid all risk of war before its finalization. This required a delicate balancing act, something for which the chancellor of the Reich still had an appreciation at this point.

Army leaders were grateful to Hitler for dismantling the tyrannical power of the Sturmabteilung (SA) on 30 June 1934.³ Having done so, the idea of establishing a party army as a revolutionary people’s militia had become obsolete.⁴ In an allusion to the different colors of the uniform, Ernst Röhm, chief of staff of the SA and former General Staff officer of the Bavarian army, had boasted that his brown wave would destroy the gray cliffs.

In 1933–1934 the leaders of the Reichswehr had been forced to support the military training of the SA sections, which caused them growing concern. Rumors of a possible putsch by SA leaders forced Hitler to act. At this point, the officers [of the Reichswehr] did not suspect that the assassination of top SA leaders was intended to clear the way for the Schutzstaffel (SS), which, under Heinrich Himmler, would develop into an elite, fanaticized army.⁵ Within ten years, what had been only a small group of body guards in 1935 grew into a competing party army that was five times larger than the original 1935 army.

Proclamation of Military Sovereignty, 16 March 1935

In his call to arms to the German people, Adolf Hitler founded a new, larger army.

When, in November 1918, the German people . . . laid down their arms, they believed they were doing a service not just to a tormented mankind, but to a great idea in and of itself. . . .

The German people and particularly their government at the time were convinced that by agreeing to the prescribed conditions pertaining to disarmament in the treaty of Versailles, and that in accordance with the promises of this treaty, an international and general disarmament would begin and would be guaranteed. . . .

But while Germany is the one side of the signatories of the treaty which has fulfilled its duties, the duties of the other signatories remain unresolved. This means: the high treaty signatories of the former victorious powers have unilaterally backed out of the Versailles Treaty! It was not enough that all disarmament comparable in size to the destruction of German weapons remains undone, no: no standstill in armament took place at all, on the contrary, the arms buildup was obvious in a whole list of countries. . . .

For months now the German government must regretfully watch as an ongoing increase in the buildup of arms takes place in the rest of the world. In the creation of a Soviet-Russian army of 101 divisions, i.e., an allowed peacetime presence of 960,000 men, it sees an element which could not have been foreseen during the drawing up of the treaty. In the acceleration of similar measures in other countries, it sees further proof of the refusal by their side to fulfill the proclaimed disarmament concept. . . .

The German government feels that under these circumstances it is impossible to delay any longer the necessary measures required for the security of the Reich or even to keep this hidden from the rest of the world.

Source: Reichsgesetzblatt [Law gazette of the Reich] 1935, pt. 1, 369.

In the massacre, Röhm and his closest associates fell, as did two former generals. Reich defense minister Werner von Blomberg acquiesced to this criminal action without dissent and hastened to propose Hitler as successor to the terminally ill Reich president Paul von Hindenburg. The head of state was now awarded the functions of both Führer and Reich chancellor. The death of the aged Hindenburg, who was considered by many to be a kind of substitute kaiser, symbolized the end of the old army that, as a state within a state, had survived the collapse of the Kaiser Reich and considered itself the nucleus of a future German Wehrmacht.

Thus, Hitler’s unilateral resolution on 16 March 1935 strengthened his political consensus with the Reichswehr leaders, in whose hands the construction of a new Wehrmacht would lie. The end goal of the arming and transformation of the army, which had now been set in motion, was initially recognizable only as a general outline. From the point of view of the National Conservative leadership, military sovereignty would be employed to restore their status as a major power and achieve a lustrous defense system, patterned after that of 1914. In 1935 the Reich still had far to go. This partial identity of goals did not lend itself to a clear differentiation from the diffuse urge for world dominance that had influenced German policy in the First World War and characterized Hitler’s National Socialist movement (Messerschmidt, Wehrmacht im NS-Staat 1). During the 1930s, however, the ideology of racial annihilation, which Hitler later introduced into the conduct of the war, was not part of the soldiers’ worldview.

Forms of anti-Semitism were nevertheless prevalent and were part of the national ideology. The firing of and discrimination against Jewish soldiers were accepted within the new Wehrmacht. Despite this, as many as 150,000 men of Jewish descent faced combat on all fronts during the Second World War (Rigg). This was possible due to the odd lineage guidelines and some sympathetic superior officers. Among these Mischlingen (mongrels) was General Field Marshal Erhard Milch, who, as Göring’s assistant, played an important role in the buildup of the Luftwaffe.

Up to this point, the Reichswehr could only prepare secretly and in a rudimentary manner for the second grab for world power [as Franz Fischer expressed it in the title of his book Griff nach der Weltmacht]. Not until Hitler seized power in 1933 did attempts at an arms buildup receive broad political support. By 1933, the internal and external stabilization of the Nazi regime was so successful that the buildup of a new Wehrmacht could begin. With the national referendum on 13 January 1935 in Saarland, the Reich was able to further its strategic and economic position and at the same time publicly confirm the German citizens’ approval of the Nazi regime.

In terms of foreign policy, it was primarily Great Britain that demonstrated a willingness to comply with German pressure to a limited extent. The protests and resolutions by other powers did not impress Berlin. Three months after Hitler’s spectacular step, his breach of the Versailles Treaty was sanctioned by the Naval Treaty of 18 June 1935 with London. The British government asserted its special interest in placing a fixed limit on Germany’s naval armament, but it did not feel directly threatened by a German arms buildup on land or in the air. This shortsighted British appeasement policy made it easier for Hitler to expand his army step by step over the next few years, especially as the United States remained quietly at a distance.

Even the finalizing of a French-Soviet mutual assistance pact on 2 May 1935 did not stop the dictator from stepping up his policy of revision. With the development of relations with Japan and Italy, which one year later led to the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, Hitler believed himself to be sufficiently secure in the arena of world politics. This emboldened him to aggressively defy the French and march into the demilitarized Rhineland, another unilateral decision, and to further dismantle the agreements resulting from the First World War. This step, taken on 16 March 1935, set into motion a series of aggressive policies. These, along with Hitler’s dynamic concept of policy, seemed to point relentlessly toward either victory or defeat.

In the early years, the leaders of the new Wehrmacht followed Hitler on this high-risk course. They were quite apprehensive at the height of each crisis he orchestrated, but afterward they were all the more thankful for the surprising victories he achieved through his great display of nerve and willingness to take risks.

What was the army’s confidence based on? Naturally, with the personnel and material condition of the old Reichswehr between 1935 and 1938, Germany had been in no position to conduct a new world war on several fronts against the other major powers. Hitler had said in 1934 that in five years the new army would be ready for any defensive purposes, and within eight years it would be prepared for aggressive action as well. But in terms of any possible isolated conflicts, the army deemed itself fully prepared. The resources available and able to be mobilized quickly were sufficient for a limited national defense. Since 1935, the yearly war games that served as a training ground for the leadership staffs had been conducted under the assumption that a possible preemptive war instigated by France and Russia, and possibly including Czechoslovakia, could be defended with the available resources and possible allies such as Austria and Hungary. A prerequisite, however, would be the neutrality of the Anglo-Saxon powers and Poland. At the same time, the Germans were feverishly at work to improve the offensive power of the army. With the reintroduction of universal conscription, they had enough basic material to transform from a defensive to an offensive army. The goal was to be in condition for a decisive, offensive war.

Hitler’s political program depended on Great Britain’s cooperation and the avoidance of a two-front war. As Führer, he appeared to be equipped to lead the way onto this uncertain path. What was true for the foreign political configuration of the restoration of military ability was all the more true for the internal safeguards. The most important prerequisite from the military point of view was the reintroduction of universal conscription. Only in this way could the German Reich create a sufficiently large army and support it as well. The small professional army of the past fifteen years, with about 100,000 men, had been capable only of ensuring the internal security of the Reich. Although further reinforcements with volunteers had doubled this number by 1934, this was only the first step.

Beginning in 1935, with the reintroduction of universal conscription, around 700,000 potential recruits aged eighteen years became available each year. Within just one year’s cycle, the numbers of the peacetime army of 1914 could theoretically be achieved again. Yet the first year’s recruits included only 360,000 young men. During the First World War the birth rate had declined greatly. Added to this irregular demographic development were the aftereffects of the Versailles Treaty. With the addition of fifteen white year groups—those who, in the past, had not been allowed military training—there was the potential for more inductees. But could additional divisions be created from this pool?

Realistically, this was hardly possible in the beginning. Even though the old Reichswehr had formed a cadre and training army, it did not have the ability to provide immediately deployable troops for emergencies and to set up great numbers of new units at the same time. In the end, the new mass army could only remain as qualified as possible based on previously existing concepts. Mobilizing an army of millions, patterned after that of the First World War, would require not only large stockpiles of equipment, weapons, and qualified leadership personnel but also millions of reservists with up-to-date training. Continuous universal conscription had guaranteed that in 1914 more than thirty years’ worth of trained cohorts stood available. But the new Wehrmacht was missing the last fifteen years’ worth.

The problems became worse when Hitler began to increase the tempo of the buildup in 1935. Army leaders had initially believed they would have a time frame of ten years to carry out a steady expansion. This would have guaranteed the social homogeneity of the officer corps and the comprehensive, modern training of the peacetime army, with sufficient reserves for the mobilization of a great wartime army and the replacement of personnel. They quickly had to divest themselves of this notion. Hitler ordered an almost yearly doubling of the army’s numbers to quickly minimize its inferiority against potential enemy powers and achieve an advantage in terms of equipment. Thus, the officer corps grew until 1938, increasing within four years to five times its former size (23,387 officers). Over the course of the war, by means of calling up and training reserve officers, the officer corps grew to ten times its former size within five years.

The Officer Corps

In 1936 Hitler had demanded that the Wehrmacht be combat ready inside of four years. Although it was not fully prepared in September 1939 despite the greatest of efforts, Hitler felt confident enough to plunge into war, however prematurely. With a variety of recruiting measures and compromises, at least the target numbers had nearly been attained. Further, the aggressive expansion policy in place since 1935, which enlarged the territory of the Reich, made it possible to field additional divisions. With the invasion of the demilitarized Rhineland by the Wehrmacht on 7 March 1936, it was possible to deploy four additional divisions. The occupation of Austria provided six divisions, and the invasion of Sudetenland, two more. The defeat of Poland in 1939 meant that the Wehrmacht could grab up 400,000 ethnic Germans [living in Poland]; then, over the course of the war, it added more than 100,000 foreign volunteers and legionnaires, along with several million men from allied countries and Russian Hilfswilliger (volunteers).

In the 1930s the regular training of officer cadets had to be shortened. To fill the ranks in the new formations, former police officers and older reserve officers were called up from civilian life. Under these circumstances, the homogeneity of the officer corps quickly diminished, not the least with respect to politics. As early as 1938–1939, those within the military opposition who were considering a possible coup against Hitler were hesitant because the new, heterogeneous officer corps, with its many social climbers, could not be counted on for support.

These structural and extremely far-reaching changes resulted not only from the inevitable recruiting but also from the acceptance of National Socialist objectives. The army had to open up to these [ideas], and it was willing to do so to a large extent. The archetypes of the Prussian army and the First World War, which had always been invoked in the past, now counted for nothing. The Nazi ideology of a people’s army of the future, in which skill and political leanings were the only deciding factors for acceptance into leadership positions, appealed to the younger technocrats in the army. They were aware that the mobilization of a mass army for a future total war would be incompatible with the old, elitist structures of a bourgeois or feudal officer corps.

Under the pressure of increasing losses in the Second World War, these ambitions were given additional force. Now, growing numbers of candidates from the lower and lower middle classes gained entrance to the officer career path—men who had earlier been considered undesirable. Even the possession of a higher-level diploma, which had always been a minimum basic requirement, was waived. This development had far-reaching consequences for the political orientation and the cohesion of the officer corps and, above all, for the professional quality of the higher leadership corps.

The addition of more than 200,000 lower-grade officer slots did in fact make it possible to fill the leadership positions at the company and battalion levels. Of course, a growing number of these wartime officers had not even graduated from an officer’s training course. And yet there was no choice but to create replacements for midlevel leadership positions with very quick promotions. Practical deployment experience may have balanced out the lack of training, but it soon became apparent how much professional skill had been lost in terms of the tactical and operational leadership of troops. Among General Staff officers, profound subject matter competence and experience could not be taught in short training courses or obtained from troop assignments of short duration.

Thus, Hitler’s Wehrmacht depended on a few hundred General Staff officers who had received normal training between 1935 and 1939. But these training courses soon became abbreviated in both duration and content. The minimum necessary knowledge of staff work, aside from a general education and a broad mental and intellectual ability, took priority. And proof of National Socialist thinking had to be provided. Superior officers could handle this in their own way, because the party failed to take a firm hold in the army despite repeated efforts. The party asserted its influence mainly in the area of premilitary training for male youths. A kind of political commissar, such as those that served in the Soviet army to monitor the commanders, was introduced in the Wehrmacht in 1944 under the title National Socialist leadership officers; however, it was mostly a secondary function within the unit.⁶

Ultimately, the Führer was not at all satisfied with this achievement. To a great extent, he was able to transform the officer corps into a functional elite. Yet with respect to political attitudes, which were supposed to ensure an unquestioningly loyal and devout officer corps, he expressed great disappointment in 1945. In his political testament he claimed he had been aware from the beginning that he would be unable to create a whole new officer class until after the war. It would likely take a hundred years, he proclaimed in an internal address to higher-level commanders. He therefore had to carry on in the old style until victory. Instead of being able to allow a National Socialist elite to mature, he had to be satisfied with the human material on hand. . . . The result will be seen afterwards! (quoted in Förster, 96).

In building up the new Wehrmacht, a constant integration of reinforcement measures was necessary in areas other than the officer corps. A consistent, high quality could not be achieved in the future army in this manner. In the struggle between quantity and quality, the latter often fell by the wayside. Hitler’s constant pressure to expedite the arms buildup was not the only reason for this. The leading military officers expected that the coming war would likely develop into a total war. Then the entire strength of the population would have to be placed in the service of national defense.

Conscription as the Foundation of Mobilization

The goal of a militarized Volksgemeinschaft, according to general opinion, was attainable only in an authoritarian dictatorship.⁷ Government leaders had to ensure that the needs of the new army took precedence over all other demands and that the population accepted the expected burdens without complaint.

The resources for a hasty and comprehensive rearmament were essentially unavailable. The slow recovery of the German economy after the crisis of the early 1930s allowed a certain degree of latitude, but the Nazi government was anxious to foster the illusion of peace and well-being among the population. Therefore, other means of financing the arms buildup were created and were sometimes kept hidden. Although considerable resources could be used for military purposes, they were far from enough to fulfill all the demands and desires of high-ranking military leaders. In addition to expansion plans for the army and navy, the building of a new air force and its corresponding industry had to be considered, along with a wealth of other missions and projects deemed necessary for the future war (such as the building of fortress installations and air defense areas and the manufacture of weapons that had previously been prohibited, such as heavy artillery, tanks, and chemical weapons). They also had to consider how to afford the transition to a war economy and a blockade-proof autarchy so that the Reich could not be starved out during a long war. All this actually demanded a drastic decrease in spending on the civilian sector, which the Nazi government approached with hesitation.

Furthermore, conscription, which was already more comprehensive than ever before in German history, would have to become exhaustive. This meant that even in peacetime, hundreds of thousands of workers would be pulled out of the economy, which would be a burden to families. Here, as well, Hitler demonstrated extraordinary sensitivity with regard to the mood among the populace. Looking to the First World War as an example, the military leaders had counted on an increased number of women in the economy; however, during the Second World War, Hitler preferred to rely mainly on foreign forced labor and prisoners of war. This way, the Wehrmacht could still use universal conscription for recruitment. At the high point of its ten-year existence, in the final phase of the Second World War, the Wehrmacht called to arms 18 million men, ranging from sixteen-year-old schoolboys to sixty-year-old Volkssturm men.⁸ Thus, in comparison to the First World War, the recruitment potential was tapped into twice as heavily.

For such a comprehensive mobilization, a strong political leadership was needed. During the First World War, Erich Ludendorff, the strongman in the Supreme Army Command, had attempted a similar mobilization. Shortly before his death, in a polemical book about total war published in 1935, he argued for the setting up of a military dictatorship but found no following among active officers. In 1918 Ludendorff’s policy ultimately led to revolution and collapse. This time, those responsible for the military had already accepted Hitler as the civilian dictator of the Reich and swore in their troops with the newly introduced loyalty oath to the Führer.

Thus, from the first day, the new Wehrmacht was tied to the Führer, and as its supreme commander, he embodied both the political leadership and the military leadership. By 1935, there was no alternative to this kind of political primacy. Only a few older officers kept a certain inner distance from the Nazi government and the Bohemian corporal. Those who believed they could limit themselves to being useful cogs in the wheel and succeed in implementing the interests of the military leaders soon became disillusioned. Even during the 1938 crisis of confidence, when the military opposition was considering a putsch for the first time, their condemnations focused only on Hitler’s dangerous foreign policy. The military elite no longer assumed it could dominate or even influence policy. The power of the political head of state and the national leadership had grown to the point that the usual formula of the army as one of two columns of the government—next to the party—had become obsolete. Reich war minister Werner von Blomberg strove to comply with the Führer’s intent in all areas