Werner von Blomberg

Werner von Blomberg (born Sept. 2, 1878, Stargard, Ger.—died March 22, 1946, Nürnberg) was a German general and minister of war (1933–38) in the National Socialist government of Adolf Hitler. A career soldier before the Nazi seizure of power, he was one of Hitler’s most loyal officers among the old-line officer corps before being abruptly dismissed from office.

Blomberg was a general staff officer on the Western Front during World War I and remained in the reduced Reichswehr (German army) after the war. He was named chief of staff of the Stuttgart army area (1921), head of the department of military training (1925), and military commander in chief in East Prussia (1929). In January 1933 he was appointed German minister of defense in the new Hitler government and retained office until early 1938—as minister of war after 1935 and, concurrently, commander in chief of the Wehrmacht (the new German armed forces). An unquestioning follower of Hitler, so compliant as to be given the nickname “Rubber Lion,” he played a consenting role in the purge of the SA (Storm Troopers) of 1934, and in August 1934 he imposed on the army an oath of personal allegiance to Hitler. In 1936 he was created field marshal.

In January 1938 Blomberg was forced by Hitler to resign after it was revealed that his young bride had earlier posed for pornographic pictures. Speculation has always existed that Hitler and Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe (German air force), used the scandal as a pretext to allow Hitler to take personal control of the army. In any case, Blomberg did not participate in World War II as a combatant. He was arrested by the Allies in 1945 and testified for the prosecution at the Nürnberg trials. He died of natural causes while still in detention.