Wehrmacht - Prominent Members

Prominent Members

Prominent German officers from the Wehrmacht era include:

• Hans-Jürgen von Arnim—Commander of Army Group Africa after Erwin Rommel
• Ludwig Beck—Chief of the General Staff of the Heer from 1933 to 1938
• Fedor von Bock—Commander of the failed Operation Typhoon
• Walther von Brauchitsch—Commander-in-Chief of the Heer from 1938 to 1941
• Wilhelm Franz Canaris—Head of the Abwehr, a Wehrmacht intelligence service
• Otto Carius—Panzer ace
• Karl Dönitz—Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine and architect of the U-boat force; last President of the Third Reich following Hitler's suicide
• Nikolaus von Falkenhorst—Commander of German ground forces during Operation Weserübung
• Adolf Galland, the longest-serving General der Jagdflieger in the Luftwaffe, supporter of the Messerschmitt Me 262's primary use as a jet fighter
• Reinhard Gehlen—Chief of military intelligence on the Eastern Front; first head of the postwar Federal Intelligence Service (BND)
• Hermann Göring—Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, Hitler's designated successor until April 1945
• Heinz Guderian—Panzer commander and architect of the Blitzkrieg strategy
• Franz Halder—Chief of the General Staff of the Heer from 1938 to 1942
• Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord—Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr and opponent of Hitler
• Erich Hartmann—Highest-scoring fighter ace of World War II, and of all time (352 victories)
• Hermann Hoth—Panzer commander on the Eastern Front
• Alfred Jodl—Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW
• Wilhelm Keitel—Commander-in-Chief of the OKW
• Albert Kesselring—An Air-Marshal of the Luftwaffe; overall commander of the Mediterranean theater
• Ewald von Kleist—A Field Marshal of the Heer
• Hans Günther von Kluge—Field Marshal and Commander of Oberbefehlshaber West
• Otto Kretschmer—Highest-scoring U-Boat ace (sank 274 223 tons of Allied shipping)
• Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb—Commander of Army Group C during the Battle of France
• Hans von Luck—Panzer commander
• Günther Lütjens—Admiral and Fleet Commander of the Bismarck flotilla
• Erich von Manstein—Field Marshal, military strategist, and prominent proponent of the Blitzkrieg
• Walter Model—Field Marshal, Commanded the defence of the Eastern Front from the Soviet counterattack
• Friedrich Paulus—Commander of German forces at Stalingrad
• Erich Raeder—Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine, credited with building the Kriegsmarine
• Walther von Reichenau—Commander of the 6th Army
• Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen—Field Marshal in command of the Stuka forces of the Luftwaffe for a time during the war, relative of the The Red Baron of World War I
• Robert Ritter von Greim—Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe in the last days of the war
• Erwin Rommel—Field Marshal, the "Desert Fox", commander of the Afrikakorps
• Hans-Ulrich Rudel—Stuka dive bomber pilot and most decorated German serviceman
• Gerd von Rundstedt—Generalfeldmarschall, held amongst the highest commands throughout World War II
• Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg—generally recognized as the leader of the 20 July plot
• Kurt Student—founder and commander of Germany's Fallschirm-Jäger airborne troops
• Walther Wever—the prime exponent of strategic bombing in the pre-war Luftwaffe, died in June 1936
• Michael Wittman—Panzer ace
• Erwin von Witzleben—prominent conspirator of the 20 July plot