Corruption within the Wehrmacht

Bribery of senior Wehrmacht officers refers to the dishonest and fraudulent conduct of high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany to enrich themselves through bribes from the regime. The corruption mechanisms demanded loyalty from the Wehrmacht in exchange for personal wealth in the form of cash, estates, and tax exemptions. It was one of the elements that tied the military to Nazism and aligned it with Adolf Hitler's colonial and genocidal goals of World War II.

Apart from corruption at the highest level, it was also widespread throughout all of the Wehrmacht's ranks. Wehrmacht soldiers engaged in the sale of supplies, uniforms, and weapons in occupied territories as well as currency speculation.

Historically, German and other European rulers commonly awarded titles, estates, and monetary rewards to diplomats and high ranking officers. This was generally done to form a bond between the ruler and important subjects. This historical practice, however, differed from the one applied by Hitler. While, in the Kingdom of Prussia, awards were usually given after successful campaigns or wars, and were made public, Hitler dispensed the rewards to his elites in secret during the war, rather than at its end.

In order to ensure the absolute loyalty of the Wehrmacht officers, and to console them over the loss of their "state within the state", Hitler had created what the American historian Gerhard Weinberg called a "...a vast secret program of bribery involving practically all at the highest levels of command". Hitler routinely presented his leading commanders with "gifts" of free estates, cars, cheques made out for large sums of cash, and lifetime exemptions from paying taxes. A typical example was a cheque made out for a half-million Reichsmarks presented to Field-Marshal Günther von Kluge in October 1942, together with the promise that he could bill the German treasury for any and all "improvements" he might wish to make to his estate.

Such was the success of Hitler's bribery system that, by 1942, many officers had come to expect the bestowing of "gifts" from Hitler, and were unwilling to bite the hand that fed them so generously. When Hitler sacked Field Marshal Fedor von Bock in December 1941, his first reaction was to contact Hitler's aide Rudolf Schmundt to ask if his sacking meant that he was no longer to receive bribes from Konto 5 (lit. "bank account 5") slush fund.

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