May 21, 1935

Wehrgesetz

The German cabinet adopts the Wehrgesetz defining the Nazi military system

The date is right and the event is wrong: conscription had already been restored on 16 March. What the cabinet approved at 4:15 p.m. on 21 May was the machinery to run it.

March restored the draft; May built the machinery

The listing treats 21 May 1935 as the day Hitler announced the return of conscription. He had done that on 16 March, when the Law for the Organization of the Armed Forces proclaimed compulsory service and a 36-division, 12-corps army.

That March law instructed the defense minister to submit detailed implementing legislation immediately. The Wehrgesetz of 21 May supplied it — the personnel, command and service framework, not the announcement.

What the cabinet approved at 4:15 p.m.

At a ministerial meeting beginning at 4:15 p.m., the Reich cabinet approved the Wehrgesetz and ordered it published. The law declared every German man liable for military service and defined the Wehrmacht as comprising the Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.

Liability ran from age 18 through the 31 March following a man’s 45th birthday, with normal call-up in the calendar year he turned 20.

The same statute made Hitler supreme commander, with command exercised under him through the defense minister, whose office became the Reich War Ministry.

Published the next morning

The law appeared in the Reichsgesetzblatt on 22 May, accompanied by implementing measures fixing a 12-month term of active service.

The breach of the Treaty of Versailles was explicit rather than implied: Article 173 had required Germany to abolish universal compulsory service.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The date is secure for the Wehrgesetz, but the listed event conflates two acts: conscription was publicly restored on March 16; the detailed Wehrgesetz was adopted on May 21 and issued on May 22.
Sources differ on which enactment should be treated as the formal renaming of the Reichswehr. The March law already used 'Wehrmacht'; the May law comprehensively defined its branches and command system.