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The German term "Wehrmacht" stems from the compound word of German: wehren, "to defend" and Macht, "power, force". [c] It has been used to describe any nation's armed forces; for example, Britische Wehrmacht meaning "British Armed Forces".
The first Oberabschnitte were formed in November 1933 from the five existing SS-Gruppen units and generally conformed to the existing Wehrkreise (Military Districts) of the Wehrmacht. An Oberabschnitt was usually commanded by a Gruppenführer or Obergruppenführer.
Army Group Rear Area Command (German: Befehlshaber des rückwärtigen Heeresgebietes, abbreviated as Berück) was an area of military jurisdiction behind each of the three Wehrmacht army groups from 1941, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, through 1944 when the pre-war territories of the Soviet Union were recovered.
The SS-VT had to depend on the German Army for its supply of weapons and military training, and its local draft boards responsible for assigning conscripts to the different branches of the Wehrmacht to meet quotas set by the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW in German); the SS was given the lowest priority for recruits. [29]
The German Army (German: Heer, German: ⓘ; lit. ' army ') was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht, [b] the regular armed forces of Nazi Germany, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946. [4]
Although SS ranks generally had equivalents in the other services, the SS rank system did not copy the terms and ranks used by the Wehrmacht ' s branches. Instead, it used the ranks established by the post-World War I Freikorps and the SA. This was primarily done to emphasise the SS as being independent of the Wehrmacht. [109]
This article lists divisions of the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) and Waffen-SS active during World War II, including divisions of the Heer (army), Luftwaffe (air force), and the Kriegsmarine (navy).
This was a paramilitary force, which in war was to be subordinate to the Wehrmacht ("Armed Forces"), but remained under Himmler's control in times of peace and under Hitler's personal control regardless. According to this restructure, the SS now housed three different subordinate commands: