page_title: Walther von Brauchitsch
section_title: Nazi Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Walther von Brauchitsch / Nazi Germany
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. 1934 am Ehrenmal Unter den Linden, Berlin
context_page_description: Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army during World War II. Born into an aristocratic military family, Brauchitsch entered army service in 1901. During World War I, he served with distinction on the corps- and division-level staff on the Western Front.
  After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Brauchitsch was put in charge of the East Prussian Military District. He borrowed immense sums of money from Hitler and became dependent on his financial help. Brauchitsch served as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army from February 1938 until December 1941. He played a key role in the Battle of France and oversaw the German invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece. For his part in the Battle of France, he became one of twelve generals promoted to Field Marshal.
  After suffering a heart attack in November 1941 and being blamed for the failure of Operation Typhoon, the Wehrmacht's attack on Moscow, he was dismissed as Commander-in-Chief and spent the rest of the war in enforced retirement. After the war, Brauchitsch was arrested on charges of war crimes but died of pneumonia in 1948 before he could be prosecuted.
context_section_description: In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power and began to expand the military, in order to realize Hitler's military ambitions. Two years before, Brauchitsch had received his major general promotion. On 1 February 1933, he was named commander of the East Prussian Military District (Wehrkreis I) and Chief of the 1st Division in Königsberg. As a consequence of the German re-armament the command position Befehlshaber im Wehrkreis I (Commander of the 1st Military District) was expanded. The staff of the 1st Division formed the staff of the 1st Army Corps and Brauchitsch was appointed its first commanding general on 21 June 1935.
  Although Brauchitsch felt at home in Prussia, he had a clash with Erich Koch, the local Gauleiter (party head and de facto head of civil administration of the province). Koch was known as something of a crook who greatly enjoyed the power he possessed, and who would bring violence to his enemies. As neither Koch nor Brauchitsch wanted to lose their jobs in the region, the two attempted to keep their feud unofficial. As a result, Berlin hardly learned of their dispute.
  A dispute emerged a few years later, when Brauchitsch learned that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler planned to replace the army guards in East Prussia with SS men, with the purpose of persecuting Jews, Protestant and Catholic churches in the district. Even though Brauchitsch managed to prevent the SS replacement of the army troops in the region, Himmler categorized him as "a junker", and informed Hitler of the disagreement. Brauchitsch claimed he had done his duty, saying laconically, "Civilians are not allowed to enter that area."
  Brauchitsch obtained the rank of general of artillery in 1936. So when the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Werner von Fritsch, was accused of homosexuality, Hitler appointed Brauchitsch a colonel general and the new army chief, on the recommendation of the Army High Command on 4 February 1938. The homosexual allegations were in reality a trap set by Hitler as an excuse to dismiss one of the aristocratic senior officers within the Army High Command. Fritsch's removal was a severe test of the stability of the German internal administration of that time.
  Brauchitsch welcomed the Nazi policy of rearmament. The relationship between Hitler and Brauchitsch improved during Brauchitsch's confusion about whether to leave his wife for his mistress, in the middle of the Munich Crisis; Hitler set aside his usual anti-divorce sentiments and encouraged Brauchitsch to divorce and remarry. Hitler even lent him 80,000 Reichsmarks so he could afford the divorce. Over time, Brauchitsch became largely reliant on Hitler for financial help.
  Like Colonel General Ludwig Beck, Brauchitsch opposed Hitler's annexation of Austria and intervention in Czechoslovakia, although he did not resist Hitler's plans for war, again preferring to refrain from politics.
  In the final months before World War II, Brauchitsch focused on Italy's potential to aid the Nazi military cause. In May 1939 he inspected the Italian military installations in Libya, and La Spezia, to affirm Italo-German alliance. However, this turned out not to be an easy task, as the Italian leader Benito Mussolini expected economic support from the Reich in return for his military collaboration. Fritsch had already told Brauchitsch that the Italian military was in "extremely poor fighting shape". Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany's Foreign Minister and the main architect of the Axis alliance, constantly interfered with Brauchitsch's efforts, as he wanted to see his work consolidated at all costs.
caption: From left to right: Gerd von Rundstedt, Werner von Fritsch, and Werner von Blomberg at a military parade in 1934
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "1934 am Ehrenmal Unter den Linden, Berlin", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "50", "Image YResolution": "50", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Artist": "o.Ang.", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "1934:00:00 00:00:00", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "799", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "542"}