With the end of World War I, the German Army had not been defeated in the field. Surrender had come due to depleted resources and war weariness at home. When the proud German soldiers returned to their country from war-torn France and Belgium, they were welcomed as heroes.
The bitter terms of the Versailles Treaty placed the vast majority of blame for the Great War on Germany, sowiang the seeds of the Nazi rise to power and the coming of another even more terrible world war. Through the upheaval of the interwar years, the German Army, known as the Heer, survived, and its leaders embarked on a clandestine effort to circumvent the terms of the Versailles Treaty that, among other things, had limited its fighting strength to 100,000 men.
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