Third Reich

Wehrmacht

The armed forces of the Third Reich from 1935 to 1945: the army (Heer), the navy (Kriegsmarine) and the air force (Luftwaffe). The name replaced the Reichswehr when conscription was restored in 1935.

In March 1935 Hitler, breaking the Treaty of Versailles, restored conscription, and the 100,000-man Reichswehr was renamed the Wehrmacht. Its soldiers had already sworn an oath to Hitler personally in August 1934, and in 1938 he took direct command of the armed forces through the new High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW). The Waffen-SS was not part of it, though it fought under its operational command.

More than 17 million men served in the Wehrmacht between 1939 and 1945, and several million of them were killed. Contrary to the post-war myth of the ‘clean Wehrmacht’, the army worked with the SS and the Einsatzgruppen and committed crimes against prisoners and civilians, from Poland in 1939 to the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy. It was formally dissolved in 1946.