To what extent was the Bundeswehr a successor to the wehrmacht? What changes were made to the culture, structure and organization?

The Bundeswehr to this day is very much somewhere between haunted and inspired by its predecessor, the German Wehrmacht of 1935-1945.

Context block ahead, just skip if you're decently knowledgable about German history between 1945-1955.

To give a bit of context to the reader, the Bundeswehr was created in 1955 as the army of West Germany. Germany at that point had been divided into two separate states for six years, with the West German FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, Grmn.: "Bundesrepublik Deutschland", BRD) and the East German GDR (German Democratic Republic, Grmn.: "Deutsche Demokratische Republik", DDR) both being set up as demilitarized countries in 1949. The BRD (I will use the German abbreviations from here on) was created on the grounds of the American, British and French occupation zones and became a western-style democracy with capitalistic economic programs, whereas the DDR was created on the Soviet occupation zone to the west of the rivers Oder and Neiße, became an authoritarian one-party state with a planned economic system under a so-called "real socialist" system.

Now, in 1955, the Cold War was still in full swing ever since events like the Berlin Airlift, the Greek Civil War and the Korean War put the former Anti-Hitler-Coalition firmly into two camps: The Soviets and their eastern European puppets on one side, everybody else on the other. Both sides were armed with atom bombs, the U.S. since 1945, the USSR since 1949 and most recently the UK in 1952. The two sides really needed more manpower for the case of conflict, and policy also got in the way on the democratic side. Continuing German occupation without German assistance was unpopular, and Konrad Adenauer, West German chancellor since 1949, had proven himself to be a valuable ally and partner, especially to France, even though the true birth of Franco-German friendship would not come around until the Suez Crisis of 1956 would create a rift between France on one side and the U.S. and the UK on the other.

So the West Germans were called up to create an armed service. I could also provide parallel information about the East German Nationale Volksarmee in a follow-up if asked, but your question was specifically about the Bundeswehr. The Bundeswehr was created into being on November 12th, 1955, ten years, six months and four days after the Wehrmacht's surrender on May 8th, 1945.

Even the name itself is already a Wehrmacht artifact in multiple ways. You will notice that the term "Wehr" appears in both. It means defense or protection. The "Wehrmacht" is literally the protective force, whereas the "Bundeswehr" is the federal protection. The third name one has to mention is the "Reichswehr", the imperial protection or realm protection, the army of the Weimar Republic until its renaming by Hitler in 1935.

So one might argue that Bundeswehr is named after its proud grandpa the Reichswehr, correct? Nothing to do with its disgraced dad, the Wehrmacht? Well, no. Because the man who was leading among those who suggested the name "Bundeswehr" was one Hasso von Manteuffel, commander of the 5th Panzer Army as well as the Panzer Division "Greater Germany". So that's just a straight-up Wehrmacht man. He also was convicted of war crimes, but in his case it was because of executing deserters, so that's at least less awful than what some of his buddies were doing.

The Bundeswehr was in the early days looking desperately for role models from the war. Who would be discarded? Who was too nazi? Hitler, obviously. The Bundeswehr was instrumental in creating a myth of Hitler's military incompetence pushed by the former Wehrmacht commanders to make themselves innocent of military or logistical failure. Next up, the Bundeswehr was also rather quick in discarding the SS, with generals like Paul Hausser and of course SS political leaders like Heinrich Himmler never getting the chance to fall out of favor because no one had favor with them to begin with.

But heroic figures were needed, and heroic figures were found. The first one was of course Erwin Rommel. He had committed suicide under nazi threats in 1944 following the failed assassination attempt against Hitler by the group of Stauffenberg and Canaris. Rommel was a compromise candidate, as he appealed both to the anti-nazis as he was killed by the nazis and to the pro-nazis as he never actually provably participated in the plot.

But Rommel alone wasn't enough. The Bundeswehr chose to elevate one man specifically who I as a historian am fascinated by: Erich von Manstein. Manstein, the genius behind the "sickle cut" against France in 1940, had survived the war and had written a book about it, "Verlorene Siege", Lost Victories. That book was released in 1955, shortly before the Bundeswehr's founding, and it became a sensation. I have read the book in the German original several times now, and each time I am impressed with just how impressed Manstein apparantly was by himself. If Hitler wasn't to blame, then he found a way to blame people like Von Bock, Von Reichenau and especially a man who was apparantly his nemesis in the force, Franz Halder. From what I've read about the book from others, Manstein actively lies about his involvement especially on the Eastern Front, criticizing Operation Citadel as a Führer mistakes even though he was one Citadel's leading planners, something he conveniently fails to mention.

Well, back from my short detour into this book (which I by the way still recommend to the interested reader, even though I have heard the English translation cuts down on Manstein's tangents and personal stories, which were among the most fascinating and insightful parts of the book in the German original for me). The Mansteinkult, the cult of Manstein, was born. The Bundeswehr had its hero, a clean, honorable general just like Rommel, but one who actually was still alive at the time.

So that much regarding the change of culture that you asked for in your question.

Next you ask about structure. Well, military logistics are not my main concern when reading history so I am open to be expanded on by other interested historians, but that much I can tell you: The Bundeswehr was far smaller than the Wehrmacht, but even a small army needs officers. When in 1955 the Bundeswehr was founded and the first volunteers (conscription would start on January 1st, 1957) entered their barracks and began basic training, no time had been taken to train new young officers as that in itself would already have been a military act - and also, people needed for officer status are typically older, at least in their 30s, and of intellectual backgrounds. Well, in 1955 30-year-olds would have been born in 1925 and would surely have been drafted into World War 2 because they would have been 18 in 1943. So that's not great.

So what I am getting is that obviously, to even preserve any structure in the first place, the Bundeswehr would need to re-enlist Wehrmacht officers. Wehrmacht Officers and Sergeants were thus given priority when forming the first cadres of the Bundeswehr, because that allowed the BRD to both gain military expertise from veteran fighters and avoid the politically sensitive topic of re-enlisting generals. Even though re-enlist generals they also did. Adolf Heusinger, the first Bundeswehr inspector-general (highest-ranking soldier) had served in four separate German armies from 1915 onwards until being called back up to lead the Bundeswehr in 1957. He actually ended up presiding over the NATO Military Committee, the highest military office of the alliance. Isn't that fascinating? A nazi general who also served in the Kaiser's army ending up presiding over the alliance of freedom. Truly, a curious story. Another Wehrmacht general who was among the first Bundeswehr generals was Hans Speidel, Erwin Rommel's chief-of-staff in Army Group B - although his elevation was also a clear political move, as he was one of the few who participated in the Stauffenberg conspiracy and survived the war. Speidel was chosen to please the anti-nazis who did not want to see to great "old Wehrmacht" influence in the new army.

That said, your question of structure and organization could also refer to things like ranks. And actually, there are a few differences. The Bundeswehr never had an OF-10 (five star general) rank, with its OF-9 rank being called simply "General", whereas the Wehrmacht had "Generalfeldmarschall" at OF-10, "Generaloberst" at OF-9, with "General" being OF-8, which in the Bundeswehr is the "Generalleutnant" (Lieutenant General), which in the Wehrmacht was OF-7. The Wehrmacht had "Generalmajor" (Major General) at OF-6, whereas the Bundeswehr had that at OF-7. Finally, the Bundeswehr fills the gap at OF-6 with the new rank "Brigadegeneral" (Brigadier General), which didn't exist at all in the Wehrmacht. From there one, it looks kind of simlar, with OF-5 through OF-3 all being the same, at "Oberst" (Colonel), "Oberstleutnant" (Lieutenant Colonel) and "Major". At OF-2, the Bundeswehr has bureaucratic complications between "Stabshauptmann" and "Hauptmann", both the same rank for various careers; a distinction that did not exist in the Wehrmacht. From there you have a few more distinctions in the soldier ranks, with "Oberstabsfeldwebel" (OR-9) and "Oberstabsgefreiter" (OR-4) not existing in the Wehrmacht, but in general, it can be said that the Bundeswehr took the Wehrmacht's ranking system, which in turn was based on Weimar Republican, German Imperial and Prussian systems. The Bundeswehr had however to make several changes to fit the NATO standard. Of course, note that the comparative rankings I used in this segment (OF-X and OR-X) are NATO terminology that would be anachronistic to the Wehrmacht directly, but nonetheless useful for comparison.

I am running out of characters here, but I'd be glad to answer any follow-up questions.