JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
In 1929 Germany was still abiding by the Treaty of Versailles, which was the peace treaty ending WWI and signed in 1919. The 440-clause treaty spent the first two dozen or so clauses were spent on President Wilson's League of Nations, while the rest was a distribution of punishment and reparations against/on Germany. The German military as directed by Versailles was limited to 100,000 soldiers, and had 1926 machine guns, and 2886 cannons. as stipulated Germany could have no tanks and no air force, and was limited to six ships and no subs, and had to keep the Rhineland free of all armed forces.
By 1928 Germany was certainly having multiple regressive thoughts about the Treaty, and public demonstrations of questioning its efficacy began to appear with more frequency. In this example--from the Illustrite Zeitung (Leipzig)--a strong statement was graphically displayed showing the state of the German military situation. As you can see, there is scant measurement for just about anything in the military sphere for Germany--and to press the matter home ever more so, in addition to the nulls and tiny numbers, there (in the sixth section down, and magnified above) is a helmeted German soldier with a large magnifying glass inspecting the German totals of the nearly-invisible machine gun totals.
This would all be completely changed by 1934, when the Nazis were already well on the way to having a competitive (and modern) fighting force which counted 4.5 million troops. It would only get worse.
Illustrirte Zeitung, 1928:
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