Can anyone tell me what the german terms mean when they call he air fighters Luftwaffe and some ground soldiers panzergrenaidiers, wiking ss,whermacht ,SS and all the others I didnt mention.Do they mean anything in particular or are they the given names by Hitler or the Military forces Generals.

Luftwaffe= Airforce

Wermacht= Army

Wiking SS- unit of the SS from Norway and Finland.I am pretty sure about that. I mighte wrong about the countries, but it is a unit of the SS. Given to them by Hitler? Army+Airforce, no. The other probably not but from someone else associated with the SS.

~Chip

SS stands for Schutzstaffel, which as we all know began as a special bodyguard unit for hitler separate from the SA and the regular German Army (Heer). The SS remained separate throughout the war and its fighting element, the Waffen-SS, included its own Panzer and infantry divisions, which had names like Totenkopf, Liebstandarte, Wiking, Handschar, and Prinz Eugen (some of the names had to do with what kind of people the unit was made up with, but I think others were just named by Hitler or Himmler).

Panzergrenadiers were the German motorized infantry that went along with their Panzer (armoured) divisions. Less than 10% of the German Army actually became mechanized during the war, so these units were quite unique and important.

Other types of infantry included Gebirgsjager (mountain troops), Fallschirmjager (paratroops), Stosstruppen (assault troops), and Pionieren (engineers).

To sum up, the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) was made up of the Heer (German Army), Waffen-SS (basically Hitler's personal army), the Luftwaffe (German Air Force), and the Kriegsmarine (German Navy).

Nic

There were several Divisions that had names and became famous like Gross Deutschland and Hermann Goring. All the SS had names like Hitler Jugend, Totenkopf, Wiing, Das Reich, Liebstandarte.

Luftwaffe = Airforce

PanzerGranadiere = Armored infantry.

Wehrmacht = Army (just the groundforces)

Heer = All armed forces (Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine).

Armee = army (as in 1st army, 5th Panzer army).

SS = Schutzstaffel (bodyguard), originally the bodyguard of Hitler and important party-members. This is where the foundation of the (in)famous Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler lay, and members of the LSAH formed his bodyguard. They were part of the Algemeine SS (which included also various intelligence servises (GeStaPo, SD), the concentrationcamp-system and the Waffen-SS).

Waffen-SS = Armed SS. Originally the armed part of the SS, and officially it fell under the Algemeine SS, directly under Himmler. Originaly only a few units (standarten), "LSAH", "Germania", "Deutschland" and "Der Führer" of regiment size. The latter three formed the SS-VT Division (Verfügungs Truppen). Also, after the Polish campaign, two new divisions were formed, Totenkopf, originally consisting of Totenkopf-verbande (units of concentration camp guards, Eicke commander of Dachau became its commander), and Polizei, recruited from the regular police. After the campaign in the West the Waffen SS was expanded and reorganized again.
The SS-standarte "Germania" was taken from the VT-division, and formed, together with the newly raised standarten "Nordland" ( including Scandinavian volunteers) and "Westland" (including Dutch and Flemish volunteers), the new SS-division "Germania". SS-VT was renamed SS-Division "Deutschland", soon to become "Reich" (to become "Das Reich").
SS-Divsion "Germania" was soon to be renamed "Wiking" (Viking). From these 5 divsions (though IIRC not as much from "Polizei") individual men and sometimes whole units would be transferred to form the core of new Waffen-SS units or provide these with an officer and NCO cadre... Nominally, by the end of the war, the Waffen-SS had a strength of around 35 divisions, though the majority was formed late in the war never reached divisional or even regimental strength. Also, the fighting ability of quite a number of these units was questionable at best.

Many of the names given to the Waffen-SS units were based on great icons from (German) history (Florian Geyer, Hohenstaufen (the imperial family Barbarossa belonged to), Frundsberg, Götz von Berlichingen, Maria Theresia, Charlemagne), some from geographical locations, some from mythology, and some from Nazi symbolism. Most names were officially either given by Hitler or Himmler..

As far as I know, the only Wehrmacht divisions more known by their name are the Panzer-Lehr (named after the fact that this division was formed from demonstration troops), and the Groß-Deutschland units. As far as I know, the latter units had their name bestowed upon them by Hitler. It was common practice though for the German high command to designate Kampf-grupen by the name of their commanding officer, rather then official designations, as these were usually formed ad hoc.

Also, quite confusing, the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe had their own ground-forces. The Luftwaffe had, besides their Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers), Luftlande-units (glider/assault units) and Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen (regular infantry). In the end they even had a panzer-division (to be expanded into a Panzer Corps), the Hermann Göring Division. Officially these units were Luftwaffe, though they ususally operated under Wehrmacht command.

Among avarious others, FeldGrau is an excellent site, where I have gained quite a bit of my knowledge on the subjet. They have a glossary of terms.