The Bundeswehr is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Bundeswehr is divided into a military part and a civil part, the military part consisting of the German Army, the German Navy, the German Air Force, the Joint Support Service, the Joint Medical Service, and the Cyber and Information Domain Service.
Generalfeldmarschall was a rank in the armies of several German states and the Holy Roman Empire (Reichsgeneralfeldmarschall); in the Habsburg monarchy, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, the rank Feldmarschall was used. The rank was the equivalent to Großadmiral in the Kaiserliche Marine and Kriegsmarine, a five-star rank, comparable to OF-10 in today's NATO naval forces.
The German Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of Germany. The German Air Force was founded in 1956 during the era of the Cold War as the aerial warfare branch of the armed forces of West Germany. After the reunification of West and East Germany in 1990, it integrated parts of the air force of the former German Democratic Republic, which itself had been founded in 1956 as part of the National People's Army. There is no organizational continuity between the current German Air Force and the former Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht founded in 1935, which was completely disbanded in 1945/46 after World War II. The term Luftwaffe that is used for both the historic and the current German air force is the German-language generic designation of any air force.
Generalmajor is the Germanic variant of major general, used in a number of Central and Northern European countries.
Generalleutnant is the German-language variant of lieutenant general, used in some German speaking countries.
Brigadegeneral is the Germanic variant of Brigadier general.
The Federal Ministry of Defence, abbreviated BMVg, is a top-level federal agency, headed by the Federal Minister of Defence as a member of the Cabinet of Germany. The ministry is headquartered at the Hardthöhe district in Bonn and has a second office in the Bendlerblock building in Berlin, which is occasionally used as a metonym to denote the entire Ministry.
General is the highest rank of the German Army and German Air Force. As a four-star rank it is the equivalent to the rank of admiral in the German Navy.
The Joint Support and Enabling Service is a branch of the German Bundeswehr established in October 2000 as a result of major reforms of the Bundeswehr. It handles various logistic and organisational tasks of the Bundeswehr. The SKB is one of six components of the Bundeswehr, the other five being the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Joint Medical Service, and the Cyber and Information Domain Service. As of April 2020, the force is composed of 27,840 personnel. In May 2021 the minister of defense Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer together with inspector general Eberhard Zorn published a plan to dissolve the Joint Support and Enabling Service and to reintegrate its units into the army, navy, airforce and cyber command.
The Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, is the highest-ranking military position held by a commissioned officer on active duty in the Bundeswehr, the present-day armed forces of Germany.
The rank insignia of the Federal Defence Forces indicate rank and branch of service in the German Army, German Air Force, or the German Navy.
The Army Staff, in the meaning of the Army general staff, of the German Army was a department of the Federal Ministry of Defence and one of the five staff headquarters in the military command of the Bundeswehr. The Army Staff was thus at the same time a ministerial division and the highest level of military command within the German Army. It was merged with the other high command authorities of the German Army to form the Army Command in 2012.
The Inspector of the Army is the title held by the commander and highest ranking officer of the German Army of the modern-day German Armed Forces or Bundeswehr. The Inspector is the most senior officer to serve in the German Army and is a military adviser to the Government of Germany as well as the Ministry of Defence.
A general of the branch, general of the branch of service or general of the ... is a three or four-star general officer rank in some armies. Several nations divide — or used to divide — their senior general officer ranks by the branch of troops they are qualified to command, or simply as an honorific title.
Günter Luther was a German admiral who became Inspector of the Navy and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO. During World War II, he served as a military pilot in the Kriegsmarine and a paratrooper in the Luftwaffe. After the war, he joined the newly founded West German Bundesmarine in 1956.
The Inspector of the Navy is the commander of the Navy of the modern-day German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr. Since the various bodies responsible for the high command of the German Navy were merged in 2012, the Inspector has been based at the Navy Command at Rostock. Before then, the Inspector was head of the Naval Staff of the Ministry of Defence, based in Bonn. Both the Inspector and his deputy hold the rank of vice admiral.
Generalleutnant Werner Panitzki was a German Air Force general. He was Inspector of the Air Force, the senior air force appointment, from 1962 to 1966.
The Armed Forces Staff, in the meaning of General staff, of the German Bundeswehr was the central department of the Federal Ministry of Defence (MOD) in direct subordination to the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr and one of the five staff headquarters in the military command of the German Bundeswehr.
Aarne Emil Kreuzinger-Janik is a German lieutenant general of the Bundeswehr. He was the commander of the Air Force Forces Command from 2006 to 2009, and, from 2009 to 2012, the 14th Inspector of the Air Force.
Ingo Gerhartz is a German Air Force lieutenant general. He has been serving as the Inspector of the Air Force since 2018.
