The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ; High Command of the Armed Forces) was the supreme military command and control office of Nazi Germany during World War II. Created in 1938, the OKW replaced the Reich War Ministry and had oversight over the individual high commands of the country's armed forces: the army, navy, and air force.
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a German field marshal in the Heer (Army) of Nazi Germany during World War II. Born into a Prussian family with a long military tradition, von Rundstedt entered the Prussian Army in 1892. During World War I, he served mainly as a staff officer. In the inter-war years, he continued his military career, reaching the rank of Colonel General before retiring in 1938.
Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein was a German Field Marshal of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.
Hermann Hoth was a German army commander, war criminal, and author. He served as a high-ranking panzer commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II, playing a prominent role in the Battle of France and on the Eastern Front. Contemporaries and later historians consider Hoth one of the most talented armoured warfare commanders of the war. He was a strong believer in Nazism, and units under his command committed several war crimes including the murder of prisoners of war and civilians.
The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by Army Group South of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Red Army, around the city of Kharkov between 19 February and 15 March 1943. Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign, and in the Soviet Union as the Donbas and Kharkov operations, the German counterstrike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod.
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.
Anton Dostler was a German army officer who fought in both World Wars. During World War II, he commanded several units as a General of the Infantry, primarily in Italy. After the Axis defeat, Dostler was executed for war crimes—specifically, ordering the execution of fifteen American prisoners of war in March 1944 during the Italian Campaign.
Franz Ritter Halder was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa Decree that allowed German soldiers to execute Soviet citizens for any reason without fear of later prosecution, leading to numerous war crimes and atrocities during the campaign. After the war, he had a decisive role in the development of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.
Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Commander-in-Chief (Oberbefehlshaber) of the German Army during World War II. Born into an aristocratic military family, he entered army service in 1901. During World War I, he served with distinction on the corps-level and division-level staff on the Western Front.
Henning Hermann Karl Robert von Tresckow was a German military officer with the rank of major general in the German Army who helped organize German resistance against Adolf Hitler. He attempted to assassinate Hitler on 13 March 1943 and drafted the Valkyrie plan for a coup against the German government. He was described by the Gestapo as the "prime mover" behind the plot of 20 July 1944 to assassinate Hitler. He committed suicide at Królowy Most on the Eastern Front upon learning of the plot's failure.
Erich Kurt Richard Hoepner was a German general during World War II. An early proponent of mechanisation and armoured warfare, he was a Wehrmacht army corps commander at the beginning of the war, leading his troops during the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France.
The 4th Panzer Army was a German panzer formation during World War II. As a key armoured component of the Wehrmacht, the army took part in the crucial battles of the German-Soviet war of 1941–45, including Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the 1943 Battle of Kiev.
Eduard Julius Ludwig von Lewinski was a Prussian general. His younger brother Alfred von Lewinski also became a Prussian general.
Gustav Anton von Wietersheim was a German general during World War II. He led the XIV Motorized Corps from its creation in 1938 until 14 September 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad.
Sir Arthur Strettell Comyns Carr was a British Liberal politician and lawyer.
Hans Laternser was a German lawyer who specialised in Anglo-Saxon law. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, that made him especially qualified to defend Germans prosecuted for war crimes by the Allied military tribunals, including the High Command Trial. He had represented several defendants at the Nuremberg Trials, such as former Field Marshals Albert Kesselring and Erich von Manstein.
Arthur Schmidt was an officer in the German military from 1914 to 1943. He attained the rank of Generalleutnant during World War II, and is best known for his role as the Sixth Army's chief of staff in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–43, during the final stages of which he became its de facto commander, playing a large role in executing Hitler's order that it stand firm despite being encircled by the Red Army. He was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union for twelve years, and was released following West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow in 1955.
Erich von Manstein was a prominent commander of Nazi Germany's World War II army (Heer). In 1949, he was tried for war crimes in Hamburg, was convicted of nine of seventeen charges and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. He served only four years before being released.
The myth of the clean Wehrmacht is the negationist notion that the regular German armed forces were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth, heavily promoted by German authors and military personnel after World War II, completely denies the culpability of the German military command in the planning and perpetration of war crimes. Even where the perpetration of war crimes and the waging of an extermination campaign, particularly in the Soviet Union – where the Nazis viewed the population as "sub-humans" ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik" conspirators – has been acknowledged, they are ascribed to the "Party soldiers corps", the Schutzstaffel (SS), but not the regular German military.
Hitler's Generals on Trial: The Last War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg is a 2010 book by Canadian historian Valerie Hébert dealing with the High Command Trial of 1947–1948. The book covers the criminal case against the defendants, all high-ranking officers of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, as well as the wider societal and historical implications of the trial. The book received generally positive reviews for its mastery of the subject and thorough assessment of the legacy of the trial.
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