Wehrmacht

[ vair-mahkht; German veyr-mahkht ]

noun

1. the German armed forces of the years prior to and during World War II.

Wehrmacht

/ ˈveːrˌmaxt /

noun

1. the armed services of the German Third Reich from 1935 to 1945

Word History and Origins

Origin of Wehrmacht¹

< German, equivalent to Wehr defense + Macht force

Word History and Origins

Origin of Wehrmacht¹

from Wehr defence + Macht force

Example Sentences

The town was the site of an intense battle with the German Wehrmacht after U.S. troops landed in Normandy.

From Seattle Times

Articles in the German press have pointed to the recorded use of the slogan by several high-ranking Nazis, including Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess and the head of the Wehrmacht high command, Wilhelm Keitel.

From BBC

Horne quotes contemporaries calling the headquarters “a submarine without a periscope”: a huge blunder when facing the Wehrmacht's speedy, flexible operational plans.

From Salon

The typewriter was made in Siegmar-Schönau—a suburb of Chemnitz—by Wanderer, an early German pioneer in manufacturing bicycles, motorcycles, cars, and later military trucks and tanks for the Wehrmacht, the armed forces in the Nazi era.

From Slate

He had not handled a gun since he was a teenage conscript in Hitler’s Wehrmacht at the end of World War II.

From New York Times