The German Army Confronts The NSFO

On 22 December 1943, after catastrophic defeats at Stalingrad and in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, Adolf Hitler hoped to change his and Germany's approaching fate by establishing a new system of political officers in the Wehrmacht. Hitler expected his new National Sozialistischer Fuhrungs-Offiziere (National Socialist Leadership Officers), commonly known as NSFOs, to make Nazi fanatics out of the politically apathetic German soldiers so they would fight to the death for the Fuhrer. To direct this NSF programme, he created a new staff in the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW). The Chief of NSF/OKW, General Hermann Reinecke, had direct access to Hitler and executed his duties in the name of the Fuhrer, but he also had the unenviable task of coordinating his activities with Martin Bormann, the Leader of the Party Chancellery of the NSDAP.' Thus Hitler gave the members of his Party Chancellery, and particularly Bormann, a potential for immense influence in the NSF programme. On 6 February 1944 the Chief of OKW directed each military service to establish an NSF Staff similar to OKW's.2 This article deals with the indifference, inefficiency, resistance and bitter in-fighting which took place during the implementation of the programme by the staff officers in the High Command of the Army (OKH). In this negatively-charged atmosphere, there were personal and professional jealousies plus bickering between the staff officers in OKW and OKH and between members of the military hierarchy and the Party Chancellery. Much of the final failure of the programme in fulfilling the desires of Hitler can be laid to these tensions and the lack of unity and uncertainty which resulted.3

Archaeology · Economic history · German · Political science · European history and politics · German History and Society · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

• Les Richtmänner de la Wehrmacht, des relais de l’idéologie nazie au plus proche des soldats

  Geoffrey Koenig•Revue d’Allemagne et des pays de…•2022

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