Talk:Reichswehr

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Military history: National / European / German

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Brigade size

"On 30 September 1919, the army was reorganised as the Übergangsheer (Transitional Army), and the force size was reduced to 20 brigades.[2] About 400,000 men were left in the armed forces" This is rather confusing as there is no clear explanation to how many troops where in a post war brigade. ""The 1914 German infantry division was comparable in size, 17,500, and was organized into 2 brigades.""-http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/services/dropoff/schilling/mil_org/milorgan_99.html If it's going by WW1 sizes then the 43 brigades would have contained 322,500 men not matching the troop 'downsize' to 400,000 men 38.104.198.186 (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request for suggestions on best English translation for 'Reichswehr'

I noticed that this article (which I translated from the German Wikipedia in late December 2021) calls the minister in charge of the Reichswehr at various points the Armed Forces minister, the Defense minister AND the Reichswehr minister. No idea why I did that, but it really should be the same throughout, so I'd like to see if there's any kind of agreement on the most historically (rather than linguistically) accurate English title for him and on the best name for the Reichswehr itself when it's not called simply 'Reichswehr'.

I'm against 'Defense' altogether because it's anachronistic (see Ministry of defence, which points out that it's a post-WWII name) and because I think that people of the era would have found it odd in spite of the fact that 'Wehr' does mean 'defense'. Even a dovish socialist would probably have seen the Reichswehr as Germany's armed forces – to be used in defense – but still as an army/navy in the 19th and early 20th century understanding of what those were. And the armed forces themselves and anyone right of center (along with many in the center) would have still been harboring much of the old imperial view.

Using 'Reichswehr' by itself would be OK in this article, but in others where the reader might not know what it means (English or German), I would lean towards 'Armed Forces' with a parathetical 'Reichswehr' on at least the first use.

I'd appreciate hearing other people's thoughts, especially since I'm running into the issue in some translations I'm working on now. Thanks, GHStPaulMN (talk) 01:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Update of 12 Feb 2024

Besides adding citations, I made 2 larger changes:

I removed what historian Klaus-Jürgen Müller said about Seeckt because I could find no mention anywhere of him espousing "a German-Soviet war of revenge against Poland and France", and Seeckt was everything but "adventurous". I replaced the old version with a more standard view of the Reichswehr under his leadership. Müller's comments about Schleicher are more mainstream, so I didn't change them.

I also largely rewrote the "state within a state" section because not all historians agree with the claim. Rather than presenting it as an accepted fact like the old version did, I gave the views of both sides. Most of what the old version said in support of a state within a state provided no sources, and I couldn't find much to support the specifics, so I rewrote the support based on what I could find. GHStPaulMN (talk) 12:47, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]