Wehrmacht

La Wehrmacht (pronounced[ rotave felt ]( listen)“Defense Force” in German was the name of the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It was founded after the dissolution of the armed forces of the Republic of Weimar, called Reichswehr, and under such a denomination the Heer (“army of land”), the Kriegsmarine (“marine”) and Luftwaffe (“air force”). The designation “Wehrmacht” replaced the term previously used, Reichswehrand represented the efforts of the Nazi regime to rearm Germany beyond the limits imposed by the Versailles Treaty.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler's most resolute and daring moves was to organize a modern armed force with offensive capabilities and meet the National Socialist regime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory, as well as gain living space (Lebensraum) and dominate its neighboring countries. Achieving these ends required the reinstatement of conscription and massive investment in the arms industry.

The Wehrmacht formed the heart of Germany's military-political power. In the early part of World War II, the Wehrmacht employed combined arms tactics (air cover, tanks, and infantry) to devastating effect in what would become known as Blitzkrieg. > («lightning war»). His campaigns in France (1940), the Soviet Union (1941) and North Africa (1941/42) are considered acts of daring. At the same time, remote advances strained the capabilities of the Wehrmacht to the breaking point, culminating in the first major defeats in the battles of Moscow (1941), Stalingrad (1942) and El Alamein (1943); by the end of 1942, Germany was losing the initiative in all theaters of war. The operational art was not compatible with the fighting skills of the allied coalition, making the weaknesses of the Wehrmacht in strategy, doctrine and logistics evident.

The SS and the Einsatzgruppen committed war crimes and atrocities against the civilian population, all of which fell into oblivion or concealment, behind the phenomenon called the Myth of the Innocent Wehrmacht. of war crimes were committed in the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy, as part of the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, the Holocaust, and the Nazi security war.

During the war, about 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht. i>, the Waffen-SS, the Volkssturm and other foreign collaborationist units) had lost approximately 11.3 million men, of whom approximately half were missing or missing. killed during the war. Only a few of the Wehrmacht's senior leaders were tried for war crimes, despite evidence suggesting that more people were involved in illegal actions. Most of the three million soldiers of the Wehrmacht that invaded the Soviet Union participated in the commission of war crimes.

History

The Reichswehr was the army of the Weimar Republic and heir to the defeated German Imperial Army. Ernst Röhm, head of the paramilitary organization Sturmabteilung (SA), wanted this organization to be accepted into the ranks of the Reichswehr, which was strongly opposed by the military high command. Hitler endorsed the demands of the military, since he still did not dominate them and feared that they would provoke a military coup; so that he tried to dialogue with Röhm, since his position was moving away from the course that the German leader traced. Failing to obtain results, Hitler came to consider Röhm dangerous to the stability of the Nazi regime, and consequently he was eliminated along with his closest followers, in the massacre known as the night of the long knives.

During the massacre, General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife, who had nothing to do with the ideology of those murdered, were also assassinated. When verifying that the officers of the Reichswehr were satisfied with the elimination of the heads of the SA and that they did not question the death of their comrade, Hitler began to consider the criminalization of the command of the Reichswehr. So he devoted himself to its transformation, dissolving the old structure and founding a new army, which came to be called the Wehrmacht .

Among the organizers of the new army were Generals Heinz Guderian, von Reichenau, and Jodl. The modernization included the use of the armored weapon as a work horse alongside the infantry, new and aggressive combat tactics and modernization of the command. The trench tactic became obsolete, and was replaced by the innovative tactic Blitzkrieg or lightning war, promoted by Guderian.

Mechanized artillery was integrated into the infantry; new officers with a greater degree of initiative were included in their ranks. The armament underwent a radical change, with the use of lighter and easier to transport machine guns, the organization of mobile assault squads, logistics squads, as well as a chain of command, which —even though it was monolithic— allowed autonomy of action. to squadrons without commanding officers, if these were missing or fell. Many armies of the world have copied the base of this organization.

Around 1939, the German line army numbered around 3,200,000 soldiers and throughout the Second World War more than 12 million soldiers of various nationalities fought for Germany.

World War II

1939-1943

Members Heer in the Eastern Front in 1942.

During the first three years of World War II, the Wehrmacht achieved complete and resounding victories, defeating the European armies with relative ease, due to its technical superiority and military doctrine, developed by Germany in the years after its defeat in World War I. This superiority was demonstrated with the use of the Blitzkrieg (lightning war), consisting of the use of rapid troop movements, a deadly combination of tanks in extensive formations (Panzer divisions), infantry and motorized artillery, and aviation support for the ground forces. This doctrine made obsolete with its triumphs the prevailing military doctrine in the majority of European armies, still clinging to static defenses and trench warfare, considered valid since the end of the previous world war.

The enveloping strategy was used in France and the Soviet Union (USSR) with great success between 1940 and 1941. It consisted of a deep attack in the form of pincers and located against the enemy front with the highest concentration of forces and support weapons, to later send through the gap obtained the armored and motorized reserves. Armored forces would attack the flanks, closing the device and enveloping the enemy.

The speed of these forces would allow, in a later phase of the battle, to encircle and annihilate the enemy forces from their own rear, strangling their logistics and supply system, and isolate them to form pockets (in German Kessel 'cauldron') of resistance that would end up surrendering.

The combative morale of the Wehrmacht, a competent officers, its fast and massive tactics, the effective and quick achievement of objectives, with efficient supplies and logistics, added to the existence of advanced weapons, with fast tanks and a tactical aviation adapted to the new strategies, made the German army the most effective and powerful of the time. Subsequently, their own belief in that superiority led the Wehrmacht to undertake undertakings that proved too ambitious.

In the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), which began on June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht achieved several initial successes and the annihilation of much of the Red Army forces stationed on the border, allowing deep advances into the territory of the USSR until reaching Leningrad in just two weeks.

However, the four-week delay in the campaigns in Crete and Greece were vital, as the harshest winter in 50 years took its toll early in Soviet latitudes, slowing the German advance as roads turned into quagmire and In addition, winter equipment supplies were not adequately distributed at the front, added to an increasingly extensive and fragile logistics network. The Soviets managed to resist the onslaught and mobilizing all their human and material reserves, supported by their harsh winters, American logistical aid, and war material many times as effective as the German and better designed for mass production, they stopped the push. of the Germans, who could not take Moscow, in November-December 1941, nor Stalingrad, in December 1942-February 1943, suffering the loss of the German Sixth Army in 300,000 casualties between dead and wounded, including some 90,000 German soldiers who remained as prisoners of war.

Nevertheless, the German war machine was still strong, to the point of occupying practically all of Europe and being able to fight in Africa. By management of the Minister of Arms, Albert Speer, new models of tanks such as the Tiger, the Panther, the Jadgpanther had been incorporated. In the summer of 1943, however, the Wehrmacht suffered another serious defeat on Russian soil, when in the Battle of Kursk, the strength of the defenses and the subsequent Soviet counteroffensive destroyed the best armored units of the Wehrmacht and caused irreplaceable casualties in elite troops in Korsun-Cherkassy. Kursk is considered the last strategic offensive of the Wehrmacht, and represented its last chance to win the war.

On the other hand, in 1943 the Wehrmacht failed to repel the Anglo-American invasion in Italy, but it did manage to establish successive defensive lines on the peninsula, which resisted until April 1945.

1944-1945

M42 Helmet used by Wehrmacht.

In these two years the Wehrmacht was already exhausted and tired of fighting in so many battles, in addition to having to fight on 2 fronts at the same time, and the situation in Italy was critical, and Italy it was relatively easily defeated during its combats against the Western Allies.

In 1944 the Wehrmacht, already weakened by combat losses against the violent counterattack by the Soviet Union, was unable to repel or contain the advance of British, American and Canadian troops in France and Belgium after the Battle of Normandy, having to carry out a quick retreat. Despite everything, during the winter of 1944-1945, the Wehrmacht carried out its last major offensive on the Western Front, called the Battle of the Bulge. This offensive ended in German defeat and represented the loss of men and materiel that the Wehrmacht could no longer replace.

As of 1944, the Wehrmacht lacked enough veteran soldiers to cover its ranks, its best troops had been destroyed in battle against the Soviet troops in three years of bloody fighting, falling before them in a clear situation of numerical inferiority, while in the western sector, whose troops were soldiers of 40 years and older, could not long resist the overwhelming material superiority of the western allies.

Nazi Germany tried to alleviate this troop deficit by instituting the Volkssturm (people's militia) since October 1944, as a mass levy, where it was forced to join the Wehrmacht to practically all the German males between the ages of 14 and 65 who still remained in the rear to defend the German territory itself; However, these troops, lacking military training and adequate weapons, and demoralized by the visible adverse course of the war, could in no way be compared to the Wehrmacht of 1940 or 1941.

In January 1945, the Wehrmacht could still count on more than 7 million troops (a million and a half in the West, another million in Italy and the rest in the East), although an appreciable part he belonged to the Volkssturm and showed little willingness to fight in such adverse circumstances.

The American and British bombings began to damage the normal supply of fuel and weapons to the units of the Wehrmacht from 1943, progressively achieving air superiority and obtaining by 1945 the strangulation of the war industry German, and the destruction of its communications system, as well as numerous cities.

The Wehrmacht was finally defeated by the Soviets in the Battle of Berlin while the Allies fought it in western Europe, ceasing to exist after the German surrender on May 8, 1945.

Structure and composition

Army

Infantry "mobile on foot" of the Wehrmacht, 1942

The German military pioneered concepts during World War I, combining land (Heer) and air force (Luftwaffe) assets into combined arms teams. Along with traditional methods of warfare such as pocketing and "battle of annihilation”, the Wehrmacht achieved numerous quick victories in the first year of World War II, prompting foreign journalists to create a new word for what they witnessed: Blitzkrieg. Germany's immediate military success on the battlefield at least at the start of World War II matches the favorable start they made during World War I, a fact some attribute to their superior officer corps.

The Heer entered the war with only a small part of its motorized formations; the infantry, at least 90%, still had to move into battle on foot, and the artillery was mostly hippomobile (horse-drawn). Motorized formations received much attention from the world press in the early years of the war and were cited as the reason for the successful invasion of Poland (September 1939), Denmark and Norway (April 1940), Belgium, France and the Netherlands (May 1940), Yugoslavia and Greece (April 1941) and the first phases of Operation Barbarossa (June 1941).

A battalion of hunters, part of the 21.a Panzer Division Afrika Korps

After Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941, the Axis powers became involved in campaigns against the major industrial powers of the day while Germany was still in transition to a war economy. Then German units were overextended, undersupplied, outmanoeuvred, outnumbered and defeated by their enemies in decisive battles during 1941, 1942 and 1943 at the Battle of Moscow, the Siege of Leningrad, Stalingrad, Tunisia in North Africa and the Battle of Kursk.

The German military was managed through mission-based tactics, known in German as Auftragstaktik (rather than order-based tactics) that were intended to give commanders greater freedom to act in any circumstances and take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself. In public opinion, the German army was seen as a modern army with high technology. However, this modern equipment, while heavily featured in official propaganda, was often only available in relatively small numbers. Only 40 % to 60 % of all units on the Eastern Front were motorized, baggage trains often relied on horse-drawn trailers due to poor roads and typical weather conditions of the Soviet Union, and for the same reasons many soldiers marched on foot or used bicycles for major trips. As the fortunes of the war turned, the Germans were in constant retreat from 1943 onwards.

Panzer divisions were vital to the early success of the German army. In typical Blitzkrieg strategy, the Wehrmacht combined the mobility of light tanks with airborne assault to rapidly advance through weak enemy lines, allowing the German army to quickly and securely seize brutally from Poland and France. These tanks were used to break through enemy lines, cutting off enemy regiments from the main force so that German infantry, advancing behind the tanks, could quickly kill or capture enemy troops.

Air Force

German paratroopers taking land during the Battle of Crete

Originally banned by the Treaty of Versailles, the Luftwaffe was officially established in 1935, under the leadership of Hermann Göring. Gaining experience for the first time in the Spanish Civil War, he was a key element in the early campaigns of the Blitzkrieg (Poland, France 1940, USSR 1941). The Luftwaffe concentrated production on fighters and (small) tactical bombers, such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter and the Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber. The aircraft cooperated closely with ground forces. Overwhelming numbers of fighters ensured air supremacy, and bombers attacked command and supply lines, depots, and other support targets near the front line. The Luftwaffe was also used to transport paratroopers, as it was first used during Operation Weserübung. Due to the army's influence with Hitler, the Luftwaffe was often subservient to the army, which caused it to be used as a defense function. tactical support and lose its strategic capabilities.

The Western Allies' round-the-clock strategic bombing campaign against German industrial targets deliberately forced the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition. With the German fighting force destroyed, the The Western Allies had almost absolute air superiority over the battlefield, denying air support to German forces on the ground and using their own fighter-bombers to attack and disrupt German positions. Following the heavy losses suffered by the Germans in Operation Bodenplatte in 1945, the Luftwaffe was no longer an effective force.

Navy

Karl Dönitz inspects the submarine base of Saint-Nazaire in France in June 1941

The Treaty of Versailles imposed a series of limitations on the German Army, including prohibiting submarines and limiting the size of the Reichsmarine to only six battleships, six cruisers and twelve destroyers. the Wehrmacht, the navy was renamed the Kriegsmarine.

By signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935, Germany was allowed to increase the size of its navy to 35:100 tonnage of the Royal Navy, and allowed the construction of some submarines. This was done partly to appease Germany and because Britain believed the Kriegsmarine would not be able to reach the 35% limit until 1942. The navy was also prioritized last in the German rearmament scheme, making it the smallest of the three branches that made up the Wehrmacht.

In the Battle of the Atlantic, the initially successful arm of the German submarine fleet (U-boats) was eventually defeated due to Allied technological innovations such as sonar, radar, and Allied code-breaking Riddle.

Large surface ships were few in number due to construction limitations imposed on Germany by international treaties prior to 1935. So-called "pocket battleships" such as the Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer were important in attacking the commercial shipping lines only in the first year of the war. No aircraft carriers were operational, as German leaders lost interest in the Graf Zeppelin, which was under construction and had been launched in 1938, though never fully operational.

Following the loss of the powerful German battleship Bismarck in 1941 and with enormous Allied air superiority threatening the remaining battlecruisers in French Atlantic ports, the ships were ordered through the English Channel back to the German ports. Thereafter the main German surface ships would operate from the fjords along the coast of Norway, which had been occupied by the Germans since 1940, from there they would be engaged, for the remainder of the war, to threaten convoys from North America headed for the Soviet port of Murmansk where they were carrying much-needed military aid to the threatened Soviet Union. After the appointment of Admiral Karl Dönitz as Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine (after the Battle of the Barents Sea), Germany stopped building battleships and cruisers in favor of submarines. Although by 1941, the navy had already lost several of its large surface ships, which could not be replaced during the war.

The Kriegsmarine's most important contribution to the German war effort was the deployment of its nearly 1,000 submarines to attack Allied convoys. The German naval strategy was to attack the convoys in an attempt to prevent the United States from interfering in Europe and starve out the British. Karl Doenitz, the U-boat chief, began unrestricted submarine warfare that cost the Allies 22,898 men and 1,315 ships. Submarine warfare remained costly for the Allies until early spring 1943, when the Allies began using effective anti-submarine countermeasures, such as the use of "hunter-killer" groups, airborne radar, torpedoes, and mines such as FIDO. Submarine warfare cost the Allies the Kriegsmarine 757 submarines, with more than 30,000 submarine crew killed.

Mobilized forces

Medical inspection of German recruits

Recruitment for the Wehrmacht was achieved through voluntary enlistment and conscription, with 1.3 million recruits and 2.4 million volunteers in the period 1935-1939. The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 to 1945 is believed to have been close to 18.2 million. The German military leadership originally aimed at obtaining a homogeneous army, that he possessed traditional Prussian military values. However, with Hitler's constant wishes to increase the size of the Wehrmacht, the Army was forced to accept citizens of lower class and education, diminishing internal cohesion and appointing officers who lacked real warfare experience from previous conflicts., especially the First World War and the Spanish Civil War.

The effectiveness of the training and recruitment of officers by the Wehrmacht has been identified as an important factor in its early victories, as well as its ability to sustain the war as long as it did, even when the war turned against Germany.

As World War II intensified, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe personnel were increasingly transferred to the military, and "voluntary" enlistments into the SS also intensified. After the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, fitness and fitness standards for German conscripts were drastically lowered, and the regime went so far as to create so-called "special diet" battalions for men with severe stomach ailments. Rear-area personnel were more frequently sent to front-line duty whenever possible, especially during the last two years of the war, when the number of available troops dropped greatly.

An Afro-Arab soldier of the Free Arab Legion

Before the start of World War II, the Wehrmacht strove to remain a purely ethnic German force; as such, minorities inside and outside Germany, such as Czechs in annexed Czechoslovakia, were exempted from military service after Hitler seized power in 1938. Foreign volunteers were generally not accepted into the German armed forces before 1941. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the government's positions changed. German propagandists wanted to present the war not as a purely German concern, but as a multinational crusade against what they called Jewish Bolshevism. Therefore, the Wehrmacht and SS began seeking recruits from occupied and neutral countries throughout Europe: Germanic populations in the Netherlands and Norway were largely recruited by the SS, while "non-Germanic" people were recruited by the Wehrmacht. The "voluntary" nature of such recruitment was often doubtful, especially in the last years of the war when even Poles living in the Polish corridor were declared "ethnic Germans" and conscripted.

After Germany's defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht also made substantial use of personnel from the Soviet Union, including the Muslim Caucasian Legion, Turkestan Legion, Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, and Russians ethnic groups, Cossacks, and others who wanted to fight the Soviet Union or were otherwise induced to join. Between 15 000 and 20 000 anti-communist white émigrés who had left Russia after the Russian Revolution joined the ranks of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, with 1,500 acting as interpreters and more than 10 000 serving in the guard force of the Russian Protective Corps.

The common themes of Nazi propaganda revolved around national humiliation after the Versailles Treaty, seen as a diktat (dicted) by the Germans. This poster states that the "Danzig" corridor is German; given to Poland as maritime access, it simultaneously divided East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

This calculation does not include the units of the Volkssturm and the mobilized Hitler Youth. If we understand by soldier the mobilized individual, correctly instructed (at least several weeks, knowledge of light weapons, orientation, fortification, survival, team action within a unit of combatants), the figures of between 7 and 8 million are more accurate (instead the Soviet Union mobilized 11 to 13 million and the United States another 12 to 16 million). The Heer, the Luftwaffe and the Waffen SS fought throughout most of Europe and North Africa. Only at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa some three million Germans and about 900 000 Allied troops (470 000 Finns, 325 000 Romanians and 44 000 Hungarians).

Women in the Wehrmacht

Wehrmachthelferinnen in the occupied Paris in 1940

Initially, women in Nazi Germany were not involved in the Wehrmacht, as Hitler was ideologically opposed to the recruitment of women, stating that Germany "would not form any section of women grenade launchers or any elite women's sniper corps." ». However, with many men going to the front, women were placed in auxiliary positions within the Wehrmacht, called Wehrmachtshelferinnen, where they participated in tasks such as:

• Telephone operators, telegraph and transmission,
• and messengers,
• Operators of listening equipment, in air defence, operational projectors for air defence, used in meteorology services, and civil defence assistants
• Voluntary nurses in the military health service, such as the German Red Cross or other voluntary organizations.

They were placed under the same authority as (Hiwis), Auxiliary Army Personnel (German: Behelfspersonal) and assigned to duties within the Reich, and to a lesser extent, in the occupied territories, for example in the general government of occupied Poland, in Vichy France, and later in Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania.

By 1945, 500 000 women were serving as Wehrmachtshelferinnen, half of whom were volunteers, while the other half performed compulsory services related to the war effort (German: Kriegshilfsdienst).

Command Structure

Structure of the Wehrmacht (1935-1938)

Structure of the Wehrmacht (1939-1945)

Legally, the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht was Adolf Hitler in his capacity as head of state of Germany, a position he achieved after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in August 1934. With the creation of the Wehrmacht In 1935, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, retaining the position until his death by suicide on April 30, 1945. The title of Commander-in-Chief was bestowed on the Minister of the Reichswehr Werner von Blomberg, who was simultaneously renamed Reich War Minister. Following the Blomberg-Fritsch scandal, Blomberg resigned and Hitler abolished the War Ministry post. As the ministry's replacement, the Wehrmacht High Command Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) was put in its place, under the command of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.

Situated under the command of the OKW were the top commanders of three branches: Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), Oberkommando der Marine (OKM) and Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL). OKW was intended to serve as a joint command and coordinate all military activities, with Hitler at its head. Although many senior officers, such as von Manstein, had advocated a true Joint Command of all three services, or the appointment of a single Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hitler refused. Even after the defeat at Stalingrad, stating that Göring, as Reichsmarschall and Hitler's deputy, would not submit to another person or see himself as an equal to other service commanders. However, a more likely reason was that Hitler feared it would break his image of having the "Midas touch" regarding military strategy.

With the creation of the OKW, Hitler consolidated his control over the Wehrmacht. Although he showed considerable restraint at the start of the war, he too became increasingly involved in military operations on all scales.

In addition, there was a clear lack of cohesion between the three High Command and the OKW, as the senior generals were unaware of the needs, capabilities, and limitations of the other branches. With Hitler serving as Supreme Commander, the commands of the various branches branches were often forced to fight because of Hitler's influence. However, his great influence came not only from rank and merit, but also from who Hitler perceived to be loyal, leading to stark rivalry between the different services, rather than the necessary cohesion among his military advisers..

War crimes

Members Heer executed 56 Jews in Bochnia, near Krakow (Poland) in 1939

Nazi propaganda had told Wehrmacht soldiers to wipe out the so-called Bolshevik Jewish subhumans, the Mongolian hordes, the Asiatic flood, and the red beast.. The main perpetrators of civil repression behind the front lines among the German armed forces were the Nazi German “political” armies (theSS-Totenkopfverbände, theWaffen-SS, and the Einsatzgruppen , which were responsible for mass murders, mainly for the implementation of the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish question” in the occupied territories), the traditional armed forces represented by the Wehrmacht committed and ordered its own war crimes (see, the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa Decree), particularly during the 1939 invasion of Poland and later in the war against the Soviet Union.

Cooperation with the Schutzstaffel

Before the outbreak of war, Hitler informed senior Wehrmacht officers that actions "disliked by German generals" would be carried out in occupied areas and ordered them to that "they should not interfere in such matters but confine themselves to their military duties." Some Wehrmacht officers initially displayed a strong dislike of the SS and objected to the army cooperating with the SS in committing SS war crimes, although these objections were not against the idea of the atrocities themselves. Later during the war, relations between the SS and the Wehrmacht improved significantly. The German private had no qualms about cooperating with the SS, often helping them round up civilians for execution.

Greek civilians executed by German paratroopers in Kondomari

Chief of the General Staff of the German Army High Command (OKH) Franz Halder was instrumental in the subsequent preparation and implementation of war crimes during the invasion of the Soviet Union. He had his staff draft both the Order of the Commissars and the Barbarossa Decree without any prior instruction or interference from Hitler. The author of these orders was General Eugen Müller, who reported his work directly to Halder. The Order of the Commissioners specified that political commissars were to be executed immediately after being captured. Halder also insisted that a clause be included in the Barbarossa Decree that gave officers the right to level entire villages and execute their inhabitants. The decree exempted the soldiers from any form of prosecution for war crimes committed in the East. Said decree did not have a specific objective: Soviet citizens could be killed at any time and for any reason. Until then only the SS could kill citizens without fear of further prosecution. These orders allowed officers throughout the army to execute citizens without fear of possible liability.

Lieutenant Helmuth Groscurth showed copies of these orders to two opponents of the regime, General Ludwig Beck and diplomat Ulrich von Hassell. "It makes one's hair stand on end [Hassell wrote in his diary] to know the measures to be applied in Russia, and the systematic transformation of military law concerning the conquered population into an uncontrolled despotism, indeed a caricature of all law. This kind of thing transforms the German into a being that had only existed in enemy propaganda.” Although there were some commanders who refused to transmit these orders to their soldiers, many others, actually the majority, had no such scruples, such as the commander of the 6th Army, Marshal Walter von Reichenau or the commander of the 4th Army. Panzer General Hermann Hoth who declared "the annihilation of those very Jews who support Bolshevism and its organization for murder, the partisans, is a measure of self-protection." The Israeli historian Omer Bartov described the orders as "the barbarization of war".

German troops force Yugoslav civilians to march towards execution

Cooperation between the SS , the Einsatzgruppen and the Wehrmacht involved the supply of weapons, ammunition, equipment, transport and even accommodation to the death squads. Partisan, Jewish, and communist fighters became enemies of the Nazi regime and were persecuted and exterminated by the Einsatzgruppen and the Wehrmacht alike, as revealed in numerous diary entries. field of German soldiers and in thousands of photos. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Soviet civilians starved to death as the Germans requisitioned food for their armies and fodder for their draft horses. According to historian Thomas Kühne: "it is estimated that between 300 000 and 500 000 people died during the Nazi security war of the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union” (see Hunger Plan).

While secretly listening to the conversations of captured German generals, British officials realized that the German military had participated in the atrocities and mass killings of Jews and was guilty of war crimes. American officials learned of the atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht in the same way. Recorded conversations of soldiers held as prisoners of war revealed how some of them willingly participated in mass executions.

Crimes against civilians

During the war, the Wehrmacht committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population in the occupied countries. This includes massacres of civilians and the forced operation of brothels in occupied areas. The massacres would come in many cases as reprisals for acts of resistance. With these reprisals, the response of the Wehrmacht would vary in severity and method, depending on the scale of resistance and whether it was in Eastern or Western Europe. Often the number of hostages to be shot was calculated based on a ratio of one hundred hostages executed for every German soldier killed and fifty hostages executed for every German soldier wounded. Other times, civilians were rounded up and shot with machine guns.

The Germans reserved a special hatred for partisans, building scaffolds in every town, but public hangings were merciful compared to the tortures suffered by many captives; the Germans broke their fingers, burned them alive, and amputated the women's breasts before murdering them. Anyone even remotely suspected of supporting the partisans was in danger of dying a horrible death. In many towns suspected of supporting the partisans, the Germans set fire to the houses and shot at the windows and doors to ensure that no inhabitant came out alive. Hitler supported this policy: "this partisan war has its advantages," he told his associates. "It gives us the opportunity to exterminate whoever opposes us."

A synagogue used as a brothel. Women and adolescents were abducted by the Wehrmacht to be used as sex slaves. Women were raped by up to 32 men per day at a nominal cost of three Reichsmark.

Soviet Belarus has been described as "the deadliest place on earth between 1941 and 1944". One in three Belarusians died during World War II. The Holocaust took place near the towns where the population lived. Very few of the victims died in killing centers such as Auschwitz. Most Soviet Jews lived in an area of western Russia formerly known as the Settlement Zone. Initially, to the Wehrmacht was given the task of helping the Einsatzgruppen. In the case of the Krupki massacre, this involved the army marching the Jewish population, numbering approximately 1,000, a mile and a half to meet their SS executioners. The frail and sick were taken away in a truck and those who strayed were shot dead. German troops guarded the place and, together with the SS, shot at the Jews who then fell into a well. Krupki was one of many such atrocities; the Wehrmacht was a full partner in industrialized mass murder.

German military brothels were established throughout much of occupied Europe. In many cases in Eastern Europe, women and adolescent girls were abducted from the streets during German military and police raids and used as sex slaves. The women they were raped by up to thirty-two men per day at a nominal cost of three Reichsmarks. A Swiss Red Cross mission driver, Franz Mawick, wrote of what he saw in 1942:

Uniformed Germans stare at women and girls between the ages of 15 and 25. One of the soldiers draws a pocket flashlight and focuses it directly on the eyes of one of the women. The two women look at us with their pale faces, expressing tiredness and resignation. The first one is about 30 years old. What's this old bitch looking for here? 'Pan sir' - the woman asks... 'You have a kick in your ass, not bread' - the soldier responds. The owner of the flashlight returns to direct the light on the faces and bodies of the girls... The youngest is maybe 15 years old... They open your coat and begin to shake it. 'This is ideal for bed' says.

The writer Ursula Schele estimated that as many as ten million women in the Soviet Union might have been raped by the Wehrmacht and that one in ten might have become pregnant as a result. historians Alex J. Kay and David Stahel, most of the Wehrmacht soldiers deployed in the Soviet Union participated in the commission of war crimes.

Soviet war prisoners in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp

Crimes against prisoners of war

Soviet losses during the whole of World War II are more than 6.8 million soldiers killed in combat and more than 3.8 million prisoners and militiamen killed in captivity or in German death camps or approximately 57 % of prisoners. The treatment given by the Germans to Soviet POWs was dramatically different from that given to British and American POWs. Of the 231 000 British and American prisoners incarcerated by the Germans during the war, only 8,300 -- 3.6 % -- died at the hands of the Germans. On the other side of 2 389 600 German prisoners captured by the Soviets during the entire war some 450 600 died during their captivity, a significantly lower number.

Joachim Lemelsen, commander of the XLVII Motorized Corps, informed the High Command of the Wehrmacht about the indiscriminate executions of Soviet prisoners of war during the early phases of Operation Barbarossa:

I am repeatedly learning about shootings of prisoners or deserters, carried out irresponsibly, foolishly and criminally. This is murder. Soon the Russians will realize the innumerable bodies that lie along the paths of advance of our soldiers, without weapons and with their hands on high, dispatched to burn with gunshot in the head. The result will be that the enemy will hide in the forests and fields and continue to fight, and we will lose countless comrades.

Wehrmacht losses

The Wehrmacht lost more than 80% of its troops in combat against the Soviet Union.

Definitive losses (dead, missing or disabled).

Casualties during the war (killed, wounded and prisoners)

As of April 30, 1945, the casualties of the Wehrmacht amounted to &&&&&&&011135800.&&&&&011,135,800 included &&&&&&&&06035000.& &&&&06,035,000 wounded; Total losses of all German Armed Forces up to the end of the war amounted to &&&&&&&013448000.&&&&&013,448,000 including wounded (75% of total mobilized troops) of whom permanent losses (killed and missing) on the Eastern Front alone amounted to &&&&&&&&06923700.&&&&&06 923 700.

As a whole the total losses of the Wehrmacht during World War II were &&&&&&& 013488000.&&&&&013,488,000 between dead, wounded and prisoners. Of which, &&&&&&&010758000.&&&&&010,758,000 fell, they were wounded or taken prisoner in the East.

Cap used by officers of the Heer.

After the war

After the unconditional defeat of the Wehrmacht that took effect on May 8, 1945, some elements of the army were still active with the allied forces as police forces. By the end of August 1945, those units were disbanded and the following year the Allies officially declared all Wehrmacht units dissolved and Germany was prohibited from having an army. This prohibition was maintained until the creation of the Bundeswehr in 1955.