In 1939, Germany perhaps had the most advanced and strongest armed forces of any nation in the world. At the same time, the Wehrmacht was unprepared for war and was outnumbered by the enemy when war came.

The Versailles Treaty had forced Germany to scrap most of its war materiel. As a consequence, German rearmament required the production of new weapons and equipment, from machine guns to artillery to tanks. The Allies, France in particular, had large stores of World War I era equipment which they continued to rely upon. In 1939, therefore, Germany went to war with a technical edge over its opponents, an edge it kept in many areas until British and American military technology surpassed Germany's in mid-war.

Modern equipment, however, doesn't win wars if there isn't enough of it. The German Army, with assurances from the Nazi government, rearmed on the assumption that a general war in Europe would occur no sooner than 1942. With Poland, Hitler bet than France and Britain would once again abandon his intended victim. Hitler lost his gamble, and the German Army had to plunge into war using training tanks (Pz I and II), only six panzer divisions (out of a planned 60), and inadequately-trained reservists.

Even with all these deficiencies, the German Army was strong-perhaps stronger than any other single army in 1939. France had a large army, but Germany's military resources and potential easily surpassed France's. The Soviet Army did surpass Germany's, but Stalin's purge of his officer corps rendered his army highly ineffectual. The US and the British Empire had extremely small peacetime armies and would require years to raise enough forces to challenge Germany head to head.

Germany's problem, as in World War I, was that it had unreliable allies but faced an international alliance. While the German Army may have been stronger than any other army in 1939, it faced the armies of three nations-Poland, France, and Britain-on two fronts. Further, it faced them alone-Italy, Germany's Axis partner, decided in late August 1939 that it would not go to war with the Allies should Germany invade Poland.

German diplomacy, through the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, had turned the Soviet Union from a potential opponent into a secret collaborator, but this was far short of a full-scale military alliance. The pact with the Soviets gave the Germans the opportunity to crush Poland in the east before the Allies could intervene in the west. In the event, the Germans succeeded, but a setback in Poland could have caught them outnumbered in a two-front war.

Inside Europa First to Fight Designer's Notes Part II, Section A Germany

Introduction
Army Re-armament and Manpower
Strategic Situation
Germany-Allies Strength Comparison
German High Command and the Government
Volksdeutsch Resettlement 1939-1942
The Wehrkreis System
Frontier Defenses and Border Regt Commands