Hitler Oath

The oath was sworn on 2 August

The 8 August 1934 date in the listing is unsupported. Contemporary records, the German Federal Archives, the German Historical Institute and the USHMM all place the military oath on 2 August.

That was the morning President Paul von Hindenburg died, at 9:00 a.m. The previous day’s Law on the Head of State immediately merged the presidency with Hitler’s chancellorship, making him head of state and supreme commander.

On Defense Minister Werner von Blomberg’s order, Reichswehr personnel were sworn that same day.

Obedience to a man, not a constitution

The new formula bound each soldier to unconditional personal obedience to Adolf Hitler, rather than loyalty to an impersonal constitution, state, or ‘people and fatherland.’ It committed him to risk his life for that promise of obedience.

The oath was devised voluntarily by senior military leaders — Blomberg working with Walter von Reichenau — rather than drafted and imposed on them by Hitler, who subsequently thanked Blomberg for it.

Reichswehr, and the later statute

The armed forces’ formal institutional name in August 1934 was Reichswehr; ‘Wehrmacht’ became the formal name in 1935, so calling the swearers the Wehrmacht is anachronistic.

A separate statute dated 20 August prescribed the personal oaths for new soldiers and public officials, and ordered serving officials to take theirs without delay. That formalization is a different act from the 2 August swearing.

The often-repeated claim that ‘thousands’ of officers reported sick to avoid the oath is not a verified count; it traces to journalist H. R. Knickerbocker’s later account.