Handbook on German Military Forces

David I. Norwood

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 1990
• eBook ISBN: 9780807164440
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

In March, 1945, the U.S. War Department issued a restricted document called Handbook on German Military Forces. The restricted classification was removed in 1953, but the handbook has until now remained virtually unknown. The book is a massive compendium of information on every aspect of Hitler's forces. It gives credence to the contention that by 1945 U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall may have known more about the German military than did Hitler himself.Exceptionally well organized and exhaustively detailed, the handbook examines German military personnel from the lowest levels to the High Command. It describes the Wehrmacht's administrative structure, unit organization, field tactics, fortification and defense systems, weapons and other equipment, and uniforms and insignia. Moreover, it presents this abundance of information in a manner that is remarkable for its depth and clarity.The book contains an astute analysis of the psychology of the German soldier and charts the ways in which the attitudes of Hitler's men changed over the course of the war. It also considers the strengths and weaknesses of the German weapons systems, describes how Allied soldiers could make use of captured weapons, and offers advice on how Allied military personnel might avoid being captured themselves. Hundreds of tables, organizational charts, and illustrations, some in color, add further value to the book. Handbook on German Military Forces will prove indispensable to scholars of World War II as well as to all devotees of military history.

CHAPTER I

THE GERMAN MILITARY SYSTEM

Section I. INTRODUCTION

I. Total War

The Germans have long devoted a large part of their national energies to both the study and the application of the science of war. The German Army which was built up under the Nazi regime and which challenged the world in 1939 was the final product of this study. It represented the fruition of decades of long-range planning, organization, experimentation, and mechanical development directed toward the sole end of creating a military instrument which would be a match for any foreseeable combination of adversaries. Supported by the entire economic, political, and psychological resources of a totalitarian government, it was destined to overrun almost the whole of Europe in a series of victorious campaigns unequaled since the days of Napoleon. The three greatest nations on earth were forced to muster all their human and material power to crush the German military machine by the only possible method—overwhelming superiority of force.

Total war is neither a modern invention nor a German monopoly. But total mobilization, in the sense of the complete and scientific control of all the efforts of the nation for the purposes of war, and total utilization of war as an instrument of national policy have been developed to their highest degree by the German militarists. Central control and careful coordination, by qualified experts, of a military machine which is built with all the best available materials and put together for the highest efficiency of operation have been the secret of such military victories as the Germans have achieved.

It is the purpose of this Handbook to describe this military machine in all its aspects. No one of the supporting pillars of the German Army—its personnel, its High Command, its administrative structure, its unit organization, its weapons, its tactical doctrines—can stand or fall alone. The various chapters and sections which follow must be studied together as various facets of a whole.

2. The German Army Today

When the German Panzer divisions struck out across the Polish frontier at dawn on 1 September 1939, no one could predict the scope, intensity, and duration of the armed conflict which they were precipitating. The German Army then was fresh, vigorous, expansive, and obviously superior to its contemporaries. Its weapons were new and shiny; its tactics and techniques—the old doctrines adapted to the new conditions—were untried; its officers and men were young and full of enthusiasm. A career of easy conquest seemed to open up before it.

After five and a half years of ever growing battle against ever-stronger enemies, the German Army in 1945 looks, at first glance, much the worse for wear. It is beset on all sides and is short of everything. It has suffered appalling casualties and must resort to old men, boys, invalids, and unreliable foreigners for its cannon fodder. Its weapons and tactics seem not to have kept pace with those of the armies opposing it; its supply system in the field frequently breaks down. Its position is obviously hopeless, and it can only be a question of time until the last German soldier is disarmed, and the once proud German Army of the great Frederick and of Scharnhorst, of Ludendorff and of Hitler, exists no more as a factor to be reckoned with.

Yet this shabby, war-weary machine has struggled on in a desperate effort to postpone its inevitable demise. At the end of 1944 it was still able to mount an offensive calculated to delay for months the definitive piercing of the western bulwarks of Germany. Despite the supposed chronic disunity at the top, disaffection among the officer corps, and disloyalty in the rank and file, despite the acute lack of weapons, ammunition, fuel, transport, and human reserves, the German Army seems to function with its old precision and to overcome what appear to be insuperable difficulties with remarkable speed. Only by patient and incessant hammering from all sides can its collapse be brought about.

The cause of this toughness, even in defeat, is not generally appreciated. It goes much deeper than the quality of weapons, the excellence of training and leadership, the soundness of tactical and strategic doctrine, or the: efficiency of. control at all echelons. It is to be found in the military tradition which is so deeply ingrained in the whole character of the German nation and which alone makes possible the interplay of these various factors of strength to their full effectiveness.

The German Army of 1939 was a model of efficiency, the best product of the concentrated military genius of the most scientifically military of nations. A study of the German Army of 1945, however, older and wiser, hardened and battle-tested, cornered and desperate as it is, will show best how this military science and military genius operate in the practical exigencies of long-drawn-out total war.

Section II. THE GERMAN SOLDIER

I. Fanatic or Weakling?

The German soldier who faces the Allies on the home fronts in 1945 is a very different type from the members of the Army of 1939 which Hitler called “an Army such as the world has never seen”. The German soldier is one of several different types depending on whether he is a veteran of 4 or 5 years, or a new recruit. The veteran of many fronts and many retreats is a prematurely aged, war weary cynic, either discouraged and disillusioned or too stupefied to have any thought of his own. Yet he is a seasoned campaigner, most likely a noncommissioned officer, and performs his duties with the highest degree of efficiency.

The new recruit, except in some crack SS units, is either too young or too old and often in poor health.

He has been poorly trained for lack of time but, if too young, he makes up for this by a fanaticism bordering on madness. If too old, he is driven by the fear of what his propagandists have told him will happen to the Fatherland in case of an Allied victory, and even more by the fear of what he has been told will happen to him and his family if he does not carry out orders exactly as given. Thus even the old and sick perform, to a certain point, with the courage of despair.

The German High Command has been particularly successful in placing the various types of men where they best fit, and in selecting those to serve as cannon fodder, who are told to hold out to the last man, while every effort is made to preserve the elite units, which now are almost entirely part of the Waffen-SS. The German soldier in these units is in a preferred category and is the backbone of the German Armed Forces. He is pledged never to surrender and has no moral code except allegiance to his organization. There is no limit to his ruthlessness.

The mentality of the German soldier of 1945 is the final result of that policy of militarism which, even in the 19th century, caused a famous German general to recommend that soldiers should be trained to ask of their superiors: “Master, order us where we may die.”

2. Manpower Problems

a. ANNUAL CLASS SYSTEM. When Hitler reintroduced general conscription in 1935, the greatest possible care was taken to create a strong military force without disrupting the economic life of the nation. Men were registered by annual classes and during the years before the war those of the older classes were called only in small groups to attend training exercises of limited duration. Even for the younger classes, all feasible arrangements were made for the deferment of students and of those engaged in necessary occupations. Men accepted for active service were called to the colors by individual letter rather than by public announcement for their annual class. This system was continued in the gradual mobilization which preceded the outbreak of the war in such a way that the wartime Army could be built up organically and the normal course of life was not seriously upset.

b. WAR DEVELOPMENT. As long as the war was conducted on a limited scale, the Armed Forces were very liberal in granting occupational and medical discharges. As the war progressed and grew in scope and casualties mounted, it became necessary to recall many of these men and eventually to reach increasingly into both the older and the younger age groups.

After Germany changed from the offensive to the defensive in 1943, it became both possible and necessary to transfer an increasing number of Air Force and naval personnel to the Army, to enforce “voluntary” enlistment in the Waffen-SS, and to commit line-of-communication units to regular combat not only against partisans but against regular enemy forces.

The increasingly heavy losses of the Russian campaign forced Hitler to cancel his order exempting “last sons” of decimated families and fathers of large families from front-line combat duty. Prisons and concentration camps were combed out for men who could be used in penal combat units with the inducement of possible later reinstatement of their civic rights.

Although a “total mobilization” was carried out in the spring of 1943, after Stalingrad, it became necessary by the end of that year to lower the physical classification standards drastically and to register men up to 60 years of age for military service. Even men with severe stomach ailments were drafted into special-diet battalions. During the summer of 1944, civilian occupations were reduced to an absolutely necessary minimum. Finally, the remaining male civilians from 16 to 60 were made liable for home defense combat service in the “Volkssturm” and even Hitler Youth boys and girls were called up as auxiliaries.

Along with these measures there went a continuous reorganization of combat as well as administrative units for the purpose of increasing efficiency and saving personnel.

The strength of divisions was lowered while their firepower was increased and their components were made more flexible. Severe comb-outs were made among rear-area personnel and technical specialists. The strongest possible measures were introduced against waste of manpower, inefficiency, and desertions, particularly after the Army was brought under the ever increasing control of the SS, in the summer and autumn of 1944.

After the Allied breakthrough in France, Himmler was appointed Commander of the Replacement Army and as such made the Waffen-SS the backbone of German national defense. Whole units of the Air Force and Navy were taken over and trained by the Waffen-SS and then distributed among depleted field units. The organization and employment of the Volkssturm is under Himmler’s direct control.

The complicated record system of the Armed Forces was maintained in principle but streamlined for the sake of saving manpower.

c. FOREIGN ELEMENTS. (1) Original policy. In their attempts to solve their ever acute manpower problems, the Germans have not neglected to make the fullest possible use of foreign elements for almost every conceivable purpose and by almost every conceivable method. Originally, great stress was laid on keeping the Armed Forces nationally “pure”. Jews and Gypsies were excluded from military service. Foreign volunteers were not welcomed. Germans residing abroad and possessing either German or dual citizenship were rounded up through the German consulates from 1937 on. When Germany set out to invade other countries, beginning with Austria, only the inhabitants of these countries who were held to be of German or related blood became liable to German military service; the Czech minority in Austria, for example, was exempted.

(2) Recruiting of foreigners. With the invasion of Russia in June 1941, German propagandists set themselves to t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Publisher’s Note
• Chapter I. The German Military System
• Chapter II. Organization of the Field Forces
• Chapter III. Other Military and Auxiliary Organizations
• Chapter IV. Tactics
• Chapter V. Fortifications and Defenses
• Chapter VI. Supply, Evacuation, and Movements
• Chapter VII. Weapons
• Chapter VIII. Equipment
• Chapter IX. Uniforms, Insignia, and Individual Equipment
• Chapter X. German Air Force
• Index