One provision of the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I (1914-1918), was that the defeated Germany could have a standing army of no more than one hundred thousand men. Many Germans thought this provision of the treaty unfair because it left their country vulnerable to invasion. The German economy had been crippled by another aspect of the treaty known as reparations, which were payments Germany was forced to make to its former enemies. In addition, the global economic depression had left many Germans unemployed.

For all these reasons, in the 1930s many young German men were eager to join the army. The politician who called the loudest for an expansion of the army was Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party—the Nazis. Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Over the next eighteen months he and...