The Wehrmacht.

The German word Wehrmacht (literally defence force) predates the 1930s and originally meant the entirety of the armed forces of a given country (or another entity). For instance, "Englische Wehrmacht" meant all English forces. Since World War II, the term is almost as closely associated with the armed forces of the Third Reich in German as it is in English.

     On 16 March 1935 Adolf Hitler re-introduced conscription and announced to the world the formation of a German air force. Needless to say this brought the restrictions imposed on the size and the strength of the German armed forces to an abrupt end. The next four years saw the rapid expansion of the German Army, a transformation from General Seeckt's Reichswehr into Hitler's Wehrmacht.

     In March 1939 the operational control of the Armed Forces was unified under the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) whose chief was Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Keitel. The management of the Army was the responsibility of the Army High Command, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), which included the General Staflf although it was the Supreme Commander, Adolf Hitler, who was increasingly to take over the day-to-day running of the war. During the crisis of the Battle of Moscow in December 1941 he took over the command of the Army from CinC von Brauchitsch.

     The Wehrmacht's military strength was managed through assignment-based tactics (rather than order-based tactics) and an almost proverbial discipline. The number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1934 until 1945 is believed to approach 18.2 million (a number put forward by historian Rüdiger Overmans), but these were not simultaneous enlistments. About 5.3 million died on battlefields and approximately 11 million were captured by enemy forces (it is not known how many died in captivity).

     The Wehrmacht (German Army) had a simple and easy to understand command structure. At the top of the German Army was Hitler who had appointed himself Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Though Hitler paid a keen interest in what the Wehrmacht did, at this stage in the war, he did not interfere in decision making once a campaign had started (though he had been the main force behind an attack on Western Europe). The commander-in-chief of the Army High Command was Field Marshall von Brauchitsch and under him, there were three generals commanding various army groups; Rundstedt (Army Group A), Bock (Army Group B) and Leeb (Army Group C).

    The high command of the army was the Oberkammando des Heeres (OKH). The Luftwaffe (air force) was similarly organised with the Oberkammando der Luftwaffe (OKL) and the navy had the Oberkammando der Kriegsmarine (OKM).One of the reasons for Germany’s success in May 1940 was that it had a unified command structure with each unit of the military acting to support the other – hence the importance of the Luftwaffe to the success of blitzkrieg.

The Gestapo.

    

     The secret police force of Nazi Germany was called the Gestapo. The term "Gestapo" is an abbreviation of Geheime Staats Polizei, which means "state secret police." The Gestapo was a driving force within Germany's Nazi regime and was infamous for its brutality. The Gestapo was instrumental in conquering areas of Europe during World War II.

     After the Nazi party came into power, Herman Goering became the Minister of the Interior for German's largest state, Prussia. The Geheime Staats Polizei was created in Prussia. This became the Gestapo, which Goering turned over to Heinrich Himmler in 1934. Gaining control of the Gestapo was Himmler's reward for helping to eliminate one of the Nazi's rivals. Himmler joined the Bavarian Political Police with the Gestapo and the Schutzstaffel, known as the SS. The SS was an elite force to serve and protect Hitler.

      The Gestapo was the political police for Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Gestapo membership was voluntary, with many of the members coming from previous political police forces within Germany. Initially formed as a police force in Prussia, its primary purpose was the elimination of the Nazi Regime's enemies. The Gestapo was infamous in arresting anyone it believed were enemies (most notably the Jews) and confining them to concentration camps. Those persecuted had no legal recourse, and millions died.

     

     In 1920, Adolf Hitler changed the name of the German Worker's Party to the National Socialist German Worker's Party. The term "Nazi" is the German name for the first word of the party. The Gestapo was created in 1933. In 1936 it was combined with Germany's regular police force. That same year, a law passed giving the Gestapo the ability to operate without judicial oversight. After the start of the war, in 1939, the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) was created. It contained seven main branches, with the Gestapo being the fourth branch. World War II was from 1939 to 1945.

By 1943, the Gestapo was divided into five segments, with each focusing on specific objectives. One segment focused on sabotage, opponents and the protective service. The second dealt with political churches, including handling of the Jews. The third segment dealt with press and party matters and protective custody. The fourth segment focused on German influence in expanded regions, and the last segment handled alien police and passport issues.

     Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not an omnipotent agency that had its agents in every nook and cranny of German society. So-called “V-men” as undercover Gestapo agents were known were used only to infiltrate Social Democratic and Communist opposition groups, but these cases were the exception, not the rule.

     As the analysis of the Gestapostellen done by the historian Robert Gellately has established, for the most part the Gestapo was made of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by ordinary Germans for their information. Indeed, the Gestapo was overwhelmed with denunciations and spent most of its time sorting out the credible denunciations from less credible ones. Far from being an all-powerful agency that knew everything about what was happening in German society, the local Gestapostellen were under-staffed, over-worked offices that struggled with the paper-load caused by so many denunciations. 

    The ratio of Gestapo officers to the general public was extremely lop-sided; for a example, in the region of Lower Franconia, which had about one million people in the 1930s, there was only one Gestapo office for the entire region, which had 28 people attached to it, of whom half were clerical workers.

Furthermore, for information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapostellen were most part dependent upon these denunciations. Thus, it was ordinary Germans by their willingness to denounce one another who supplied the Gestapo with the information that determined who the Gestapo arrested. The popular picture of the Gestapo with its spies everywhere terrorizing German society has been firmly rejected by most historians.

Waffen SS

Of all the German organizations during World War II, the SS is by far the most infamous - and the least understood amongst average historians.  This is in part because of the combat record of the Waffen-SS and the elite status of many of its units. 


  The Waffen-SS was a part of the German Schutzstaffel or SS, which saw its rise during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

   The SS was the single most powerful political organization within the Third Reich and consisted of the Allgemeine SS, Totenkopfverbande, and the Waffen SS.

   The Waffen-SS was born in 1933 after Hitler came to power when Politisches Bereitschaften or Political Readiness Detachments were formed under the control of the SS. These units were organized along military lines and were intended to help counter Communist strikes. On October 1st, 1934 these units became the SS-Verfugungstruppen or SS Special Use Troops. Initially the Verfugungstruppen consisted of small detachments located in larger German cities but by 1935 they were organized into battalions and in 1936 into Standarten or regiments. In 1936 two main SS-V Standarten existed, Deutschland and Germania. The Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler also existed at this time and although related it was considered somewhat outside the purview of the SS-V.


   In 1938 the SS-Verfugungstruppen took part in the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia along side the Wehrmacht. After the occupation of Austria a third Standart was formed known as Der Fuhrer. In 1939 the SS-Verfugungstruppen consisted of three Standarden, the LAH, and a number of smaller service and support units. For the Campaign in Poland in 1939 all SS-V units were organized into the SS-Verfugungstruppe-Division and placed under the operational command of the Wehrmacht. The SS-Verfugungstruppe-Division also fought in the Western Campaign 1940. After the conclusion of the Western Campaign the SS-Verfugungstruppen was renamed and became the Waffen-SS.


   The SS was in fact not a monolithic "Black Corps" of goose stepping Gestapo men, as is often depicted in popular media and in many third rate historical works. The SS was in reality a complex political and military organization made up of three separate and distinct branches, all related but equally unique in their functions and goals. The Allgemeine-SS (General SS) was the main branch of this overwhelmingly complex organization, and it served a politicial and administrative role. The SS-Totenkopfverbande (SS Deaths Head Organization) and later, the Waffen-SS (Armed SS), were the other two branches that made up the structure of the SS. The Waffen-SS, formed in 1940, was the true military formation of the larger SS, and as such, it is the main focus of this section. Formed from the SS-Verfungstruppe after the Campaign in France in 1940, the Waffen SS would become an elite military formation of nearly 600,000 men by the time World War II was over. Its units would spearhead some of the most crucial battles of Second World War while its men would shoulder some of the most difficult and daunting combat opertations of all the units in the German military.

   The Waffen SS is sometimes thought of as the 4th branch of the German Wehrmacht (Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine) as in the field it came under the direct tactical control of the OKW, although this notion is technically incorrect as strategic control remained within the hands of the SS. To this day the actions of the Waffen-SS and its former members are vilified for ultimately being a part of the larger structure of the political Allgemeine SS, regardless of the fact that the Waffen-SS was a front line combat organization.