NAZI Rearmament: Reintroducing Conscription (March 15-16, 1935)
Figure 1.--Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced the reintroduction of military conscription for all able bodied men who had reached 19 years of age (Match 15, 1935). This was an even more serious violation than the creation of the Luftwaffe. Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick drafted the conscription law. The Wehrmacht was to be expanded to 0.5 million men--five times that allowed by the Versailles Treaty. This meant that Hitler was scrapping the Versailles Peace Treaty. That of course was only the beginning.
German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced the existence of the German Air Force--the Luftwaffe (March 15, 1935). The Luftwaffee already had 2,500 planes--a major force. This was a direct violation of one of the basic restrictions in the the Versailles Treaty. He also announced the reintroduction of military conscription for all able bodied men who had reached 19 years of age. . This was an even more serious violation than the creation of the Luftwaffe. Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick drafted the conscription law. (Frick also help draft the Enabling Act and the Nuremberg Laws and was one of the IMT Nuremberg defendents.) The Wehrmacht was to be expanded to 0.5 million men--five times that allowed by the Versailles Treaty. This meant that Hitler was scrapping the Versailles Peace Treaty. That of course was only the beginning. Germany was preparing to build a 36-division Army. Germany’s national defence force during the Weimar Era was the Reichswehr. The military was in the Conscription Law renamed the Wehrmacht. The new Wehrmacht consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force). The NAZIs after the announcement staged a large military parade the following day in Berlin. Defense Minister General Werner von Blomberg announced that Germany would now be able to take its rightful place among nations again. Hitler followed his consistent approach of speaking about how committed Germany was to peace. [Evans, p. 627.] In addition to laying the foundation for a massive military firce, conscription also created jobs, helping to solve the seious unemployment problem in Germany at the time Hitler seized power. This along with expanded orders for arms and equipment, various jobs programs like the RAD, dismisals of women and Jews (not counted in the unemoloyment statistics) was ending the Depression era unemployment problem in Germany.
Sources
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power (Penguin: New York, 2005), 941p.
