Early Life and Military Career
Albert C. Wedemeyer was born on July 9, 1897, in Omaha, Nebraska and was a graduate of Creighton Prep High School. In 1919, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. As a U.S. officer, he was appointed to the German war college Kriegsakademie in Berlin, 1936-38. Wedemeyer was included in 1938 German maneuvers, which gave him unique insight into German tactical operations. When he returned to Washington, in 1938, Wedemeyer analyzed Germany's grand strategy and dissected German thinking. Wedemeyer thus became the U.S. military's foremost authority on German tactical operations, whose "most ardent student" was George C. Marshall. Wedemeyer was greatly influenced, and his career aided, by his father-in-law, Lieutenant General Stanley Dunbar Embick, who was at that time Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of the War Plans Division. At the outbreak of World War II, Wedemeyer ranked as lieutenant colonel and was assigned as a Staff Officer to the war-plans division of the United States War Department. Notably, in 1941 he was the chief author of the Victory Program, which advocated the defeat of Germany's armies in Europe as the prime war objective for the U.S. This plan was adopted and expanded as the war progressed. Additionally, Wedemeyer helped to plan the Normandy Invasion.
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