The Heer (German pronunciation: [ˈheːɐ̯]) was the Army land forces component of the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) from 1935 to 1945, the latter also included the Navy (Kriegsmarine) and the Air Force (Luftwaffe). During the Second World War, a total of about 15 million soldiers served in the German Army, of whom about seven million became casualties.
During the period of its rebuilding by Hitler the German Army continued to develop concepts pioneered during the First World War, combining ground (Heer) and air (Luftwaffe) assets into combined arms teams. Coupled with operational and tactical methods such as encirclements and the "battle of annihilation", the German military managed several quick victories in the two initial years of the Second World War, prompting foreign journalists to create a new word for what they witnessed, Blitzkrieg.
The Wehrmacht entered the war with a majority of its Army infantry formations relying on the horse for transportation while the infantry remained foot soldiers throughout the war, artillery also remaining primarily horse-drawn. The motorized formations received much attention in the World press in the opening years of the war, and were cited as the reason for the success of the German invasions of Poland (September 1939), Norway and Denmark (April 1940), Belgium, France and Netherlands (May 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941) and the early campaigns in the Soviet Union (June 1941). However their motorized and tank formations accounted for only 20% of the Heer's capacity at their peak strength.
During the Second World War, Nazi Germany used the system of military districts (German: Wehrkreis) to relieve field commanders of as much administrative work as possible, and to provide a regular flow of trained recruits and supplies to the field forces. The method OKW adopted was to separate the Field Army (Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres) from the Home Command (Heimatkriegsgebiet), and to entrust the responsibilities of training, conscription, supply and equipment to Home Command.
The commander of an infantry Corps also commanded the Wehrkreis with the identical number in peacetime, but command of the Wehrkreis passed to his second-in command at the outbreak of the war.
Before the start of the war, there were also four Motorized Army Corps (Armeekorps (mot.)) which were in effect, staffs to control the training of Panzer and Light Panzer formations, and which had no corresponding military districts, but were provided with conscripts and supplies by the districts in which Corps headquarters or subordinate formations had their Home Garrison Stations. The Districts were organized into a hierarchy that included Area Headquarters (Wehrersatzbezirk Hauptquartier) and Sub-area headquarters (Wehrbezirk Hauptquartier).
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The Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) was Germany's Army High Command from 1936 to 1945. In theory the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) served as the military General Staff for the German Reich's armed forces, coordinating the Wehrmacht (Army Heer, Navy Kriegsmarine, and the Air Force Luftwaffe) operations. In practice OKW acted as Hitler's personal military staff, translating his ideas into military plans and orders, and issuing them to the three services while having little control over them. However, as the war progressed the OKW found itself exercising increasing amounts of direct command authority over military units, particularly in the West. This created a situation where by 1942 the OKW was the de facto command of Western Theatre forces while the Army High Command (OKH) served Hitler as his personal command Staff on the Eastern Front.
The Abwehr was a German intelligence organization from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr (German for "counter-intelligence") was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only. After 4 February 1938, its name in title was Overseas Department/Office in Defence of the Armed Forces High Command (Amt Ausland/Abwehr im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht in German).
The German term Kampfgruppe (pl. Kampfgruppen; abbrev. KG) which equates to the English 'combat group' or battle group, can refer to a combined arms combat formation of any size, but most usually to that employed by the Wehrmacht and its allies during World War II, ranging from an Army Corps size such as Kampfgruppe Kampf to commands composed of several companies and even platoons. They were named for their commanding officers using the family name, e.g. Kampfgruppe Meyer.
Among the foreign volunteers who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II were ethnic Germans, Dutch, Spanish and Scandinavians along with people from the Baltic states and the Balkans who were either volunteers or later conscripted for service. Russians recruited from prisoner of war camps fought in the Russian Liberation Army or as Hilfswilliger. Non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the Ostlegionen. These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring and represented about five percent of the Wehrmacht.
The German Army was mainly structured in Army groups (Heeresgruppen, see Army groups of the German Army) consisting of several armies that were relocated, restructured or renamed in the course of the war. Forces or allied states as well as units made up of non-Germans were also assigned to German units.
For Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Army forces were assigned to three strategic campaign groupings:
The troops sent to North Africa to support Italian forces were designated the Afrika Korps.
German operational doctrine emphasized sweeping pincer and lateral movements meant to obliterate the enemy as quickly as possible. This "strategy", referred to as Blitzkrieg, was an operational doctrine instrumental in the success of the offensives in Poland and France.
The Wehrmacht's military strength was managed through mission-based tactics (Auftragstaktik) (rather than order-based tactics) and an almost proverbial discipline. In public opinion, the Wehrmacht was and is sometimes seen as a high-tech army, since new technologies that were introduced before and during World War II influenced its development of tactical doctrine. These technologies were featured by propaganda, but were often only available in small numbers or late in the war, as overall supplies of raw materials and armaments became low. For example only 40% percent of all units were fully motorized, supply columns mainly relied on horses, and most soldiers moved by foot or used bicycles.
German use of fortifications included the Siegfried Line which was intended for defence of the western borders, and the Atlantic Wall erected under command of General Rommel stretching from Denmark to France's border with Spain. The Germans also made great use of fortified cities (termed Festungen) such as Metz, Warsaw, and Poznań during the latter part of the war.
When building temporary field defenses the Heer relied on the defensive tactics developed during the First World War. Infantry would occupy up to five lines of defence with the first being only lightly held advance posts. Further back would be pre-sited anti-tank and artillery positions preferably not registered by the enemy field artillery counter-battery fires. The armoured formations would stage behind these prepared positions to counter-attack any enemy breakthroughs. The armoured reserves would employ a range of counter-offensive tactics depending on the size of the breach and enemy strength. The most important consideration for the defenders would be to hold the flanks of any breach no matter how wide, and then attempt to close the breach.
Four types of Luftwaffe formations and units served in ground roles with the Wehrmacht Heer during the Second World War:
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Max Hastings, British author, historian and ex-newspaper editor, said in a radio interview on WGN Chicago "...there's no doubt that man for man, the German army was the greatest fighting force of the second world war". This view was also explained in his book "Overlord: D-Day and the battle for Normandy". In the book World War II : An Illustrated Miscellany, Anthony Evans writes: 'The German soldier was very professional and well trained, aggressive in attack and stubborn in defence. He was always adaptable, particularly in the later years when shortages of equipment were being felt'.
An often-overlooked characteristic of the late-war German Army was the liberal use of machine-guns with high rates of fire and medium- and heavy-caliber mortars. Although German battalions were often smaller than those of their opponents by 1944, they were still capable, in terms of organic weapons, of bringing substantially higher weights of fire to bear than those of their opponents. This discrepancy in relative weights of fire made the dislodgement of defending German units difficult.
Confronted with a huge number of German prisoners of war after VE Day, the Western Allies kept Feldjägerkommando III (a regimental-sized unit of German military police) active and armed to assist with the control of the POWs. Feldjägerkommando III remained armed and under Western Allied control until 23 June 1946, when it was finally deactivated.[1]