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Einsatzbereit – statement meaning, "Ready for action." Einsatzgruppen – "mission groups", or "task forces". Einsatzgruppen were battalion-sized, mobile killing units made up of SiPo, SD or SS Special Action Groups under the command of the RSHA. They followed the Wehrmacht into occupied territories of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
The German term "Wehrmacht" stems from the compound word of German: wehren, "to defend" and Macht, "power, force". [c] It has been used to describe any nation's armed forces; for example, Britische Wehrmacht meaning "British Armed Forces".
After Army Group H was created in the German-occupied Netherlands in November 1944, Army Group B instead took the center of the Western Front, located between Army Group H to the north and Army Group G to the south. It is notable on the Western Front as the army group to oversee the German Ardennes Offensive ("Battle of the Bulge").
Army Group Centre (German: Heeresgruppe Mitte) was the name of two distinct strategic German Army Groups that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II.The first Army Group Centre was created during the planning of Operation Barbarossa, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, as one of the three German Army formations assigned to the invasion.
These ranks and insignia were specific to the Heer and in special cases to senior Wehrmacht officers in the independent services; the uniforms and rank systems of the other branches of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Kriegsmarine (Navy), were different, as were those of the SS which was a Party organization outside the Wehrmacht.
The Eastern Front was a theatre of World War II which primarily involved combat between the nations and allies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.Combat in the Eastern Front began with the two powers remaining peaceful towards each other, with the annexation of countries such as Albania and portions of Poland by Germany and its allies, and the annexation of Finland and the rest of Poland by ...
Russian émigrés and defectors from the Soviet Union formed the Russian Liberation Army or fought as Hilfswillige within German units of the Wehrmacht primarily on the Eastern Front. [7] Non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the Ostlegionen (literally "Eastern Legions"). The East Legions comprized a total of 175,000 personnel. [8]
Feldgendarmerie units were generally given occupation duties in territories directly under the control of the Wehrmacht. Their duties policing the areas behind the front lines ranged from straightforward traffic control and population control to suppression and execution of partisans and the apprehension of enemy stragglers.