Wehrmacht: Technical Standards for Army Equipment

This book documents technical rules, regulations, and standards for German Wehrmacht army equipment. It combines the functions of a reference work, a source edition, and technical documentation, providing systematic access to standard groups, drawings, tables and abbreviations.

Contents

“Wehrmacht: Technical Standards for Army Equipment” is a work of technical history that systematically examines the German Army’s standards system during World War II for the first time. The book is intended for anyone interested in original design drawings, army equipment, or the industrial armaments organization of the German Reich—and who encounters standard designations whose origin and meaning have hardly been documented to date.

The focus is on the so-called “standards folder for army equipment” in its corporate version—the binding set of standards that the Army Weapons Office (WaA) issued to armaments manufacturers. This document regulated the technical requirements for, among other things, materials, dimensional tolerances, fits, fasteners, piping, gauges, and manufacturing documentation. For example, anyone examining original drawings of Army equipment will find references to HgN standard sheets and numbers; without knowledge of these, a complete technical interpretation is impossible. The HgN standard sheets from the standards folder are reproduced in the book as facsimiles.

In addition, the book contextualizes these HgN standard sheets within their historical development. It demonstrates how the Army Armaments Office, drawing on the experiences of World War I and the period of covert rearmament, established a coherent system of standards that standardized design, manufacturing, acceptance testing, and spare parts supply across the entire armaments apparatus. The book describes the structure and organization of the standards folder, the systematics of the standards groups, the structure of individual standards sheets, and their application in manufacturing and testing operations. In addition, the book examines the organizational integration of the standards system into the structure of the Army Armaments Office, including its departments for development, testing, acceptance, and industrial armaments.

The appendix contains cross-reference tables and a bilingual index. This makes it a practical tool—for restoration work as well as for collectors or scholars studying equipment, design, or procurement documents from this period.

Expert Opinion

As someone who has been active in the German standards system for more than five decades and who understands the structure and functioning of standards from daily practice, I welcome this work. […] The presentation here is an achievement that deserves recognition.

Albrecht Lederer, former Chair of the DIN Standards Committee NSM, lecturer, and author

Where to Buy

The book is available in bookstores and directly from the publisher in hardcover or paperback editions.