Following President Paulvon Hindenburg’s death on August 2, 1934, Adolf Hitler became the commander-in-chief of Germany. All of the officers and soldiers for Germany’s military were required to pledge their loyalty to the new Fuehrer. After he assumed power, Germany started to openly disregard most of the military restrictions, established by the Treaty of Versailles, and reinstated conscription on March 16,1935. 

The new conscription law was introduced with the name of ‘Wehrmacht.’ Therefore, March 16, 1935, is regarded as the Wehrmacht’s founding date. The official announcement of the Wehrmacht existence was announced on October 15,1935. 

Even though the scale of Germany’s standing army was required to be around 1,00,000 men, new groups of conscripts that were almost equal to that size started to receive military training every year after 1935. The authority and the organization of the Wehrmacht is viewed by many to be Nazi creations, in spite of the various political affiliations of the high command. The Wehrmacht’s insignia was based on the famous Iron Cross, which had been widely used for tank and aircraft marking during the latter part of the First World War. Nazi revanchism and expansionism led to World War II, which resulted in the destruction of Germany’s political and economic infrastructures and led to its division.