Blomberg, Field Marshal Werner von

Blomberg, Field Marshal Werner von (1878–1946),German Army officer who served as a staff officer during the First World War. From 1927 to 1929 he was head of the clandestine staff organization (Truppenamt) after the Versailles settlement of 1919 had banned the German General Staff, and in January 1933 he became defence minister (later war minister) in Hitler's first cabinet and, in April, C-in-C of the Wehrmacht.

Blomberg's agreement that the armed forces should no longer have the right to keep order domestically was an essential precondition to Hitler's plans for turning Germany into a National Socialist state. In return, Hitler confirmed his commitment to rearm and ignored, for the time being, the demands of some of his followers that the armed forces should become part of the Nazi Party apparatus. It was this alliance, based on common interests and goals, which proved to be ‘one of the main guarantees of the stability of the regime in the following years’ ( Deist et al., Germany and the Second World War, Vol. 1, Oxford, 1990, p. 401).

In 1936 Blomberg was promoted the regime's first field marshal but the scandalous reputation of his second wife, which Göring and other Nazi leaders quickly turned to their own advantage, forced his resignation in January 1938. This gave Hitler—who disposed of the army's C-in-C, Fritsch, at the same time—the opportunity to become war minister himself and gain complete control of the army. Blomberg took no part in the war and died while in internment at Nuremberg.

Bibliography

Barnett, C. (ed.), Hitler's Generals (London, 1989).