The Wehrmacht—Nazi Germany’s armed forces—surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies on May 7, 1945. Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, chief of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, signed the instrument of surrender at the forward command post of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Reims, France. Two days later amid the Berlin ruins Jodl’s boss, Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, signed an almost identical document in the presence of Soviet, American, British and French commanders. World War II was over for Jodl, Keitel and their countrymen. Unlike what happened at the end of World War I, the victors intended to wholly demilitarize Germany.
The postwar Allied Control Council duly dissolved the Wehrmacht on Aug. 20, 1946. Within a decade, however, the world would look considerably different. In 1949, with the onset of the Cold War, the Western Allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with a unified military command structure. NATO’s primary mission was to deter an increasingly belligerent Soviet Union, which had liberated the countries of Eastern Europe only to occupy and enslave them as communist satellite states. By the mid-1950s NATO ground forces were vastly outnumbered in the heart of Europe. America, France and Britain begrudgingly concluded the only way they could restore some measure of military balance was to rearm their former German enemy, albeit under firm NATO operational control. Thus the Paris Accords of May 5, 1955, authorized the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Armies cannot be created overnight. Rank-and-file soldiers can be brought in off the streets and trained to minimum effectiveness in about six months. But what about commanders? Where do you find leaders—particularly general officers—with the background and experience to train, organize and lead an army built from scratch?
In West Germany’s case the answer was obvious but complicated. Just 10 years earlier Germany, even in defeat, had one of the best armies in history. Yet the had been corrupted into the servant of the odious and criminal Third generals with relatively unblemished records who were willing to return to uniform late in life. Especially challenging was finding qualified officers who had served the in the most senior positions and, therefore, had the background and experience to become the ’s senior commanders.
