Glossary of German military terms

Glossary

A

• A-Stand – forward defensive gunner's position on aircraft.
• abgeschossen – shot down; destroyed by means of firing.
• Abschnitt – sector, district.
• Ablösungsdivision – relief division, later renamed Eingreif division.
• Abteilung – a battalion-sized unit of armor, artillery or cavalry; in other contexts a detachment or section.
• * Abteilungsarzt – battalion physician
• * Abteilungschef – battalion commander in artillery and cavalry formations
• * Abteilungsführer – substitute battalion commander in artillery and cavalry formations
• * Abteilungsveterinär – battalion veterinarian
• Abwehr – "defense"; as a shortening of Spionage Abwehr the term referred to the counter-espionage service of the German High Command, headed by Admiral Canaris. Also an element in such compounds as Fliegerabwehr-Kanone "anti-aircraft gun."
• Abzeichen – insignia; badge of rank, appointment or distinction.
• Adlerangriff – "Eagle Attack"; term for projected "decisive attack" by the Luftwaffe on RAF Fighter Command under the direction of Hermann Göring, instituted to gain control of the skies from the Royal Air Force and soften Britain for the impending invasion forces planned in Operation Seelöwe. These attacks ultimately failed and the air campaign is now known in the anglophone world as the Battle of Britain.
• Afrika Korps – the German force commanded by Erwin Rommel, known as the "Wüstenfuchs", which fought in Hitler's North African campaigns between 1941 and 1943. Allied efforts to defeat Rommel were high and many historians believe that had Rommel convinced Hitler to provide him with three additional divisions of tanks, he very well could have gained command of the Suez Canal in early 1942 and cut off the vast supplies being sent from America to the Soviet Union via the Persian Gulf. In the end, the Afrika Korps was defeated by combined offensives by british and american forces.
• Aggregat 4 – original name of the German V2 rocket.
• AGRU-Front – Technische Ausbildungsgruppe für Front U-Boote – technical training group for front-line U-boats.
• AK – Alle Kraft , naval command for flank speed. Also "Äusserste Kraft!"
• Aal – "eel"; slang for torpedo.
• "Alarm!" – U-boat order to activate the alarm and begin a crash dive. Also "Fire!", "Air raid!" for Luftwaffe fighter pilots, etc.
• Alarmtauchen – crash dive.
• "Alle Maschinen stop!" – naval command: "Stop all engines".
• "Alle Mann von Bord!" – naval command; "All hands, abandon ship!"
• Allgemeine SS – "General SS", general main body of the Schutzstaffel made up of the full-time administrative, security, intelligence and police branches of the SS as well as the broader part-time membership that turned out for parades, rallies and "street actions" such as Kristallnacht; also comprised reserve and honorary members.
• Alte Hasen – "Old hares"; slang for military veterans who survived front-line hardships.
• Amerikabomber – A spring 1942 aviation contract competition for a Luftwaffe trans-oceanic range strategic bomber, only resulting in a few completed prototype aircraft from two firms, and many advanced designs that mostly remained on paper.
• Ami – German slang for an American soldier.
• Anton – German spelling alphabet for A equivalent to Alpha
• Ärmelband – cuff title. Worn on the left sleeve, the title contains the name of the wearer's unit or a campaign they are part of. Cuff titles are still used in the German Army and Luftwaffe.
• Amt – office, main office branch.
• Amt Mil – German Army intelligence organization that succeeded the Abwehr.
• Amtsgruppe Allgemeine Wehrmachtsangelegenheiten – Department of the OKW responsible for general military affairs. in 1938–39, this office was called the Wehrwirtschaftsstab.
• Angriff – attack.
• Angriffsmuster – attack pattern.
• Angriffsziel – attack objective.
• Ansatz – First World War military term, used in National Socialist vocabulary in the same ways as the word Einsatz, though less frequently; one referred to bringing a piece of equipment, troops or a weapon "zum Ansatz".
• Anschluss – unification of Austria and Germany
• Armee – a field army, typically a numbered army. During WW1 the armies Prussia, Bavaria and Württemberg were called Armeen. Cf. 'Heer'.
• Armeeabteilung – command between a corps and an army, an enlarged corps headquarters.
• Armeekorps – infantry corps.
• Armee-Nachrichten-Führer – army signals officer, served on the staff HQ of an army.
• Armeeoberkommando – field army command.
• Armee-Pionier-Führer – senior field army engineer officer, served on the staff HQ of an army.
• Armee-Sanitäts-Abteilung – field army medical battalion.
• Artillerie – artillery.
• Atomwaffe – nuclear weapon.
• Atomkrieg – nuclear war.
• Aufbau Ost – code name for the preparatory measures taken amid great secrecy for the attack on the Soviet Union, now known as Operation Barbarossa.
• aufgelöst – "dissolved"; disbanded, written off the order of battle.
• Aufklärung – reconnaissance.
• Aufklärungs-Abteilung – reconnaissance unit or battalion, also used to designate certain battalion-sized units.
• Aufklärungsgruppe – "Reconnaissance group", an aerial recon group of the Luftwaffe, e.g. Aufklärungsgruppe 11.
• "Auftauchen!" – "surface the boat".
• Auftragstaktik – mission-type tactics, the central component of German warfare since the 19th century
• Aus der Traum – "It's over!", "It's finished!", literally, "The dream is over"; a common German phrase for dashed hopes and a slogan painted by German soldiers near the end of the war expressing the inevitability of their situation.
• Ausführung – version, model, variant, batch, for non-aviation related vehicles and ordnance.
• Ausführung!/Ausführen! – command to execute a given order
• ausgefallen – statement that equipment is down, has failed, is out of action.
• Ausrüstung – equipment
• Ausschreitungen – bloody atrocities.
• Auszeichnung – medal, accolade, distinction.
• außer Dienst – a retired officer. Example: Oberleutnant a. D. Johann Schmidt.

  B

• B-Stand – Dorsal defensive gunner's position on aircraft.
• Backbord – Port side of a ship.
• Balkenkreuz – equal-armed black cross flanked in white, the emblem used on German Empire and Third Reich military aircraft and vehicles from March/April 1918 until V-E Day
• Banditen – bandits, partisans in occupied territories in World War II; bewaffnete Banden – armed gangs; Soldaten in Zivilkleidung – soldiers in civilian dress;.
• Bandengebiet – territory controlled by partisan squads in occupied territories during World War II.
• Barbarossa – code name for the massive Nazi attack against the Soviet Union which began during June 1941 and failed miserably in the end despite early success. Operation Barbarossa is the English rendering of the German "Unternehmen Barbarossa." Barbarossa or `Redbeard' lived from 1123 AD to 1190 and was both King of Germany and Holy Roman emperor from 1152–90. He made a sustained attempt to subdue Italy and the papacy, but was eventually defeated at the battle of Legnano in 1176. He was drowned in Asia Minor while on his way to the Third Crusade. Nonetheless, German superstition holds to this day and certainly was evoked by Hitler at the time, that Barbarossa rests in a mountain in Germany awaiting the moment to emerge and save Germany from certain defeat and to establish German ascendancy.
• Bataillon – battalion
• * Bataillonsadjutant – battalion adjutant
• * Bataillonsarzt – battalion medical officer
• * Bataillonsführer – acting battalion commander
• * Bataillonskommandeur – battalion commander
• * Bataillonsveterinär – battalion veterinary officer
• Batterie – battery, artillery piece; also used for an electrical battery. sometimes also called Akkumulator, abbreviated as Akku.
• * Batteriechef – battery commander
• * Batterieführer – acting battery commander
• * Batterieoffizier – gun position officer
• Baubelehrung – vessel familiarization; when a boat or ship crew studied the construction of a new vessel; see "KLA."
• Baubeschreibung – general arrangement drawing sheet, giving basic dimensions and other measurement & physical parameters, of either German front line; or Beute/"captured" Allied aircraft, in World War I. The same term was used in the Third Reich era for more comprehensive, multi-page technical document works for factory proposals concerning combat aircraft designs to the RLM and Luftwaffe.
• Baupionier – army construction engineer.
• B-Dienst – Beobachtungsdienst, literally, "observation service"; German Navy cryptanalytical department.
• BDM Bund Deutscher Mädel – League of German Girls, the girls' segment of the Hitler Youth.
• B. d. U. – Befehlshaber der U-Boote – Commander-in-Chief of the U-boats ; see FdU.
• Befehl – order, command. "Zu Befehl!" was an affirmative phrase on par with "Jawohl".
• Befehlshaber – commander-in-chief; lit. "one who has commands." Sometimes also used to refer to the headquarters of a C-in-C as an alternative to Hauptquartier.
• Benzin – gasoline, petrol.
• Benzintank – fuel tank.
• Beobachter – artillery or air observer
• Beobachtungsoffizier – Artillery officer
• Beobachtungswagen – observation or reconnaissance vehicle.
• Bereitschaft – readiness. In the German civil defense and Allgemeine SS also a company size unit.
• Bergepanzer – armoured recovery vehicle.
• Berlin radar – most advanced airborne intercept radar of the WW II Luftwaffe in 1944–45, based on captured cavity magnetron technology, operated on SHF-band 3.3 GHz frequency
• Beschlagschmied – farrier; see Hufbeschlagschmied.
• Betriebstoff – fuel.
• Beutepanzer – captured tank or armoured vehicle.
• Beutewaffen – captured enemy weapons and munitions. Germany catalogued them by a code number, followed by a single code letter to indicate the nation that produced and used it.
• Bewährungseinheit – disciplinary unit.
• BK – Bordkanone. heavy-calibre cannon for offensive use on aircraft.
• Blasen – U-boat order; "Blow the tanks!"
• Blechkoller – "tin fright"; in U-boats, a form of nervous tension that could be caused by depth charge attacks and resulted in violence or hysteria.
• Blechkrawatte – "tin necktie," slang for the Knight's Cross
• Blitzkrieg – "lightning war"; not a widely used German military term, this word became popular in the Allied press and initially referred to fast-moving battle tactics developed principally by German military theorists, most notably Erwin Rommel, Heinz Guderian, and Erich von Manstein, using massed tanks and ground-attack bombers to speedily penetrate enemy lines at points and move to their rear, causing confusion and panic among enemy forces.
• Blaukreuz – chemical warfare agent consisting of arsenic compounds, respiratory poison
• Bola – contraction of Bodenlafette, a lightly armoured casemate-style of bulged ventral defensive gunner's position, using only flexible weapon mounts, a common fitment on German bomber aircraft designs, usually under the nose.
• Bomber B – the abortive World War II-era aviation contract competition meant to replace all previous Luftwaffe medium bombers with a single design, meant to be used for all but the longest-range missions, and function as a combination of medium and heavy bomber, and meant to be powered by a pair of high-output aviation piston engines such as the Junkers Jumo 222.
• Brotbeutel – haversack
• Brücke – bridge. Can mean either the road structure or a ship's command center, also the supporting framework that existed below the bird-like monoplane wings of the earlier examples of the Etrich Taube before World War I.
• Brückenleger – bridgelayer.
• Brummbär – "grumbling bear"; a children's word for "bear" in German. It was the nickname for a heavy mobile artillery piece.
• Bundes – federal.
• Bundeswehr – "Federal Defense Force", name adopted for the West German armed forces after the fall of the Third Reich. The Bundeswehr consists of the Heer, Luftwaffe and Marine, as well as the Streitkräftebasis and Zentraler Sanitätsdienst.
• Bürger – citizen.
• Bürgerkrieg – civil war.