Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht was a German-derived expression commonly used on Earth in the 1930s-1940s to indicate the combined regular German military, consisting of its army (Heer) – one of its most senior officers having been Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel () – navy (Kriegsmarine), and air force (Luftwaffe) of (Nazi) Germany, not including the armed ground forces of the Nazi Party's own "Schutzstaffel" (SS) force. Its emblem was in German parlance called "Balkenkreuz" (translated as "beam cross"), and was carried on all vehicles of the organization on Earth, as well as on those of its 23rd century derivative on the planet Ekos.
== Alternate timeline Wehrmacht ==
In an alternate 1944 caused by the Temporal Cold War, the Wehrmacht army forces, alongside the SS, were able to conquer Europe and the eastern seaboard of the United States. Their occupation was fiercely fought against by the American Resistance. The resistance ambushed a small prisoner convoy that consisted of an Ford Model 51 truck that transported Captain Jonathan Archer from a field hospital for questioning, and escorted by a BMW R75 motorcycle and a Wehrmacht Volkswagen Kübelwagen (though driven by a SS soldier), carrying the license plate "WH-52552". All vehicles were damaged during the attack and their German occupants killed. ()
Concurrently, a Wehrmacht Generalmajor, arriving in a Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track vehicle, was stationed at the occupied American White House as liaison officer in order to relay orders from Adolf Hitler to the Na'kuhl, who were purportedly developing advanced weaponry for Nazi Germany. Under orders to provide the Na'kuhl with resources, the misguided general belatedly realized that they were following their own agenda and was subsequently killed by the Na'kuhl leader Vosk. ()
This timeline was later averted by Archer and his crew of from 2155. ()
=== Luftwaffe ===
The German air force branch of the regular Wehrmacht military, the Luftwaffe, also maintained a presence during the occupation of the eastern United States in the alternate timeline . Its air force operations in the occupied territories were overseen by a Luftwaffe regional command. One of the airplanes the Luftwaffe operated was the Stuka dive-bomber plane. A squadron of these planes, retrofitted with by the Na'kuhl provided plasma cannons, were stationed at an air base north of Manhattan and were later used for attacking the Enterprise over New York City in order to prevent it from in turn destroying the temporal conduit the Na'kuhl were constructing. ()
Another airplane type employed by the Luftwaffe had been the He 111 bomber, several of which were seen by Jonathan Archer in the time stream as the proper timeline was realigning itself due to his and his crew's actions. ()
The Stuka was also operated by the mirror universe counterpart of the Luftwaffe. (, opening credits)
== Ekosian Wehrmacht ==
In the mid-2260s, the historical German Wehrmacht was recreated on the planet Ekos as a result from an ill-advised attempt by historian John Gill to reform Ekosian society, which was in the throes of anarchy, along the lines of a modified form of National Socialism. 
Originally dispatched by the Federation to serve as a cultural observer only, and in clear breach of the Prime Directive, Gill believed that by establishing a passive version of the Nazi state, but complete with such organizations as the SA, SS, Wehrmacht, and their accouterments – resulting in a severe case of cultural contamination – he could quell the upheaval on Ekos, setting himself up as Führer after his role model, Adolf Hitler.
However, with power surreptitiously usurped by Deputy Führer Melakon, Gill's social experiment quickly went awry and started to emulate what had happened on Earth in the 1930s-1940s. In 2268, a publicly shown newsreel showed Ekosian Wehrmacht armed forces gearing up for an aggressive campaign against the Zeons, immigrants from the neighboring planet , and by that time a much persecuted minority. Shortly thereafter a solitary Ekosian Wehrmacht Generalmajor was present at a rally, amid a crowd of party, and SS officials, where Melakon and Gill presented their "Final Decision" for the "Zeon problem".
Interference by the Ekosian and Zeon underground alliance, aided by the crew of , who were sent to Ekos to investigate, resulted in the death of the two Führers and their intentions were seemingly thwarted. ()
== Appendices ==
=== Background information ===
Though the expression "Wehrmacht" (translated in the English language as "defense force") was, and to date is, almost universally used, even among Germans themselves, to indicate the army branch, its proper usage was to denominate the entirety of the regular (as opposed to the SS; see background note for that organization) German military, thus including the air force ("Luftwaffe") as well as the naval forces ("Kriegsmarine" or "Marine" for short). The correct German word for army is "Heer" and the correct full, formal, official and bureaucratic usage is "Wehrmacht Heer", hence the "WH" on the license plates carried by their vehicles ("WL" and "WM" respectively for the other two branches, and, obviously, "SS" in runic script for that organization).
While the Ekosian general was a clear cut reference to the army branch of the Wehrmacht, the other army references in the Ekosian newsreel were more tentative, though still there nevertheless. The reel contained especially produced footage for the episode, interspersed with clippings of actual, historical German news, or propaganda footage. In the late 1930s prior to the outbreak of World War II, the military branch of the SS, the Waffen-SS, was at the time still very small and as "amateurs" despised by the regular German military. Developing somewhat sequestered from German society and military alike in that era, they, excepting two very limited and near unnoticed, small unit actions in the 1938 "consensual" Austria and Sudetenland annexations (actually meant to be their baptisms as a military unit), did not partake in any open military maneuvers until the September 1939 Polish campaign, the actual start of the war. The above and the to the right featured parading soldiers in the reel, lacking any discernible SS insignia (on the uniform collars in particular), were from a newsreel of the 9 April 1940 Wehrmacht occupation of Copenhagen, Denmark, and in which the Waffen-SS had not taken any part, they instead amassing at that time on the western border in preparation for the May 1940 Blitzkrieg campaign in the West. 
The tank clipping, shot elsewhere in Denmark during the 9 April 1940 campaign, unequivocally showed Wehrmacht tanks. The very first SS tank unit only became operational at the start of 1942, well into the war. As a privileged part of the Nazi party, the SS was given preferential treatment, and had first pick of the very best and most modern weaponry German manufactures had to offer at any given time, which the tanks featured in the reel – two s and a tank – were most definitely not. Already obsolete at the start of the war, both machines were by 1942 in an advanced state of being phased out for operational duties, and neither had ever served with any SS armored unit.
In reality, the Luftwaffe, which in English translates as "air weapon", was commanded by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who actually can be spotted in the newsreel of Hitler's visit to New York City in "Storm Front, Part II". Nevertheless, this was not established as canon in the episode. The Luftwaffe had also been the primaryA little known fact is, due to its limited participation, that the air force of Germany's WWII ally, Italy, had also had a presence in the battle. opponent of the British Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain (in which the aforementioned He 111 served as the Luftwaffe's primary bomber), recreated by Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir as a favorite holodeck program, who played RAF pilots in the simulation, as established in the episodes. The Luftwaffe, which had historically lost the battle, was however, not referred to by name in any of the episodes, being merely referred to with the slang expression "Jerry" by O'Brien and Bashir. The immediate predecessor of the Luftwaffe had been the First World War-era "Imperial German Flying Corps" ( – "air combat forces" – at the time merely an Imperial German Army branch, much like its contemporary American United States Army Air Corps counterpart was), in which Göring himself had served as a pilot – as did Art Director Franz Bachelin for that matter (The Making of Star Trek, p.101) – becoming a fighter ace in the process, and on whose remnants the Luftwaffe was founded. One of its fighter aircraft appeared in the opening credits of the mirror universe Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly", indicating that plane was manufactured on mirror universe Earth as well.
Bachelin incidentally, declined Göring's invitation after that war to help rebuild the German air force, after which he decided to emigrate to the United States in 1928, before the Nazis rose to power in 1933. 
The Stukas seen in "Storm Front" were entirely created as CGI by Fred Pienkos at Eden FX, whereas those seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly" was historical footage, as was the footage of the HE 111s seen in the reset time stream. The "In a Mirror, Darkly" historical footage concerned a clipping taken from an actual, contemporary German newsreel. According to the accompanying (and contemporary) German audio commentary these Stukas were attacking the French during the May-June 1940 Blitzkrieg campaign in France. The Luftwaffe has also been alluded to in the Ekosian newsreel as the launch of a V-2 rocket, again actual historical footage (showing a pre-operational test launch at , before that test site was largely obliterated by the RAF in 1944), was also featured. Historically, it had been the Luftwaffe that was the Wehrmacht branch assigned the operation of this kind of weaponry.
On a real world note, Bachelin's subordinate and successor on the Original Series, Star Treks legendary Art Director Matt Jefferies, had, unlike Bashir and O'Brien, actually fought the Luftwaffe as a bomber pilot in World War II, famously surviving a mid-air collision in January 1943 of his B-17 bomber (also flown by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, albeit in the Pacific theater of the war) with a Luftwaffe Messerschmidt 109 fighter plane over North Africa. (Beyond the Clouds, Chapter Seven) Producer Fred Freiberger too had fought the Luftwaffe as bomber navigator in the 8th USAAF and spent two years in German captivity, after his B-17 plane had been shot down in August 1943 over Germany – which in his particular case was potentially hazardous as he was of Jewish descent, though he was shielded from prying Nazi eyes to an extent, as German POW camps for captured Allied air force personnel, the so called " Luft" camps, were traditionally administered and manned by their Luftwaffe counterparts. 
The Kriegsmarine has almost never been alluded to in Star Trek, save for the Starfleet vessel , referenced to in and named after several cruisers having served in the German navy, including in the Kriegsmarine, as well as for the appearances of Type VII U-Boats – the most ubiquitous type used by the Kriegsmarine in World War II – in the title sequence of the two "In a Mirror, Darkly" episodes. These clippings constituted recycled footage from the 2000 Universal Studios war film . In 2024 though, the Kriegsmarine became once more affiliated with a licensed Star Trek production, albeit in a circuitous manner, when its battleship became selected as one of four historical 20th century warships for an optional Star Trek upgrade in the online World of Warships computer game during a event which ran from 11 July-7 August (also including the , incidentally); the Gneisenau upgrade option consisted of a -era Vulcan disguise, with the additional option of having her commanded by Spock.
World War II-era German soldiers were in the Star Trek television franchise, aside from "Patterns of Force" and the two "Storm Front" episodes, also featured in the fourth season two-part episode . But for reasons that can only be guessed at, Star Trek producers had, the two generals excepted, invariably chosen to portray only soldiers belonging to the SS. This seemed a bit incongruous as the Wehrmacht had been the larger organization by far (enlisting approximately 18 million soldiers during its existence, whereas the SS in its entirety, non-combat units included, had comprised of approximately 1.2 million volunteers), having carried the brunt of both combat, as well as occupation duties. The Kübelwagen and the general in the two "Storm Front" episodes, as well as the more ephemeral references in "Patterns of Force", were the only allusions Star Trek has ever made to the regular German army. The SS counterpart of the Wehrmacht brigadier general would have been an "SS-Oberführer" or an "SS-Brigadeführer" – one of each actually seen in the by the Ekosion Generalmajor attended rally – sporting different insignia on both their uniforms and headgear.
In post-war Germany itself, the matter of showing Nazi – as in SA and SS – uniforms on television in an entertainment production was a sensitive one, resulting that "Patterns of Force" became the only Original Series episode not to be aired in its two original runs on the public ZDF network in the mid-1970s and on the private Sat.1 network in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Only in 1996 was the (dubbed) episode finally shown as "Schablonen der Gewalt" on German pay TV, shortly after it first time German-language release on VHS the year previously, and included on all subsequent DVD/Blu-ray Disc season sets. On 4 November 2011 it was finally shown on the public network channel ZDFneo as well. (; TOS Season 2 DVD-special feature, "Red Shirt Logs: Bjo Trimble on censorship")
This sensitivity was not restricted to "Patterns of Force" only, even the acclaimed had to wait until 18 January 1988 for its first-time airing in the country by broadcaster SAT1, even though the exposure to Nazism had been rather minimal in that episode. (Das Star Trek Universum, 1989, p. 340)
=== See also ===
* 
=== Footnote ===
=== External links ===
* 
* 
de:Luftwaffe
fr:Luftwaffe
it:Luftwaffe
nl:Luftwaffe
Category:Earth military organizations