Wiederbewaffnung Wiederbewaffnung ( rearmament ) refers to the United States of America plan to help build up West Germany after World War II . They could not function outside an alliance framework . These events led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr , the West German army , in 1955 . Heinz Guderian stated that the fight was mainly between the Soviet Union and the United States . “ People resent the fact that while the United States followed a policy of German disarmament and of friendship with Russia after the war , it now advocates rearmament they could just as easily argue that it was for cooperation with the Soviet Union and to change its policy ” . During the NATO meeting in September 1950 France decided to become isolated for the operation because they did not want Germany to join NATO . The Federal Republic of Germany ( West Germany ) wanted to join NATO because the then German chancellor Konrad Adenauer decided that it would appease the fears of its neighbors and it would gain Germany ' s trust and show willingness to cooperate . At first the US was skeptical about the whole operation , but after Dwight D Eisenhower agreed to endorse the deal then the US was for the operation . The Federal Republic of Germany in Paris , France , agreed to support the operation . In 1955 West Germany joined NATO . East and West Germany were still then unarmed but had defense systems ( western Bundesgrenzschutz and eastern Kasernierte Volkspolizei ) . Slowly , West German sailors were put on US navy ships and also West Germany helped to supply the navy . This whole operation was West Germany to possess an effective military force . The US supplied the potential sailors with intensive training to help build up the navy for the future as West Germany set a goal to have up to 50 , 000 men . Theodor Blank wanted to have a bigger military than Italy because he wanted to project German power and make bigger contributions . To get his point across he used this chart : To reach that goal they took the West German border security force ( Bundesgrenzschutz ) and changed them into military personal , they used young men having “ difficulty ” finding something useful to do , and then there were men who volunteered . West Germany issued a draft . At first West Germany was skeptical of that because they did not want to have people think about the Hitler army ( Wehrmacht ) . There was enough favor for the new army the state then became a more right sided party . The social democrats still argued that even though the numbers were high and there was enough positive reaction , it would still not be enough to revive German militarism . To build the military ' s strength the US established the Naval Historical Team ( NHT ) to help with the British - American World War II navy historical project . Both countries recruited naval veterans and naval activists to help build up the navy by gaining a better perspective of the war in the water . NHT was not there for long studying the history and tactics for fighting at sea . They were then told to get information about the Soviet naval forces . The first thing they tried to study was the landing and targets of the Soviet navy . Eventually this agency became the coordinating staff of Bundesmarine , the West German navy . Another group of veterans were called the labor service units to do similar tasks . The veterans that were hired were from former " Kriegsmarine " and they did a lot of converting of surveillance . Eventually the operations were set to the ground as well . Chancellor Adenauer created the Blank Office ( Amt Blank ) to gain sovereignty through the defense contribution . He also hired Kriegsmarine veterans to work with him . With the different organizations working together a naval proposal referred to as the Wagner Paper was adopted to use as a negotiation tool at the conference of the European Defence Community ( ECD ) . The ECD was held in Paris and it became a dead lock for all the navel issues in 1951 . France did not approve of West Germany having its own navy for defense . They did not want them to have submarines or destroyers as a part of their navy because it was a threat to France and the weapons were perceived as Nazi regime . The resolve the issue the Wagner Paper was sent to the SHAPE organization . SHAPE wanted the navy to have weapons and have a big navy . Eventually France came to a conclusion , they offered some escorts and they got their desired size on the navy . The West German military was under the supreme allied NATO control . This hurt the militaries command positions . The growth of the German Bundeswehr proved a key element in the growth of West German influence in central Europe . This , along with the Treaty of Paris which cemented the elements of Western European economic cooperation helped to integrate post - war West Germany into European life . At the same time , the Soviet Union used this as foundational justification to implement the Warsaw Pact , which provided substantial military and political control over key Eastern European states . In April 1985 Eastern Europe got together in Warsaw to sign an extension to the 1955 Treaty on Friendship . The Warsaw pact ensured that it will be a part of the international political and military for years to come . It has been used to develop some other Eastern European militaries in a reasonable manner so there is no conflict between ranks , power , and alliances .