Army High Command

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The Army High Command ( OKH ) was created in 1935 as part of the first step in the restructuring of the Wehrmacht . It was the highest command authority in the army . The OKH corresponded to the OKM for the Navy and the Reich Aviation Ministry and the OKL for the Air Force . The OKH itself was divided into the General Staff of the Army and the Army Personnel Office . In addition there was the adjutantage of the chief of the OKH and the representative of the Führer for military historiography . 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 command news regiments were responsible for the telecommunications connections between the OKH and the Army Group Command and Army High Command.

There was no subordination to the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), which was set up in 1938 . This could only pass on orders from Hitler to the OKH . However , from 1940 onwards , the Wehrmacht command staff, which was located in the OKW, was subject to the command of other than the main theater of war. The OKH therefore led successively only the army groups or other command authorities deployed in the Polish , Western and Balkan campaigns as well as the war against the Soviet Union or on the later Eastern Front .

Commander in Chief of the Army (OBdH)

Chiefs of the General Staff of the Army

structure

The OKH was divided into three offices and the adjutantage of the chief of the OKH.

  • Office Group Army Personnel Office
    • Officers
    • Officers' disciplinary matters
    • General Staff officers
    • Offspring of officers
    • Religious affairs with a group
    • Representation and honors
    • Special service officers
    • Officers in the units with the addition "People's" (from 1944)
Manual for General Staff Service in War - 1939
  • General Staff of the Army (At the beginning of the war, the General Staff consisted of a mobile field staff and a home staff based in Berlin. The structure and the distribution of tasks of the General Staff in the event of war were set out in the secret regulation "H.Dv.g 92 - Handbuch für den Generalstabsdienst im Krieg - 1.8.1939 ".)
    • Field relay
      • Chief of the General Staff of the Army (from December 1941 no longer subordinated to the Chief of the OKH, but directly subordinated to Hitler)
      • Staff High Command of the Army
        • Central Department of the General Staff of the Army
        • Commander of the OKH headquarters
        • Operations department
        • Organization department
        • Foreign Armies Department East
        • Foreign Army West Department
        • Training department
      • Chief of Transportation
        • Field transportation department
        • Home transport department (temporarily integrated in the home team)
        • Traffic department (temporarily integrated in the home relay)
        • Planning department
        • Personnel department for the transport personnel
        • Commander of the railway troops (from 1944 general of the railway troops)
        • Representative of the Reich Ministry of Transport to the head of transport
      • Quartermaster General
        • Chief group
        • Department I supply management
        • Department II War Administration
        • Division III supplies
        • Department IVa Army Intendant
        • Department IVb Army doctor / General doctor z. b. V.
        • Department IVc Army Veterinary
        • Army field postmaster
        • General of motorization; from 1944 general of motoring
        • General of the motor vehicle park groups of the field army
        • Army Supply Leader; from 10.1942 general of the supply troops
        • General of the technical troops
        • Senior military officer at the OKH; from the end of 1944 general of the troops in order
        • General of the Infantry
        • General of the artillery
          • General of the coastal and fortress artillery
          • General of the Army Flak Forces
          • Senior officer in the tank artillery (from March 1944)
        • General of pioneers and fortresses
          • General z. b. V. at the General of Pioneers and Fortresses
          • Higher landing pioneer leader
        • General of the Fog Troop
        • General of the Eastern Troops (from 1942)
          • Inspector of the Turkic associations (from December 1943 amalgamated to general of the volunteer associations (field army))
        • Judiciary at the Quartermaster General (from 1940 General e.g. at the OKH)
        • General z. b. V. IV at the General Staff of the Army (monitoring of Wehrmacht travel; support services)
      • Chief of Army Intelligence
      • Head of war maps and surveying (comparable to topography troops ; temporarily in the home squadron)
        • War Map and Surveying Department
        • Commander of the mapping and surveying troops
      • Individual offices and liaison bodies at the Army General Staff - Field Squadron
        • General of the reconnaissance aircraft and General of the Air Force at the OKH
        • Ic Luftwaffe at OKH
        • Weather advice center (mot.) At OKH
        • Fliegerverbindungsgeschwader II with Kurierstaffel OKH
        • Representative of the Foreign Office at OKH
        • Representative of the head of the Todt Organization at OKH
        • Special staff I to IV (reorganization)
        • Feldjägerkommandos I to III (1944/1945)
        • Army Field Police Chief of the Secret Field Police (GeFePo)
        • Branch of the chief of the Wehrmacht patrol service at the General Staff of the Army
        • National Socialist command staff of the army
    • Home relay
      • Head Quartermaster V (from 1942 with the Commissioner for Historiography)
      • Central Department of the General Staff of the Army - home squadron
      • Organization Department - Home Relay
      • Head of Transport - Home Team
      • Army film department / training film system
      • War Academy Berlin
  • Inspector General of the Panzer Force (is available to the General Staff, but is not integrated into the organization)
    • Organization department
    • Senior intelligence officer at the General of the Panzer Force
    • Chief driving officer
    • Inspector of the armored forces
    • Commander of the armored trains
    • Anti-tank general
  • The Führer’s representative for military historiography
    • Head Quartermaster V (from 1942)
    • War Studies Department
    • Military history department of the army
    • Military history research institute of the army
    • The chief of the army archives
    • The head of the army libraries with the Wehrmacht magazine department

Oberstintendanz

From 1940, the trained economist and manager was Kurt Finkenwirth as Colonel director in OKH responsible for the supply of ground forces with canned food .

Accommodation

The General Staff usually referred barracks near the respective Führerhauptquartier , about the Berghof in Berchtesgaden or in the Wolf's Lair belonging OKH Mauerwald in East Prussia. From August 1939 to 1945, most of the OKH in Wünsdorf south of Berlin was housed in the "Maybach I" bunker , right next to the OKW's "Maybach II" bunker and the "Zeppelin" bunker , the Wehrmacht's intelligence center with the postal code name " Office 500 ". From 1945 until 1994 the High Command of the Group of Soviet Armed Forces in Germany (GSSD) sat there . Since then, the area has been used as a museum.

Nazi command staff at OKH (from 1944)

On March 15, 1944, the Nazi command staff of the Army was established at the OKH. He was under the command of General of the Mountain Troops Schörner, who was replaced on May 15, 1944 by General of the Mountain Troops of Hengl (1897-1952). The Nazi leadership was responsible for the ideological leadership of the army, worked with the general e.g. V. at the OKH and in 1944 took over his groups I and II.

literature

  • Geoffrey P. Megargee: Hitler and the Generals. The struggle for leadership in the Wehrmacht 1933–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2006, ISBN 3-506-75633-8 (OT: Inside Hitler's High Command. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KS 2000, ISBN 0-7006-1015-4 ( Modern war studies )).
  • Hans-Albert Hoffmann: The German army command in the Second World War . Friedland 2011, ISBN 978-3-942477-08-6 .

Web links

Commons : Flags of the OKH  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Finkenwirth, Kurt. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen : Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 117; online through google books
  2. ↑ Federal Archives ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / midosa.startext.de