Reichswehr

Uncommon card · No. 75115

Reichswehr (German: [ˈʁaɪ̯çsveːɐ̯] ; lit. 'Reich Defence') was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first two years of Nazi Germany. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army (Deutsches Heer) was dissolved in order to be reshaped into a peacetime army. From it a provisional Reichswehr was formed in March 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the rebuilt German Army was subject to severe limitations in size, structure and armament. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921 after the limitations had been met. The German armed forces kept the name Reichswehr until Adolf Hitler's 1935 proclamation of "restoration of military sovereignty", at which point it became part of the new Wehrmacht. Although ostensibly apolitical, the Reichswehr acted as a state within a state, and its leadership was an important political power factor in the Weimar Republic. The Reichswehr sometimes supported...

Read on Wikipedia · Image diese Datei: Jwnabd, Public domain