Germany Army in WW II?

Question

What was the size of the german military during the early part of ww II. Except for the UK and Spain, how could it have dominated western europe so easily. Were countries close collaborators with the Germans than history would have us believe. Or the populations were sleep walking thru the invasion of their countries. Seems crazy that one country's military could have caused so much death and destruction to a continent full of people

Answer 1

Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Reichswehr was only allowed 100,000 men split between the Army and the Navy. In 1933 the Nazi party came to power and began to abrogate the treaty. The Army was made part of the Wehrmacht in May 1935 with the passing of the "Law for the Reconstruction of the National Defence Forces". The Wehrmacht included not just the Army and Navy but also a third branch known as the Luftwaffe. Initially, the Army was expanded to 21 divisional-sized units and smaller formations. Between 1935 and 1945 this force grew to consist of hundreds of divisions and thousands of smaller supporting units. Between 1939 and 1945 close to 13 million served in the Army. Over 1.6 million were killed and over 4.1 million were wounded. Of the 7361 men awarded the initial grade of the highest German combat honour of WWII, the Knight's Cross, 4777 were from the Army, making up 65% of the total awarded. The German Army was implicated in widespread war crimes including assisting in the genocide of European Jewry during the The Holocaust. The Allies dissolved the German Army on 20 August 1946.

Answer 2

There were 21 divisions. The UK was dominated as they had to flee Dunkirk. Spain was an ally and the warm up for the German army prior to 1939. Germany was on the side of Franco. Germany took many of these countries with the blessing of France and UK. For example, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Italy was an ally of Germany. The Swiss were neutral. Many other countries were too small and relied on alliances. Poland had a large army but were not modernized. France was just plain stupid and surrendered easily. France once again expected Germany to directly attack but like 1870 and 1914 they went through Belgium and the Netherlands. Plus the French government was not that concerned as long as Germany promised them the same usual easy life under German occupation. Germany probably could have controlled Europe for some years but Hitler decided the Soviet oil was a major goal. I listed a site about German military that is quite in depth. Politics will ruin the strongest.

Answer 3

Strategically, it would have been a nightmare. Remember why we used the atomic bomb on Japan? We didn't want to invade a small island nation. Russia is the largest country in the world in terms of landmass. History has shown us time and time again that a protracted land war in Russia is the quickest way to lose whatever war you are trying to fight. Napoleon demonstrated this in 1812, and Hitler showed us again only 4 years before the end of the war. Now granted, the United States could have used its atomic technology, but we can't think of atomic weapons as we do today. Fat Man and Little Boy, the bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki took us an absurd amount of time and money to create. We had no mass production facilities, and more to the point, we had no idea if we could even find enough plutonium to create more bombs. Really, the US Army knew all of these things. Hence why, even though he may have been right, General George Patton was largely ignored. Realistically, there was no way to fight the Russians other than what we did.

Answer 4

The reason why the Germans easily overran western Europe is because it adopted new strategies that made the best use of new weapons such as tanks & airplanes - combined arms warfare whereas the French & British persisted in sticking to obsolete military doctrine.

For example - the French believed that the Maginot line would be impregnable & she & Britian believed that the Germans' main point of attack would be through Belgium rather than the Ardennes.

Answer 5

The size of the standing army does not always mean the strongest. The Germans had good tactics and superior technology. They conquered Poland in three days and didn't lose a single soldier. Poland knew they were over matched and just gave up. They steam rolled over Belgium and into France, who put up little fight.

Similar to the gulf war, although the Iraqi's had the 4th largest standing army in the world, they were out matched. In one battle alone two M1A1 Abrahms tanks took out 100 Iraqi tanks. The US lost under 1000 men in the first gulf war, the Iraqi's have been reported to have lost 100,000.

Basically size aint %^&

Answer 6

About 1 million

Answer 7

You also have to know that a lot of countries over there forbid any citizen from owning a gun, even Germany and Russia fall into this category. So its not like they were asleep, they were just powerless against a well armed and well trained fighting force.

Answer 8

At the time it was the best army in the world