Reichswehrministerium
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The Reichswehrministerium (English: Reichswehr Ministry; RWM), established on 1 October 1919 from the Prussian Ministry of War in the aftermath of World War I and renamed Reichskriegsministerium (English: Reich War Ministry; RKM) on 21 May 1935, was the defence, then war ministry of the German Reich from 1919 to 1938.
History
It was responsible for the Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht under the leadership of the Reichwehr Minister and later the Reich War Minister (General Werner von Blomberg) based in the Bendlerblock building in Berlin. It was abolished in 1938 and replaced with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (English: Armed Forces High Command; OKW) under the direct command of Adolf Hitler and from 30 April to 23 May 1945 under Karl Dönitz.
- The Reich Defense Ministry was established in Berlin on 1 October 1919. The ministry was created in accordance with the Weimar Republic Constitution from the individual war ministries of the Empire and the Reich Naval Office. The main body of the new Reich Defense Ministry was taken over from the Prussian War Ministry. Its other predecessors were the Royal Bavarian War Ministry, the Royal Saxon War Ministry, and the Württemberg War Ministry. Thus, command authority was now concentrated in the Reich Defense Minister. Command authority, however, lay with the Chief of the Army High Command and the Chief of the Naval High Command.
The role of the General Staff (forbidden by the Versailles Dictate) was taken over by the Truppenamt (English: Troop Office; TA). From 1942 onwards, the Ministry of Armaments was under the control of Albert Speer and from 1944 onwards it was called the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production.
Bendlerblock
The building on Bendlerstraße (today: Stauffenbergstraße) near the Tiergarten and the Landwehr was constructed between 1911 and 1914 for the Reich Naval Office. After the First World War, the Reich Defense Ministry and the Army High Command moved in. During the Third Reich, it served, among other things, as the headquarters of the General Army Office and the Reserve Army. Following extensive expansion, the Bendlerblock finally took on its current form in 1938. After the end of the war in 1945, reconstruction of the destroyed building complex began. From the 1950s until German reunification, it was used by various government agencies. Since 2 September 1993, the Bendlerblock has served as an additional office of the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg), alongside the Hardthöhe building in Bonn. The Berlin location ensures the proximity of the building's management staff and departments to the capital's political decision-making bodies.
Subordinations 1922
- Adjutant to the Reich Defense Minister, Lieutenant Captain Karl Neureuther
- Central Department of the Reich Defense Ministry (Z): Lieutenant Captain Karl Neureuther, part-time
- Signals Central Office (NB): Lieutenant Captain Ulrich Aschenborn
- Signals Office of the Reich Defense Ministry: Corvette Captain Reinhold Gadow
- Budget Department of the Reich Defense Ministry, Naval Group (HA M): Frigate Captain Friedrich Brutzer
- Legal Department of the Reich Defense Ministry, Naval Legal Office (J M): Ministerial Councilor Franz Julius von Thadden
Truppenamt
The Troop Office was established in 1919 within the Reich Defense Ministry as the successor organization to the Imperial General Staff, after the Treaty of Versailles had banned the establishment of a General Staff or similar institutions in Germany. The Troop Office initially consisted of the following departments:
- T 1 (Army Department): Internal and external military situation, border protection, national fortifications, troop deployment and organization, military transport, military surveying and mapping.
- T 2 (Organization Department): General army affairs, organization of the transitional and future army.
- T 3 (Statistical Department): Collection and processing of information materials on foreign armies.
- T 4 (Draft Department): Military training (including officers), troop exercises, and experience gathering.
- T 5 (Defense Department): General affairs of officers and non-commissioned officers, superior and rank relationships, internal service matters such as garrison and guard duty, honors, flags, dress code and army music, military laws and implementing regulations, maintenance of personnel records.
- T 6 (Department of Education and Training): General education and training matters, education and instruction of officer candidates, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted personnel, military-political training.
- T 7 (Transportation Department): Army transport matters, particularly rail transport and shipping matters.
- H-Friko (Army Peace Commission): Affiliated with the Troop Office.
- Responsible for representing the Reich Defense Minister in all peace matters affecting the Army Command vis-à-vis other ministries and the Entente Commission, as well as for co-reviewing the measures to be taken by the competent Army Command bodies to implement the peace and armistice conditions (dissolved in 1927).
The second draft of the Reich Defense Ministry's allocation of responsibilities, issued in June 1921, proposed reducing the Troop Office to the departments T 1, T 2, T 3, T 4, and T 7, as well as the Army Friko (Heeresfriedenskommission). This draft was subsequently implemented. As part of the disguised rearmament after 1933, the Troop Office was expanded to include the Transport Department, the Inspection of Fortresses, the Central Group, and the War Research Department. Effective 1 June 1935, the Troop Office was renamed the Army General Staff of the Wehrmacht (Generalstab des Heeres).
