| Wehrmacht | |
|---|---|
| The Wehrmacht logo, a stylized version of the Iron Cross | |
|
Formed |
16 March 1935 |
|
Dissolved |
20 September 1945 |
|
Ministers responsible |
Adolf Hitler (Führer) |
|
Components |
|
The Wehrmacht (meaning defence force) is the unified armed forces the Third Reich which fought at the World War II. It consists of the Heer (Army), the Kriegsmarine (Navy) and the Luftwaffe (Air Force), though the term nowadays almost exclusively refers to the Heer.
History[]
After World War I ended with the armistice of 11 November 1918, the armed forces were dubbed Friedensheer (peace army) in January 1919. In March 1919, the national assembly passed a law founding a 420,000 strong preliminary army as Vorläufige Reichswehr. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in May, and in June Germany was forced to sign the treaty which, among other terms, imposed severe constraints on the size of Germany's armed forces. The army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy.
After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Hitler assumed the office of Reichspräsident, and thus became commander in chief. All officers and soldiers of the German armed forces had to swear a personal oath of loyalty to the Führer, as Adolf Hitler was called. By 1935, Germany was openly flouting the military restrictions set forth in the Versailles Treaty, and conscription was reintroduced on 16 March 1935.
Under the constitution of the Weimar Republic, no soldier of the Reichswehr was allowed to be a member of a political party nor to vote in an election. This was because in theory there was a strict separation between politics and the armed forces. The same theory applied later to the Wehrmacht.
Following the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht, which went into effect on 8 May 1945, some Wehrmacht units remained active, either independently (e.g. in Norway), or under Allied command as police forces. By the end of August 1945, these units were dissolved, and a year later on 20 August 1946, the Allied Control Council declared the Wehrmacht as officially abolished.
In the parodies[]
Many characters in the parodies were Wehrmacht Heer generals, such as Krebs, Burgdorf, Jodl, Keitel, Weidling, and so on. Some, like Keitel, and Jodl, are Nazi Party members. The "soldats", on the other hand, appear rather rarely.
In the parody universe, the Wehrmacht appears to be the most loyal party to Hitler, being the SS an essentially anticological organization, or it's the other way around, since the Kriegsmarine commit antics against the Führer. Some Heer members commit antics as well, such as Stauffenberg.
Gallery[]
Wehrmacht Officers[]
Heer[]
Kriegsmarine[]
.jpg "Das Boot Werner (isn't it).jpg (219 KB)")
Luftwaffe[]
Wehrmacht Soldiers and sailors[]
Wehrmacht Vehicles/Weapons (also used by the SS)[]
.jpg "Maxresdefault (7).jpg (120 KB)")
