Imperial German Army in the context of "Turnip Winter"

Alvin Cullum York (December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964), also known by his rank as Sergeant York, was an American soldier who was one of the most decorated United States Army soldiers of World War I. He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, gathering 35 machine guns, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers, and capturing 132 prisoners. York's Medal of Honor action occurred during the United States-led portion of the Meuse–Argonne offensive in France, which was intended to breach the Hindenburg line and force the Germans to surrender. He earned decorations from several Allied countries during the war, including France, Italy, and Montenegro.

York was born in rural Tennessee, in what is now the community of Pall Mall in Fentress County. His parents farmed, and his father also worked as a blacksmith. The 11 York children had minimal schooling because they helped provide for the family, including hunting, fishing, and working as laborers. After the death of his father, York assisted in caring for his younger siblings and found work as a blacksmith. Despite being a regular churchgoer, York also drank heavily and was prone to fistfights. After a 1914 conversion experience, he vowed to improve and became even more devoted to the Church of Christ in Christian Union. York was drafted during World War I; he initially claimed conscientious objector status on the grounds that his religious denomination forbade violence. Persuaded that his religion was not incompatible with military service, York joined the 82nd Division as an infantry private and went to France in 1918.

Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (German: [ˈhɛlmuːt fɔn ˈmɔltkə]; 26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) was a Prussian field marshal. The chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, he is regarded as the creator of a new, more modern method of directing armies in the field and one of the finest military minds of his generation. He commanded troops in Europe and the Middle East, in the Second Schleswig War, Austro-Prussian War, and Franco-Prussian War. He is described as embodying "Prussian military organization and tactical genius". He was fascinated with railways and pioneered their military use. He is often referred to as Moltke the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke), who commanded the German army at the outbreak of the First World War. He is notably the earliest-born human whose recorded voice is preserved, being born in the last year of the 18th century (1800). He made four recordings; two that were recorded in October 1889 are preserved to this day.

The Iron Cross (German: Eisernes Kreuz, listen, abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the insignia of the medieval Teutonic Order and borne by its knights from the 13th century. As well as being a military medal, it has also been used as an emblem by the Prussian Army, the Imperial German Army, and the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, while the Balkenkreuz (bar cross) variant was used by the Wehrmacht. The Iron Cross is now the emblem of the Bundeswehr, the modern German armed forces.

King Frederick William III of Prussia established the Iron Cross award on 17 March 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars (EK 1813). The award was backdated to the birthday (10 March) of his late wife, Queen Louise, who was the first person to receive it (posthumously). The Iron Cross was also awarded during the Franco-Prussian War (EK 1870), World War I (EK 1914), and World War II (EK 1939). During World War II, the Nazi regime made their own version by superimposing a swastika on the medal. The Iron Cross was usually a military decoration only, though some were awarded to civilians for performing military roles, including Hanna Reitsch and Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg for being civilian test pilots during World War II.

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German military officer and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. He played a key role in the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 through his appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

Paul von Hindenburg was born to a family of minor Prussian nobility in the Grand Duchy of Posen. Upon completing his education as a cadet, he enlisted in the Third Regiment of Foot Guards. In this unit, Hindenburg saw combat during the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. In 1873, he was admitted to the prestigious War Academy in Berlin, where he studied before being appointed to the General Staff Corps. In 1885, he was promoted to major and became a member of the German General Staff. After teaching at the War Academy, Hindenburg rose to become a lieutenant general by 1900. In 1911, he retired from the military.

The Luftwaffe (German pronunciation: [ˈlʊftvafə] ) was the aerial-warfare branch of the Wehrmacht before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the Luftstreitkräfte of the Imperial Army and the Marine-Fliegerabteilung of the Imperial Navy, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which banned Germany from having any air force.

During the interwar period, German pilots were trained secretly in violation of the treaty at Lipetsk Air Base in the Soviet Union. With the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty, the Luftwaffe's existence was publicly acknowledged and officially established on 26 February 1935, just over two weeks before open defiance of the Versailles Treaty through German rearmament and conscription would be announced on 16 March. The Condor Legion, a Luftwaffe detachment sent to aid Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, provided the force with a valuable testing ground for new tactics and aircraft. Partially as a result of this combat experience, the Luftwaffe had become one of the most sophisticated, technologically advanced, and battle-experienced air forces in the world when World War II began on 1 September 1939. By the summer of 1939, the Luftwaffe had twenty-eight Geschwader (wings). The Luftwaffe also operated a paratrooper force known as the Fallschirmjäger.

The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was a formation of the United States Armed Forces on the Western Front during World War I, composed mostly of units from the U.S. Army. The AEF was established on July 5, 1917, in Chaumont, France under the command of then-major general John J. Pershing. It fought alongside French Army, British Army, Canadian Army, British Indian Army, New Zealand Army and Australian Army units against the Imperial German Army. A small number of AEF troops also fought alongside Italian Army units in 1918 against the Austro-Hungarian Army. The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at the Battle of Château-Thierry and Battle of Belleau Wood) in the summer of 1918, and fought its major actions in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the latter part of 1918.

The Western Front was one of the main theatres of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The German advance was halted with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918.

Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties during attacks and counter-attacks and no significant advances were made. Among the most costly of these offensives were the Battle of Verdun, in 1916, with a combined 700,000 casualties, the Battle of the Somme, also in 1916, with over a million casualties, and the Battle of Passchendaele, in 1917, with 487,000 casualties.

Reichswehr (German: [ˈʁaɪ̯çsveːɐ̯] ; lit. 'Reich Defence') was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first two years of Nazi Germany. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army (Deutsches Heer) was dissolved in order to be reshaped into a peacetime army. From it a provisional Reichswehr was formed in March 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the rebuilt German Army was subject to severe limitations in size, structure and armament. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921 after the limitations had been met. The German armed forces kept the name Reichswehr until Adolf Hitler's 1935 proclamation of "restoration of military sovereignty", at which point it became part of the new Wehrmacht.

Although ostensibly apolitical, the Reichswehr acted as a state within a state, and its leadership was an important political power factor in the Weimar Republic. The Reichswehr sometimes supported the democratic government, as it did in the Ebert-Groener Pact when it pledged its loyalty to the Republic, and sometimes backed anti-democratic forces through such means as the Black Reichswehr, the illegal paramilitary groups it sponsored in contravention of the Versailles Treaty. The Reichswehr saw itself as a cadre army that would preserve the expertise of the old imperial military and form the basis for German rearmament.

A musketeer (French: mousquetaire [muskətɛʁ] ) was a type of soldier equipped with a musket. Musketeers were an important part of early modern warfare from the mid 15th to mid 19th centuries, particularly in Europe, where they normally comprised the majority of their infantry after 1600. The musketeer was a precursor to the rifleman. Muskets were replaced by breech loading rifles as the almost universal firearm for modern armies during the period 1850 to 1870. The traditional designation of "musketeer" for an infantry private survived in the Imperial German Army until World War I.

Karl Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945) was a German jurist, judge, and politician who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1935 to 1942 and as president of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945. As a prominent ideologist of Nazism, he influenced as a jurist the Nazification of the German legal system. He was appointed president of the People's Court in 1942, overseeing the prosecution of political crimes as a judge. Freisler became known for his aggressive personality, his humiliation of defendants, and his frequent use of the death penalty in sentencing.

A law student at Kiel University, Freisler joined the Imperial German Army on the outbreak of the First World War and saw action on the Eastern Front, where he was wounded and taken prisoner of war by the Imperial Russian Army. On his return to Germany, he completed his law studies at the University of Jena and was awarded a Doctorate of Law in 1922. Freisler joined the Nazi Party in 1925, upon which he began defending Party members in court for acts of political violence.