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Warmatrix

War Matrix - Nazi army

World Wars 1914 CE - 1945 CE, Armies and troops

German tank and infantry advancing
German tank and infantry advancing
The Heer was the army branch of the nazi Wehrmacht, which also included the Kriegsmarine (navy) and Luftwaffe (air force). It existed from 1935 CE to 1946 CE.
The Treaty of Versailles permitted Germany an army of no larger than 100,000 men, 7 divisions. Chief of staff Hans von Seeckt adjusted to this by retaining the best officers, training them rigorously and sacking the rest. He also made sure that the army clung to a doctrine of mobility, aggression, combined arms and an officer corps capable of making independent tactical decisions. As early as 1924 CE Germany secured a treaty with the USSR that allowed it to train and develop inside that country. As soon as Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 CE, he expanded the army to 21 and then 36 divisions. By 1939 CE it had grown further to 83 infantry, 10 motorized, 4 mechanized and 6 tank divisions. The annexation of Czechia supplied enough arms to equip half the army.
As a result of these two developments, the army developed into a mix of an elite of conservative, aristocratic Prussian generals at the top and large numbers of young, enthusiastic but inexperienced nazis at the bottom. Hitler set out for war so fast that this mix had not time to homogenize. Instead he gave his own Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) more and more power over the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), the army high command. During the war the OKW came to handle the western theater, while the east was left to the OKH. This division of power suited Hitler well politically, as it suppressed plots against him, but it also reduced the effectiveness of the army.
The nazi army saw its first real action the invasion of Poland. Though the country was conquered in five weeks, the soldiers did not perform as well as its commanders had hoped. However they learned from their mistakes, reorganized and retrained where necessary. In 1940 CE the Wehrmacht overran Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries and France in just six weeks, on the whole performing very well and astounding the world with its success.
The German army of World War II is often depicted as an armored juggernaut, yet that is far from the truth. Tanks formed its armored spearhead, but the bulk of the army consisted of infantry, mostly on foot. 70% of infantry and artillery transport was not motorized but horse-drawn. Early in the war German tanks were light and inferior to the tanks of the allies; only late in the war did the heavy over-engineered super tanks appear.
The Wehrmacht is known for its doctrine of "Blitzkrieg", lightning war, though the Germans themselves called it "Bewegungskrieg", war of movement. This essentially was an extension of the stormtrooper tactics that they had developed in World War I, which stressed mobility over firepower. Tanks and air power were seamlessly integrated into this concept, creating a fast-moving army that outmaneuvered its opponents rather than pummeling them into submission.
After its early victories, Germany had finetuned its tactics and its troops had gained a lot of experience. In 1941 it showed off by overrunning the Balkans in Operation Marita and then took on the mighty USSR in Operation Barbarossa. Initially the Blitzkrieg concept secured some huge successes, but after a few months Russia proved to be too large. The Soviets turned the campaign into a battle of attrition, slowly but steadily negating the German superiority in mobile warfare.
At the Battle of Kursk in 1943 CE, the Red Army put so many troops and tanks out of action that the Germans effectively lost their capability for large scale offensives. From that point it was pushed back on all fronts: in the east by the Red Army, in the south by the western allies and a year later from the west too. Now forced to fight a defensive war, it nonetheless proved a resilient enemy that performed skillful tactical retreats and struck back as soon as an opportunity presented itself, as demonstrated at Kharkov and in the Ardennes. The tenacity and even fanaticism of the German soldiers can be explained by years or indoctrination by nazi propaganda. In 1945 CE, the army was steadily disintegrating, though kept on fighting right up to the surrender of May.
During its 11-year existence more than 13 million man served in the German army. At its peak in late 1944 CE it had 4½ million soldiers. 1.6 million of them were killed and over 4.2 million wounded.