What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

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Art
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What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#1

Post by Art » 19 Mar 2021, 17:44

Its is a common knowledge that prior to 1933 the Germany had a small standing army of about 100,000 professional soldiers serving under long-terms contracts. It is also a common knowledge that a general conscription was reintroduced in 1935 so by the start of 1939 the German Wehrmacht was mostly composed of conscripts. The question, I haven't seen quite a good answer to, is what happened to the original personnel of the 100,000-men Army. How many of them remained on active service by 1939? What was their legal status after introduction of the general conscription? Did their contracts remained in force? What happened to those whose contracts expired prior to 1939? What happened to those released from active service? Did privates of the Reichsheer became NCOs or even officers of the new army and how many of them?
I would be grateful for any answers or sources.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#2

Post by Richard Anderson » 19 Mar 2021, 17:59

Art wrote:
19 Mar 2021, 17:44
Its is a common knowledge that prior to 1933 the Germany had a small standing army of about 100,000 professional soldiers serving under long-terms contracts. It is also a common knowledge that a general conscription was reintroduced in 1935 so by the start of 1939 the German Wehrmacht was mostly composed of conscripts. The question, I haven't seen quite a good answer to, is what happened to the original personnel of the 100,000-men Army. How many of them remained on active service by 1939? What was their legal status after introduction of the general conscription? Did their contracts remained in force? What happened to those whose contracts expired prior to 1939? What happened to those released from active service? Did privates of the Reichsheer became NCOs or even officers of the new army and how many of them?
I would be grateful for any answers or sources.
As I understand it, all of the above. :D Some officers and men simply "aged out" and retired before the end of the war, although some were also later recalled. Others served as cadre for the expanding Heer through the 1930s. There is record of a conference in February 1941 where it was remarked there was still 1.2-million men with Great War service experience who were "still available" for service, so I expect that most of the Reichswehr personnel still alive would have been in service again or part of that group.
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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#3

Post by Art » 19 Mar 2021, 19:55

Yes, I suppose that physically fit men were probably drafted to the military with the start of mobilization. My question is mostly about the situation before the mobilization - what proportion of the professional army personnel remained in the Wehrmacht by the summer of 1939, in what status etc.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#4

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 23 Mar 2021, 18:56

I recall a reference to this in a lecture by Kline-Albrandt circa 1981. IIRC the bulk of them were retained as long service officers. This would have also included those who had previously been discharged. As KH & others explained the Reichswehr was not a army, tho it had the appearance of one. It was the officer corps for a army. The enlisted were trained to become Jr officers & the officers trained several grades above their rank.

KA interviewed surviving members from the Reichswehr era & from that he estimated to us the actual trained cadre as more that double the nominal RW strength.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#5

Post by Sid Guttridge » 23 Mar 2021, 22:25

From memory, Reichsheer members of all ranks were meant to be trained up to perform the duties of the two ranks above them, in anticipation of Army expansion.

As they were all 12-year volunteers, at the least, I would imagine they were highly motivated to stay in service, not least because their promotion prospects must have improved exponentially in the expanding Wehrmacht.

As their expertise was the bedrock of the new Wehrmacht's army, I would imagine that everything possible was done to retain them.

Cheers,

Sid

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#6

Post by Pips » 24 Mar 2021, 05:15

Very interesting thread.

Do we by chance know the names of any men who served in the Reichsheer? From that we could perhaps follow their career at the start of WWII, to see what function they fulfilled.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#7

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Mar 2021, 08:27

Hi Pips,

I would imagine that the great majority of the German generals in WWII had been in the Reichsheer or its Austrian equivalent. Pick half a dozen random names and Google them.

An example I have in my notes is the head of the Ersatzheer, Friedrich Fromm, who was still only a lieutenant-colonel when Hitler came to power but was promoted five times over the next seven years to become a Colonel General on 19 July 1940. He probably wasn't promoted further because the only higher rank left was Field Marshall, which, as its name implies, could only be held by commanders of troops in the field, which he never was.

This old AHF threads gives the promotion dates for Schorner, Rommel and Reichenau, showing that Fromm was not exceptional: viewtopic.php?t=106192

In Rommel's case it also shows the log jam in promotions during the Reichswehr period. He seems to have had the same rank in 1933 as he had had in 1918 (Captain), but was a Field Marshall by 1943, which seems to be eight promotions in 10 years under the Wehrmacht!

Cheers,

Sid
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 24 Mar 2021, 12:20, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#8

Post by Sheldrake » 24 Mar 2021, 10:59

The Reichsheer served as the foundations for the expanding Wehrmacht. Allowing its trained soldiers to retire was the last thing the Nazi regime was going to do. Sid made this point in post #5.

Hitler did get rid of senior officers that were political threats and sacked Fritsch and Blomberg for trumped up or exaggerated reasons. The Reichwehr was very small and highly selective. In his memoirs Hans von Luck says he joined the Reichswehr as a private soldier and served as a driver in the early 1930s.

There is probably a PhD in a systematic study of the Reichwehr personel.
Last edited by Sheldrake on 24 Mar 2021, 11:12, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#9

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Mar 2021, 12:13

Hi Sheldrake,

I was searching around for an other ranks example. Hans von Luck is certainly a stand out example -from Reichswehr driver to Wehrmacht panzer division commander.

Thanks,

Sid.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#10

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Mar 2021, 12:16

Hi Sheldrake,

I was searching around for a lower ranked example. Your Hans von Luck is certainly a stand out - from Reichswehr cadet in 1929 to Wehrmacht panzer division commander by 1944.

I see that Rommel was the instructor on his officers' course.

Thanks,

Sid.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#11

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 25 Mar 2021, 04:28

Sheldrake wrote:
24 Mar 2021, 10:59
... There is probably a PhD in a systematic study of the Reichwehr personal.
We got ten minutes from Kline-Albrandt in one of the lectures of his 20th Century European studies course.

I'm reminded of some specific parallel between the US Regular Army of the interwar & the Reichwehr. One is the expectation the RA officer would be elevated multiple ranks in mobilization for war. This despite the existence of some 30,000 National Guard, and 60 to 80 thousand Reserve Officers. A second parallel is both the Reichswehr & the US Army placed a high emphasis on skill at staff work. Reading through the biographies of the US generals & others of WWII its evident the top performers of the Lts, Captains, and Majors of the interwar years were favored for the commanders staff positions from battalion thru division & above. The US Army had a reputation in the Great War as failing in its ability to plan and organize. The senior officers seem to have been emphasizing skill at the brian work of a army, skill at planning, preparing, and execution of tasks. Every task the junior officers was handed, from getting the street curbs whitewashed, to a division amphibious exercise, was a test of his ability. either in the role of a staff officers, or as a commander in his ability to get the best out of his command staff. The US Army also made the painful choice of spending precious funds on sending as many of its best officers as possible to the advanced schools, including the Staff & Command School. All these schools in that era were expected to have a strong dose of lessons on staff work. The Reichswehr was not allowed the luxury of a staff school. The General Staff being seen as a evil Prussian thing & prohibited by the ToV along with the schooling. The Reichwehrs action was to turn its unit HQ staffs into a ongoing school, training the best and brightest officers in organizational skills.

In January 1932 there appeared in the German publication Militar Wochen Blatt a brief essay by a Reichswehr Captain Adolf Von Schell describing the US Army. He makes the point about the then 12,000 Regular Army officers being the expected cadre of any larger army mobilized, & their probable rapid elevation multiple ranks. He reinforces this point by describing the US RA officers as being in principle a teacher. As translated: "The fundamental difference between the American Army and most of those of Europe's that in America the role of teacher occupies the foreground of attention. ... Under such circumstances what does the American regular officers do? His chief role is that of teacher and counselor of the great war army." Schell expands on the Regualr officer as the thinnest of this 'counselor' corps among the huge mass of citizen officers who will do most of the leading in the case of a levee en mass. Schell goes on the pick a the pros & cons of this system. He describes it at one point as unsuitable for European armies, but at another point reminds the reader of the situation of the Reichswehr & its best role should Germany ever again execute a levee en mass, or just a peace time expansion.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#12

Post by Sheldrake » 25 Mar 2021, 13:48

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
25 Mar 2021, 04:28
Sheldrake wrote:
24 Mar 2021, 10:59
... There is probably a PhD in a systematic study of the Reichwehr personal.
We got ten minutes from Kline-Albrandt in one of the lectures of his 20th Century European studies course.

I'm reminded of some specific parallel between the US Regular Army of the interwar & the Reichwehr. One is the expectation the RA officer would be elevated multiple ranks in mobilization for war. This despite the existence of some 30,000 National Guard, and 60 to 80 thousand Reserve Officers. A second parallel is both the Reichswehr & the US Army placed a high emphasis on skill at staff work. Reading through the biographies of the US generals & others of WWII its evident the top performers of the Lts, Captains, and Majors of the interwar years were favored for the commanders staff positions from battalion thru division & above.
To a certain extent that was also true of the British Army. Pre war regular officers were disproportionately selected for unit (battalion) command and higher. I don't think this was with any planning and preparation. One reason was the lack of professional training given to territorial army officers, a lot were replaced from the regular army pool between 1939 and 1941. A second reason was that unlike in WW1 the majority of the British Army was not engaged in battle. Unlike in WW1 there were few opportunities for the talented amateur to learn and demonstrate competence in battle. Brooke complained in his diary about the poor quality of corps and divisional commanders but despaired at the lack of potential replacements.

In WW1 people like New Zealand dentist and volunteer artilleryman Bernard Freyberg rose from lieutenant to brigadier general in three years, as did city trader Arthur Asquith. By the end of WW1 about 20% of all officers had been promoted from the ranks - many of them reaching unit command. The British also co-opted businessmen with relevant skills e.g. railway executive Eric Geddes who became a brigadier general in charge of the BEF's railway system. John Monash was an Australian civil engineer from German jewish parentage. A territorial lieutenant colonel he became one of the most competent allied corps commanders. Canadian militia officer Arthur Currie demonstrated such tactical expertise and command skill that his criminal embezzlement of funds was overlooked in huis rise to Corps command.

In WW2 aggressive amateurs gravitated to special forces / private armies. Paddy Mayne lawyer and rugby international was co -founder of the SAS. Undergraduate student historian Peter Young joined the TA as a second lieutenant in 1938 but ended the war as an acting brigadier after distinguished war service as a commando. Fitzroy Mclean a foreign officer - embassy staff joined the army as a private soldier and rose to major general via the SAS becoming Britain's emissary to Tito.

How did that work for the National Guard?

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#13

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 25 Mar 2021, 20:47

The US National Guard were entire under state control during peace time. The Secretary of War & War Dept were able to only offer guidance and advice. A portion of the NG officers were former RA & in that context enforced what standards they could. A similar portion were purely political appointees. The general mass were sincere, but with limited training, & that largely in tactical considerations. What staff training there was had a narrow focus on actual operating matters. ie: flood relief or civil disorder. This was a continuation of the NG as a cleaned up version of the old Militia system. The Reserve Officers Corps was the larger pool & that lot were under the War Department, with Federal commissions. Since the units they were nominally assigned to had no 'troops' their training was either from a few years as a junior company grade RA officer, from the Great War, and classroom instruction. Periodically they accompanied RA formations in field training, tho that amounted to a couple weeks & not always every year.

A select few of the Reserve & National Guard officers were sent to the advanced courses of the Infantry School, the Artillery school, Staff and Command school, but interwar Congress was reluctant to fund such things. Beyond all that a surprising number of the NG & Res Officers proved incredibly capable. Dolittle returned to the Mobilizing Army Air Corps in late 1940 after a decade as a reservist. Two & a half year later he had run up four ranks to command the most combat active & forward placed of the Army Air Forces. He was not as a exceptional as one might think. There were quite a few of those undertrained officers who accomplished a lot & vaulted to senior ranks as successes piled on.

The Navy had things a bit better. Just getting a ship out to sea and back to dock without sinking it is a fair test of ones ability to plan, organized and command. Their Marines had the Bananna Wars to test & train the officers in staff work in actual combat. While the scale was not technically at the level of division or army the demand and penalties were at a different level than any peacetime training. That the Colonels and Generals of 1942-45 had nearly all been in combat as company grade officers, or organized combat ops as field grade ranks influenced the training, doctrines and general attitude then & later.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#14

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 27 Mar 2021, 15:12

Art wrote:
19 Mar 2021, 17:44
Its is a common knowledge that prior to 1933 the Germany had a small standing army of about 100,000 professional soldiers serving under long-terms contracts. ...
Getting back to this. The Reichwehr was not the whole of the trained German force. There were some exaggerated ideas of what the Black Reichswehr was. Germaine to this question there were two groups. One was the Truppenamt. This administrative office included many civilians, as did the other offices of the Heereslitung. The use of civilians in these administrative posts enabled a larger administrative apparatus while on paper staying in the 100,00 man limit. The trick here is these civilians were all former officers of the Imperial army or Reichwehr & a high portion of them graduates of the General Staff school. Germany was prohibited a military 'general staff' by the ToV. This sham kept up the function of a trained general staff without the name on the memos or the trouser stripe. This and the over manning of officers in the division and the two Genernalkdo meant the HQ & administrative staffing of the 1934-35 expansion from seven infantry to 21 infantry divisions and adding proportionate corps HQ was not too demanding.

Second were the police reserves or auxiliaries. All the large and middle sized police forces in Germany had sizable organized reserve units. There were armed with necessary riot control weapons like the K 98 rifle, machine guns, and grenade launchers. The also trained regularly in riot control and security techniques (rad infantry training). The former Reichwehr leaders Kliene-Albrandt interviewed left him with the estimate this group comprised some 300,000 trained men, with a high portion of veterans. This at a minimum represented a huge replacement pool for infantry casualties, and the ability to add a extra rifle companies to the Reichwehr regiments i a emergency. More important it constituted a large pool from which trained cadres could be recruited for training the new recruits as the nazi era army expansion kicked in.

Other groups have been proffered up as part of the Black Reichsweher. Gun clubs, veterans organizations like the Stalhelm society, the SA. I've not seen much evidence these were a realistic source of anything other than individual replacements with stale training/experience.

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Re: What happened to the Reichsheer soldiers?

#15

Post by Sid Guttridge » 27 Mar 2021, 16:58

Hi Carl,

I think the landespolizei was formed in brigades which were numbered the same as the local army wehrkreis. This probably meant they varied in size.

They were taken into the army on 3 July 1935, but I have no details.

However, I do have more on the Rhineland.

The Germans theoretically had 7,000 Landespolizei in this demilitarised area. However, it was widely believed that they numbered 15,000 and the French suspected twice as many.

They were organised into 5th, 6th and 9th Brigades, which were the same as the local wehrkreis numbers. They had between 6 and 9 battalion-equivalent abteilungen and embryonic services but no artillery. Their heaviest weaponry were heavy machine guns.

On the remilitarisation of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936 they were taken into the army and became part of the new 25th (WK V), 26th (WK VI), 33rd and 34th Infantry Divisions on 1 April 1936. The latter two went to the new WK XII, which took over part of WK IX.

A similar process was followed in Danzig, where its two-battalion Landespolizei was expanded into two three-battalion regiments in the summer of 1939 and went on to form the bulk of 60th Infantry Division.

Cheers,

Sid.

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