Army (Wehrmacht)
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army |
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|---|---|
 Identification mark of the army, a bar cross |
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| active | 1935-1945 |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} German Empire
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| Armed forces |
Wehrmacht
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| Type | Armed forces ( land forces ) |
| management | |
| High command | Army High Command |
| headquarters |
Wünsdorf near Zossen , changing Führer headquarters |
The army was alongside Navy and Air Force one of the three branches of the armed forces of the Wehrmacht and comprised the bulk of the German land forces in World War II . In addition to the army, there were also the Waffen SS and ground troops on the German side under the command of the Air Force Commander in Chief Hermann Göring and, since 1944, the Volkssturm, which was subordinate to the NSDAP party leadership .
Associations and command authorities
The overview of units and command authorities includes all major units of the ground troops, regardless of their affiliation with the army, air force, Waffen-SS, etc. In normal operations at the front , we worked closely together here; for the combat missions were z. For example, the 1st Parachute Army is subordinate to the appropriate Army Group Commands, the independence was particularly noticeable in questions of education in the National Socialist spirit, disciplinary law and jurisdiction .
Command authorities
Army High Command
The actual High Command of the Army (OKH) was created in 1935 as part of the first step in the restructuring of the Wehrmacht . It was the highest command authority of the army and was based in Wünsdorf near Zossen . It was divided into the General Staff of the Army and the Army Personnel Office . In addition, he was the adjutant of the chief of the OKH and, from 1938/39, the leader's representative for military historiography, Walter Scherff . The OKH was subordinated to the Chief of Army Armaments and the Commander of the Replacement Army and one or, from April 20, 1940, two command news regiments ( Command News Regiment 40 and Command News Regiment 601) to ensure the command of the headquarters .
The High Command of the Army (OKH) counted with the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), the High Command of the Navy (OKM) and the High Command of the Air Force (OKL) to the highest staff organizations of the Wehrmacht . The OKW and the high commands of the three armed forces took on planning tasks in their respective areas of responsibility. They were subordinate to the Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, Adolf Hitler . The OKH was not subordinated to the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW), which was set up in 1938. This could only pass on orders from Hitler to the OKH.
- Commander in Chief of the Army (OBdH)
- Colonel General Werner von Fritsch , January 1, 1934 to February 4, 1938
- Field Marshal General Walther von Brauchitsch , February 4, 1938 to December 19, 1941
- Adolf Hitler , December 19, 1941 to April 30, 1945
- Field Marshal General Ferdinand Schörner , April 30 to May 8, 1945
- Chiefs of the General Staff of the Army
- General of the Artillery Ludwig Beck , October 1, 1933 to October 31, 1938
- Colonel General Franz Halder , October 31, 1938 to September 24, 1942
- Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler , September 24, 1942 to July 10, 1944
- Lieutenant General Adolf Heusinger , July 10th to 20th, 1944 (entrusted with the deputizing for the business)
- Colonel General Heinz Guderian , July 21, 1944 to March 28, 1945 ( entrusted with running the business )
- General of the Infantry Hans Krebs , March 29 to May 1, 1945 (responsible for running the business)
- Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel , May 1 to 13, 1945 (charged with running the business)
- Colonel-General Alfred Jodl , May 13th to 23rd, 1945 (charged with running the business)
Structure of corps, armies and army groups
The corps , army and army group were not initially troop units, but commanders and their staffs with the chief of the general staff (chief of the Gen.St.) at the head. The chief of staff was almost on a par with his commander in the German system and represented him in command even when he was absent - in contrast to the allied armies, where the chief of staff was only a kind of "office manager".
Ideally, in the case of corps, army and army group, a distinction should be made between the command authorities / staffs and the troops grouped together by them, and this is sometimes also done in the literature: The leadership of a corps is then referred to as " general command " or " higher command " with the " commanding officer " General "(KG) at the top, an army is led by an" Army High Command "(AOK) with its" Oberbefehlshaber "(OB), an army group is led by an" Army Group Command "(H.Gr.K) and the OB. In practice, this distinction is seldom necessary, but it must be pointed out that in certain cases it is absolutely necessary to observe the difference, namely whenever an army group has been "reorganized" or "withdrawn from the front". So was z. B. On November 27, 1942, after the Red Army had broken through, the Don Army Group was pushed into the south of the Eastern Front; These were not new combat troops, but only the renamed staff + OB (Manstein) of the 11th Army - whose troops were in turn distributed to other armies - which took over the command of four armies of Army Group B. When Army Group B was withdrawn from the front on February 9, 1943, this only meant that the staff and the Commander-in-Chief (Weichs) were relocated to the home and the troops were transferred to Army Groups Center and Don (from February 12, "South") were distributed. The same applies to all new formations of army groups, which reached inflationary proportions, especially from 1943 onwards: In each case, it was not a question of new troops, but only of newly established command authorities, to which a small number of new units were only occasionally added. Similarly possessed z. For example, the so-called 24th Army, which was set up on the Swiss border in November 1944, never had its own combat troops, which is why the terminologically correct designation can only be "AOK 24".
- Departments in the headquarters of the army
The general staff and staff departments were structured equally at all levels. The following terms were used:
| Yes | Management department |
| Ib | Quartermaster's Department |
| Ic | Enemy reconnaissance and defense; mental care in the NS sense |
| Id | education |
| IIa | 1st adjutant (officer personnel) |
| IIb | 2nd adjutant (NCOs and men) |
| III | dish |
| IVa | Intendant (accounting, general administration) |
| IVb | doctor |
| IVc | Veterinary |
| IVd | Clergyman |
Army groups
As of January 3, 1939, the Army had six Army Group Commands (1-6), to which the Army Corps (AK) and possibly other staffs and troops were subordinate.
The Army Group Commands were all renamed when they were mobilized on August 26, 1939, or reclassified into Army High Command .
| Army Group | Location | Allegations | Reclassification |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berlin |
I. , II. , III. and VIII. Army Corps command offices of the fortifications near Breslau, Glogau, Neustettin and Oppeln border command office Küstrin; Inspection of the east fortifications |
Army Group North |
| 2 | Frankfurt am Main |
V. , VI. and XII. Army Corps General Command of the Saar Palatinate Border Troops, Eifel and Upper Rhine command staffs, Landwehr commanders Hanau and Heilbronn (Neckar), inspection of the border fortifications |
Army Group C |
| 3 | Dresden | IV. , VII. And XIII. Army Corps | AOK 8 |
| 4th | Leipzig | XIV. , XV. and XVI. Army Corps | AOK 10 |
| 5 | Vienna |
XVII. and XVIII. Army Corps 4th Light Division and 2nd Panzer Division Fortress Inspection XI |
AOK 14 |
| 6th | Hanover | IX. , X. and XI. Army Corps | AOK 4 |
In contrast, the Army Group Command "South" arose from mobilization from AOK 12.
Army groups were usually designated with letters during war. This also applies to the first three Army Groups from 1939–1941, although Army Groups A and B were briefly renamed during the attack on Poland, so that in September 1939 the names were "South", "North" and "C". With the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union, these three army groups on the Eastern Front were renamed, and the practice of renaming existing Army Group Commands in the east was maintained until the end of the war. The army groups on the so-called OKW theaters of war, however, kept their names that were once preserved. There were a total of 15 army group commands:
| Army groups renamed during the war | Place of use |
|---|---|
| Army Group South (1) * - A (1) * - South (2) * - B (2; unofficially also "Stalingrad") * | Poland - France - Eastern Front |
| Army Group North (1) * - B (1) * - Middle (1) * - North (3) * | Poland - France - Eastern Front |
| Army Group C (1) * - North (2) * - Courland | France - Eastern Front |
| Army Group D | Western front |
| Army Group A (2; unofficially also “Caucasus”) * - South Ukraine - South (4) * - East Mark | Eastern Front |
| Army Group Don - South (3) * - Northern Ukraine - A (3) * - Middle (2) * | Eastern Front |
| Army Group E | Balkans |
| Army Group Africa | Tunisia |
| Army Group B (3) * | Western front |
| Army Group C (2) * / OB Southwest | Italy |
| Army Group F | Balkans |
| Army Group G | Western front |
| Army Group H | Netherlands |
| Army Group Upper Rhine | Western front |
| Army Group Vistula | Eastern Front |
| * The names A, B, C, South, North and Middle have been given several times through reorganization or renaming; the numbers in brackets were not part of the official name, they are only used here to distinguish. |
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General commands and military districts
At the time of mobilization on August 26, 1939, there were 15 general commands , four corps commands of motorized troops and three general commands of border troops. The general commands comprised both the army corps and the military districts , in which the military substitute organization and the fixed institutions were territorially combined and which extended over the entire territory of the German Reich. During the mobilization, deputy general commands were formed in the military districts, which were subordinate to the replacement army . The table shows the last status of the peace army before mobilization.
Army High Command
About the names: Usually, AOKs are designated with Arabic numbers, only in exceptional cases are there geographical names. Similar to the Army Groups, AOKs were occasionally renamed, for example for camouflage reasons before the Western campaign. Furthermore, the same numbers were used several times for different AOKs. To make a distinction, these are distinguished here with letters in brackets; this, of course, was not the official custom.
| AOK | Place of use or subordination |
|---|---|
| AOK 1 | west |
| AOK 2 (a) - Army Group North (a) | Poland |
| AOK 3 - AOK 16 | Poland - West - Eastern Front |
| AOK 4 | Poland - West - Eastern Front |
| AOK 5 - AOK 18 | West - Eastern Front |
| AOK 7 | west |
| AOK 8 (a) - AOK 2 (b) - AOK East Prussia | Poland - West - Eastern Front |
| AOK 9 | West - Eastern Front |
| AOK 10 (a) - AOK 6 (a) | Poland - West - Eastern Front |
| AOK 12 (a) - Army Group South (a) | Poland |
| AOK 14 - AOK 12 (b) - Army Group E | Poland - West - Balkans |
| AOK Norway | Norway |
| AOK 11 (a) - Army Group Don | Eastern Front |
| AOK 15 | west |
| AOK 17 | Eastern Front |
| AOK Lapland - GebirgsAOK 20 | Finland - Norway |
| [Hollidt Army Department] - AOK 6 (b) | Eastern Front |
| [Army Department Kempf] - AOK 8 (b) | Eastern Front |
| AOK 10 (b) | Italy |
| [Felber Army Group] - AOK 19 | west |
| AOK 14 (b) | Italy |
| [Army Group North (c)] - AOK 12 (c; unofficially also "Army Wenck") | in April 1945 both western and eastern fronts |
| [Remnants of AOK 4] AOK 21 | Eastern Front |
| AOK 24 | " Alpine fortress " on the Swiss border |
| AOK 25 | Netherlands |
| AOK Liguria | mixed German-Italian association - Italy |
| [Panzer Group 1] - PzAOK 1 | |
| [Panzer Group 2] - PzAOK 2 | |
| [Panzer Group 3] - PzAOK 3 | |
| [Panzer Group 4] - PzAOK 4 | |
| [Panzergruppe Afrika] - PzAOK Africa - German-Italian PzAOK - HGr Africa | North africa |
| PzAOK 5 (a) | Tunisia |
| [Panzer Group West] - PzAOK 5 (b) | west |
| PzAOK 6 | West - Eastern Front |
| SS-PzAOK 11 - AOK 11 (b) | Eastern Front - Harz |
| Parachute AOK 1 | west |
Army groups and army departments
In addition to these regular units, there were occasionally those called " Army Group ", "Army Department" or simply " Group ". A precise definition of the scope of these units was not usually given; they usually had a rather short lifespan and were therefore usually named after their respective leaders.
Army group
The "Weichs Army Group" in the south of the Eastern Front in 1942, for example, consisted of three armies ( 2nd , 4th tanks and 2nd Hungarian ), so the size of an army group. On the Eastern Front, allied armies were sometimes subordinated to German AOKs, which were then also referred to as army groups, e.g. B. the "Army Group Fretter-Pico", which in September 1944 consisted of the 6th German and 2nd Hungarian armies. The "Felber Army Group" established in France on May 25, 1942, on the other hand, corresponded in size to a corps; it served in August 1943 as the basis for the formation of the 19th Army . Finally, the “ Army Group Blumentritt ” in April / May 1945 can only be described as a hodgepodge consisting of all the troops located in the Lower Elbe - Schleswig-Holstein area.
Army Department
In Army divisions it was often around remnants of battered associations that are grouped in a hurry to new units; In terms of manpower, they are generally somewhere between the corps and the army. Some of these departments also served as the basis for the re-establishment of armies: In the summer of 1943, the (new) 6th Army emerged from the “ Hollidt Army Department” and the (new) 8th Army from the “Lanz / Kempf Army Department”. In contrast, the "Army Department A" was a regular organization that was used in September 1939 to secure the western border near Aachen, before it was replaced by AOK 4.
Corps group
Corps group , tank group and often just group was the name of an improvised group in the Wehrmacht. H. Temporary army. In contrast to a regular army, there was no Army High Command (AOK), the command of the corps group was taken over by the corps high command of one of the corps involved (after whose commander in chief the corps group was usually named). The Kleist tank group and the Guderian tank group can be taken as examples .
Commander in Chief of the Theaters of War
These were not originally provided for in the top war breakdown. Their powers, which were usually at least initially linked to an Army Group Command, arose when the activities of the Army High Command were limited to the eastern theater of war and the leadership in the other theaters of war was transferred directly to the Wehrmacht command staff under General Jodl.
Commands designated as Commander-in-Chief East or West had already existed after the end of the fighting in Poland and in the West, but they did not lead combat troops but rather occupation troops:
- The Army Group Command South under Colonel General von Rundstedt acted from October 3 to October 20, 1939 at the same time as OB Ost ("Oberost"). After Army Group South was relocated to the west on October 20, a new staff of Commander-in-Chief East (Oberost) was formed on November 1 from parts of the staff of the Central Border Section Command , formerly Army High Command 5 (AOK 5) , under Colonel General Blaskowitz . When AOK 9 was relocated to the west on May 14, 1940 , the staff of the border section command south became a new staff Commander in Chief East under Gen. formed by Gienanth , whose office was renamed "Military Commander in the Generalgouvernement" on July 21, 1940 and was thus equated with a purely territorial military district command.
- After the campaign in the west, it was again Rundstedt's Army Group Command, formerly “South”, now “A”, which took over the duties of Commander-in-Chief on October 10, 1940. When the HGr A was then relocated to Silesia on March 15, 1941 in preparation for the campaign against the Soviet Union, the newly established HGr D took over the function of "OB West".
The following commanders-in-chief were then appointed for theaters of war:
- March 15, 1941 " OB West " (= HGr D; this addition was omitted from September 10, 1944)
- March 25, 1945 "OB Süd": After the western front was torn into two parts shortly before the encirclement of HGr B in the Ruhr area, the "OB West" was renamed "OB Süd".
- December 1, 1941 “OB South” at the Italian High Command, from this the “OB Südwest” (HGr C) emerged after several intermediate stages until November 21, 1943
- January 1, 1943 "OB Südost": HGr E, then from August 22, 1943 HGr F (subordinate to HGr E), from March 25, 1945 again HGr E (after dissolution of HGr F)
- December 2, 1944 to January 24, 1945 "OB Oberrhein": The OB of the Army Group Upper Rhine newly established by the SS, RFSS Himmler, was withdrawn from subordination to "OB West".
- April 7, 1945 "OB Northwest": created in the northern part of the western front by renaming the "Army Group H" (also appears as "OB North" in some orders and orders from the time after the surrender )
- April 25, 1945 "OB Südraum" = "OB West" with command staff B: Listed after the Americans and Soviets met on the same day at Torgau, with the simultaneous subordination of the OB Südwest, the OB Südost and Army Groups Center and south of the eastern front
- April 25, 1945 "OB Nordraum": planned for Grand Admiral Dönitz, but: "The management task of Command Staff A under Grand Admiral Dönitz does not come into force for the time being."
Divisions
The division as the smallest operational unit
The largest regular unit of troops and at the same time the smallest operational unit was the division , which was also the primary point of reference for the soldiers at the front. The corps , army and army group units located above were, strictly speaking, only command authorities that combined an unspecified number of subordinate large units for the coordination of certain tasks during the war. Correspondingly, troop strengths are generally given either as the number of teams or divisions - and not, for example, as the number of armies. The divisions of the army were mostly subordinate to two to three regiments of the respective military type as combat units and (combat) support units . The composition and armament of the divisions differed depending on the wave of formation .
At the beginning of the war, a division had a nominal strength of 15,000 to 17,000 men. However, due to the high losses, especially on the Eastern Front, the strength continuously sank: as early as November 1941, the combat strength of the infantry divisions had dropped to 65%. This was taken into account by the fact that in October 1943 the strength of an infantry division was only there were still 10,700 men, which, however, was no longer reached with increasing frequency.
Division types
The divisions of the Wehrmacht can be divided into the following groups:
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- Numbered infantry divisions from 1 to 719
- from 1943 grenadier divisions
- from 1944 Volksgrenadier divisions as reorganizations
- Name divisions (including shadow divisions)
- Field training divisions
- Infantry Divisions of the Reich Labor Service (RAD)
- Storm Divisions
- Fortress Divisions
- Security divisions and security brigades
- Jäger divisions such as the 100th Jäger Division
- Gebirgsjäger divisions like the 2nd Gebirgs-Division
- Ski hunter division
- Numbered infantry divisions from 1 to 719
- Motorized Divisions:
- Tank divisions
- Light divisions
-
Infantry Division (motorized)
- Panzergrenadier divisions as renaming
- Panzerjagd Division
- Reserve divisions, field replacement divisions and replacement divisions
- Special Operations Division
- Mixed divisions such as the “von Broich” division and the zV division
- Cavalry divisions such as the 1st Cavalry Division
- Artillery divisions
- Divisions for special use
- Large associations with foreign volunteers :
- Infantry divisions such as B. 250th Infantry Division (the Spanish Azul Division ) or the 369th (Croatian) Infantry Division
- Cavalry divisions and corps such as 1st Cossack Division and Kalmuck Cavalry Corps
- Legions such as B. the Armenian Legion or the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme
- Other associations such as the Russian Protection Corps , the 1st Russian National Army , Special Association Bergmann , Special Association Graukopf , Kampfgruppe Mäder and Division Brehmer
Equipment using the example of the infantry divisions
The infantry divisions of the 1st wave of formation between 1934 and 1939 had the following strengths according to the War Strength Certificate (KStN): 518 officers , 102 officials, 2,573 NCOs and 13,667 men .
According to the War Equipment Certificate (KAN), the armament consisted of 3,681 pistols , 12,609 carbines 98k , 312 submachine guns 40 , 90 x anti- tank rifles 38 or 39 , 425 light machine guns 34 , 110 heavy machine guns 34 with field mounts, 84 light 5 cm grenade launchers 36 , 54 8 , 1 cm grenade launchers 34 , 75 3.7 cm PaK 36 , 20 7.5 cm light infantry guns 18 , 6 15 cm infantry guns 33 , 36 10.5 cm light field howitzers 18 , 12 15 cm heavy field howitzers 18 , 9 flamethrowers 35 and 3 light armored cars Sd.Kfz. 221 .
Horses and vehicles were available: 1743 riding horses, 3632 draft horses for the artillery and 895 drawn vehicles, 31 with trailers, 500 bicycles, 530 motorcycles, 190 with sidecars, 394 passenger cars, 536 trucks with 67 trailers.
Armored vehicles also played an increasingly important role in the infantry divisions in the course of the war. According to the OKH order of July 15, 1943, the tank hunter divisions of all infantry divisions on the Eastern Front were to be equipped with one tank hunter company each with 14 assault gun III . The 6th and 7th Infantry Divisions were among the first units whose tank destroyer division was equipped with a company of assault guns from October 1943. The reclassification of the tank destroyer units with assault guns dragged on until mid-1944 and was not completed in all divisions.
An infantry division 45 towards the end of the Second World War ordered according to the order No. I / 21 000/44 g. Kdos. Over 352 officers, 29 civil servants, 1947 NCOs and 9581 men (including 698 foreign volunteers ). The material equipment consisted of 7,594 rifles, 1,563 pistols, 462 light MG 34 or 42 , 74 heavy MG, 79 grenade launchers, 10 3.7 cm anti-aircraft guns, 11 7.5 cm PaK, 35 infantry guns, 25 light guns Field howitzers, 12 heavy field howitzers, 14 self-propelled guns , 138 motorcycles, 146 passenger cars, 185 trucks, 32 crawler tractors , 1273 horse drawn vehicles, 368 un horse drawn vehicles and 1456 bicycles. The equipment of the Panzerjägerabteilung with assault guns and self-propelled guns was no longer uniform at the end of the war.
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Equipment using the example of the tank divisions
A German tank division of World War II consisted of:
- two tank regiments, from the beginning of the Russian campaign only one tank regiment
- one, from the beginning of the Russian campaign two motorized or partially mechanized rifle regiments from 1943 both as an armored infantry were called
- an artillery regiment with mostly rifled, later partly armored guns on self-propelled guns .
The regiments were supported by tank destroyers , pioneers , anti-aircraft artillery , reconnaissance and intelligence forces, as well as medical , supply and repair units in departmental strength .
The 10 existing tank divisions at the beginning of the war had a total of 2592 tanks, which corresponds to approx. 260 tanks per division. Until 1939, the increasingly outdated Panzerkampfwagen I and Panzerkampfwagen II were the main models of the German armored forces, Panzerkampfwagen III and Panzerkampfwagen IV ran out of production. The tank divisions had a complex inventory of tank models over the entire course of the war, which was mainly due to the unsatisfactory performance of the German tank industry and the high number of "captured" tanks, for example from the destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic. Several divisions were only equipped with Czech (in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941 660 Panzer 38 (t) were ready for action in five tank divisions) or later French captured tanks such as the Somua S-35 . In the course of the war the further developed Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" , the Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger and the Tiger II were delivered, the latter two types being used primarily for heavy tank departments . Assault guns such as Sturmgeschütz III and Sturmgeschütz IV , which were originally pure infantry support tanks, were also used in the tank divisions during the course of the war.
Special armies outside the army of the Wehrmacht
From the beginning of the Second World War, the German armed forces increasingly had larger units of ground troops that did not belong to the army , that is, were not subordinate to the Army High Command (OKH). This was also the case with other armed forces within certain limits. B. to the US Marines ; However, the situation was particularly confusing because of the coexistence of competing responsibilities , which was typical in National Socialist Germany and which Adolf Hitler had expressly wanted to secure his own position.
Another reason on the part of the Nazi leadership to withdraw units from the direct reach of the army was that Hitler did not trust the army generals much, as there were often plans for overturning long before July 20, 1944 . The formation of ground troops by the Luftwaffe and the Waffen SS, which were under the command of the Nazi greats Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler , was intended to create a reliable, National Socialist counterweight to the army.
- Ground forces under the command of the Air Force Commander in Chief Hermann Göring:
- The parachute troops were subordinate to the Air Force. A total of 13 paratrooper divisions were set up, but in the course of the war they were increasingly no longer used for airborne operations , but rather infantry. From September 1944, paratroopers, but also other troops, formed the 1st Parachute Army for the fight on the Lower Rhine.
- In addition, since the summer of 1942 there were units for ground combat formed from "surplus Luftwaffe personnel", the so-called Luftwaffe field divisions . A total of 21 divisions were set up in this way. Since these were hardly trained for infantry operations and therefore only partially operational, they were taken over into the army "after a relatively short time and unnecessarily high losses".
- In addition, the Hermann Göring Division existed as a special formation , which was even equipped with tanks . In the last year of the war, a complete “parachute tank corps” was set up from this.
- A total of 31 anti-aircraft divisions and seven anti-aircraft corps commands were set up in the air force, which often operated together with the army units and were subordinate to their command authorities.
- In addition, three Luftwaffe generals, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring as OB South - Southwest - West - South, Colonel General Alexander Löhr as OB of Army Group E and temporary OB Southeast and Colonel General Kurt Student , as OB of the 1st Parachute Army and Army Groups H and Vistula entrusted to high command over army troops.
- Ground troops under the command of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler:
- Right at the beginning of the Second World War, the SS began to set up the Waffen-SS as a separate fighting force. If only volunteers were accepted at the beginning, from 1943 there was a move to drafting conscripts into the Waffen SS instead of the Wehrmacht. Towards the end of the war this consisted of 38 divisions and 16 general commands (corps) with an actual strength of over 600,000 men. Formally assigned to the division of the Ministry of the Interior, the Waffen-SS as an armed force was actually not only outside the Wehrmacht, but with its focus entirely on the person of Hitler even outside the state. In addition to SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich , the mayor of the 6th SS Panzer Army, two other SS commanders were entrusted with higher commands over army troops: SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser and SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner .
- At the beginning of July 1944, Hitler had ordered 15 so-called grenadier divisions to be set up, which were renamed Volksgrenadier divisions after July 20 . This “National Socialist People's Army of the Führer and his Reich” quickly grew to around 50 divisions. In addition, other popular associations were set up, such as B. the People's Artillery Corps.
- With a decree of September 25, 1944, Hitler ordered the formation of the Volkssturm . This, too, was neither an institution of the Wehrmacht nor of the state in general, but one of the NSDAP . The Gauleiter was responsible for the list, and Himmler was responsible for the military organization. From the German side the members of the Volkssturm were legally considered soldiers, but the Soviet armed forces often treated them as partisans.
- In order to weaken the Army High Command even further, since December 1941, when Hitler took over the command of the Army, there was a division into theaters of war of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) and those of the OKH, which were already with the Weser Exercise company against Norway began in 1940 and has now become a permanent institution. The general staff of the army was limited to the eastern front, the chief of the armed forces command staff in the OKW, Alfred Jodl , was responsible for all other theaters of war .
Deployment strategy
Based on the experiences of the First World War , the Army Service Regulations H.DV were developed in the Reichswehr in 1921/22 under Hans von Seeckt . 487 "Command and combat of combined arms" (FuG) [4] . This was established by the Army Service Regulations H.Dv. 300/1 "Troop leadership" (TF 1933, also: "Beck regulation") replaced under the leadership of Lieutenant General Ludwig Beck .
The Blitzkrieg strategy devised by the Wehrmacht was primarily aimed at encircling larger opposing troops. Material battles and trench warfare like in World War I should be avoided. Unexpected advances should ideally not give the opponent an opportunity to organize a stable defense.
An important planner on the German side in World War II is Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein (later General Field Marshal and Commander of Army Group South ), who revised the planned outdated attack plans on France and planned a rapid advance of heavy tank divisions through the Ardennes (later referred to as the sickle-cut plan and in the framework practiced during the western campaign in May 1940). The Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union , prepared militarily under the code name " Operation Barbarossa ", failed after initial German successes. The Soviet victories in the Battle of Moscow at the end of 1941, and especially in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942/43, forced the Wehrmacht to limit itself essentially to defensive operations. On their retreat, the Wehrmacht practiced the scorched earth tactic .
See also
- Uniforms of the Wehrmacht: Army
- List of hand weapons of the Wehrmacht
- List of tracked vehicles of the Wehrmacht
- List of Wehrmacht wheeled vehicles
- Wehrmacht horses
- Crimes of the Wehrmacht
literature
- BundesArchiv - Department MA (Military Archives) - Armed Forces 1919–1945 - Reichswehr and Wehrmacht - Reichsheer and Army - Command authorities of the peace and field army.
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 . 16 volumes, Osnabrück 1965 ff.
- Manfred Rauh: History of the Second World War . 3 volumes, Berlin 1998.
- Christian Zentner : The Second World War. Lexicon of World War II . KNOWLEDGE digital 2002, 6 CD-ROMs.
- Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader - The German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 . Munich 2006.
Web links
- Directory of the High Command ( Memento of August 8, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (DOC; 176 kB; in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ The fact that the latter was often referred to briefly as the “boss” has led to a wealth of misunderstandings in the literature, especially when translating foreign-language works: The “Chief of the 4th Army” quickly becomes a “ Commander-in-Chief of the 4th Army ".
- ↑ Cf. Tom Ripley, Die Geschichte der Wehrmacht 1939–1945 , Vienna 2003, pp. 211 f. - Often the continuity in a command authority results from the person of the chief of staff. So was z. B. General Georg von Sodenstern Chief of Staff of Army Group A from February 6, 1940 to February 9, 1943 and experienced four renaming of the command authority (A - OB West - A - South - B) and four commanders in chief (Rundstedt, Reichenau, Bock, Weichs ).
- ↑ 1943–1945 the following army groups were newly deployed or completely reorganized: E, Africa, F, C (Italy), B (Channel coast), G, H, Upper Rhine, Vistula.
- ^ A b "The German Army 1939, structure, locations, staffing and list of all officers on January 3, 1939", published by HH Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1953.
- ↑ The number is reduced to 13 if Army Group B (3) is rated as a continuation of Army Group B (2) and HGr Weichsel as a continuation of Army Group Upper Rhine; However, since the subordination changed from OKH to OKW or from OKW to OKH and the conversion did not take place exactly one to one, the individual staffs are usually counted separately at the Federal Archives - Military Archives Department - and in the relevant literature.
- ^ Order according to signatures in the Federal Archives - Department MA - Signatures RH 19-I to RH 19-XV.
- ↑ Friedrich Stahl: army division in 1939. villagers, ISBN 3-89555-338-7 .
- ↑ Also known as "Army Group B" or "Army Blumentritt". This inconsistent naming is also an indication of the chaotic conditions during the collapse.
- ↑ Since "Heeresgruppe" means "Army Group" in English and "Groupe d'Armées" in French, an unbelievable chaos is often caused here when translating back and forth: Army Group = Army Group - Groupe d'Armées = Army Group.
- ↑ cf. Federal Archives - Department MA - Signature: RH 20-8, online finding aid, introduction.
- ↑ It could be that one Army Group Command was subordinate to another: Army Group D was subordinate to Army Groups B and G in 1944, Army Group F from 1943–45, Army Group E.
- ↑ This division into OKW and OKH theaters of war had already started with the “Operation Weser Exercise” against Norway in 1940 and became a permanent establishment after Hitler had also taken over command of the army on December 19, 1941. See Rauh, Vol. III, pp. 191 ff.
- ↑ See the Führer Decree of April 24, 1945.
- ↑ Guardian p. 266: “… the composition of these large associations [was] constantly in flux…. 'The' Army Group and 'the' Army, like 'the' Army Corps, were… rather staffs… than units ”.
- ↑ So there were 208 Div. In 1941, 233 Div. In 1942, 276 Div. In 1943. (Rauh, Vol. III, p. 99)
- ↑ Rauh, Vol. III, p. 72.
- ↑ Rauh, Vol. III, p. 199.
- ↑ This armored car Sd.Kfz. 221 were the only armored vehicles of the 1st wave division.
- ↑ Wolfgang Fleischer, Richard Eiermann: Die deutsche Panzerjägertruppe 1935–1945 , Podzun-Pallas Verlag 1998, ISBN 3-7909-0613-1 ; Pp. 115 to 117
- ↑ Werner Haupt: The German infantry divisions . Ed. Dörfler im Nebel-Verlag, Eggolsheim 2005, ISBN 3-89555-274-7 , p. 99 .
- ↑ Werner Haupt: The German Infantry Divisions, Dörfler Zeitgeschichte, ISBN 3-89555-274-7 , p. 100.
- ↑ Werner Haupt: The German infantry divisions . Ed. Dörfler im Nebel-Verlag, Eggolsheim 2005, ISBN 3-89555-274-7 , p. 100 .
- ↑ Werner Haupt: The German infantry divisions . Ed. Dörfler im Nebel-Verlag, Eggolsheim 2005, ISBN 3-89555-274-7 , p. 190 .
- ^ Werner Oswald : Motor vehicles and tanks of the Reichswehr, Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr: Catalog d. German military vehicles from 1900 to today. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-87943-850-1 .
- ↑ Rauh, Vol. 2, pp. 87 ff. And Vol. 3, pp. 237 ff.
- ↑ Cf. Lexicon of World War II, keyword “Luftwaffenfelddivisionen”.
- ↑ A 22nd was disbanded before it was completed. See ibid.
- ↑ Cf. Wolfgang Ernst: Was Hitler a general? , 2000, p. 96.
- ↑ See Lexicon of World War II, keyword "Waffen-SS" and Rauh, vol. 3, p. 226 f.
- ↑ See Rauh, Vol. 3, p. 339 f.
- ↑ See Lexicon of World War II, keyword “Volkssturm” and Rauh, vol. 3, p. 341 f.
- ↑ See Rauh, Vol. III, p. 191 ff.
- ^ Berthold Seewald: The "Blitzkrieg" was invented against France Die Welt , May 11, 2015