Talk:National People's Army

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Edited two typos (Luftstreitkräfte and Luftverteidigung) - Attila, Dec 9th 05

Demonstratably false content

The article says "The GDR therefore became the only socialist state in history to provide a non-combat alternative for conscientious objectors." That's not true. At least one other socialist state had a non-combat alternative for conscientious objectors; Cuba had UMAPS (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Produccion) for those who couldn't fight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.131.213.187 (talk) 12:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

We could note this if you could provide a citation in English.

However, the sources I've seen indicated that conscientious objection has been recognized in Cuba only since 1997, long after the GDR expired. Regarding "UMAPs," the sources I found via Google (including the article on the Spanish-language Wikipedia) indicates these were forced labor camps for men of draft age who were members of unregistered religious sects, homosexuals, dissidents, "parasites" and "anti-social elements." If that's accurate, this was hardly a form of alternative service for conscientious objectors. They existed only for a few years in the mid-1960s and were closed down in response to international and internal criticism. --langohio (talk) 19:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

• Those objecting conscription in Czechoslovakia could instead opt to work in coal mining industry for several years. This applied e.g. on Jehovah's Witnesses. The sentence in the article should be reworded. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 18:40, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

• Soviet conscripts who had some conscientious objection to military service, thus rendering them less desirable for combat, were usually sent to "stroybats", or construction battalions, for their required service (Schofield, Carey, Inside the Soviet Military, p. 135).Fredmdbud (talk) 07:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Unrelated content

The sale of BTR-60s to Turkey at the beginning of the 1990s (with the stipulation that they not be used in internal conflicts, especially against the Kurds), made headlines. It was later proven by German journalists that these former NVA vehicles were, and still are, being used in regions with Kurdish populations, in violation of this stipulation.

Despite being a subjective and indefinite comment about Turkey, the last paragraph of the section "Utilization of former NVA material after 1991" seems totally unrelated to the article. I suggest removing the whole paragraph. Cagdase 14:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree - this is not historically significant in relation to the NVA. It involves the use of their surplus years after the NVA was disbanded. Might as well list every bush war where East German arms were ever used. I've deleted it. Good Skoda (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Equipment lists

Since I am very interested in equipment lists, I have started one. Could anyone please help and expand it, if possible? Thanks!Leonidas15andihack (talk) 02:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Concentration camp

i believe it would be in the best interests to state that the NVA wasnt using the concentration camp to Murder jews...i find it somewhat misleading...celebrating 25 years of NVA at a concentration camp! its a picture of two NVA soldiers holding up an east german flag and under it states -Another GDR stamp celebrating 25 years of the NVA, at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp- im changing it, unless someone can provide a reason not to.

I expanded the caption to eliminate ambiguity. Of course the purpose of associating the NVA with a concentration camp _memorial_ was to underscore its identity as an anti-fascist military. --langohio (talk) 19:26, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

What's all this silly Wehrmacht fuss about?

The fact that this article spends an extraordinary amount of space on the ranks and awards of a mere handful of former Wehrmacht generals (none of which, with the temporary exception of Müller, played an important role in the NVA) while at the same time crucial personalities like Stoph, Hoffmann or Streletz are completely omitted (!) shows once again the absurd obsession of Anglo-Saxons with anything remotely connected to Nazism. Perhaps you should take a look at the respective entry in the german wikipedia - people there know what they are writing about. --Reibeisen (talk) 19:26, 17 July 2009 (MEZ)

I agree.

It is a shame that such a list is put in this article, and for example in the article about the Bundeswehr, where there were incomparably more former members and generals of the Wehrmacht, it omits that.

178.220.188.49 (talk) 11:41, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

P.R.POLAND

What about East German potential involvement in Poland in the state of Emergency in the early 80's and territory dispute with the P.R. of Poland in Stettin Bay? Anyone can add these two supposed events... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.212.65.102 (talk) 06:16, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Rejected Communism

What is this? At the critical moment in its history in November 1989, the NVA rallied to its Germanic heritage and rejected Communism, refusing to battle the demonstrators protesting the Communist regime. The NVA did not reject communism, they only refused to shoot at their own people? Is that rejecting communism? Is opposing the SED anticommunism? Valery Mikhailovich Sablin was a soviet naval captain and he wanted to start a Leninist revolution against the Stalinist government of 1976. Opposing a government who claimed to be socialist is not anticommunism. The NVA in 1989 did not became anticommunist. By not firing on their own workers they were a genuine people's army. --UDSS (talk) 12:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

According to my information, they didn't fire at their own people because, though this was discussed, at the end of the day they didn't receive the order to do so. Though I guess, to their credit, such an order would have been unpopular with them.--2001:A61:3A48:A801:18AB:C11A:82AE:8955 (talk) 08:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

The Trabant of Armies

The NVA was created, staffed, and advertised as the continuation of Prussian military power "voluntarily" placed at the disposal of the SED. In fact, the NVA was so distrusted by the Warsaw Pact (read Soviet Union) that now, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the SED, and the DDR we find that the standing orders in case of war were that the NVA was not to leave the DDR but to remain there as a backup to border and internal security troops. It's only military objective: the capture of West Berlin.

If it's weapons were the best of the Warsaw Pact, how many are still around today? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.24.29.59 (talk) 04:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

more historical facts needed

Some sections here come close to celebrating the NVA. I doubt that the NVA (read it's officers) rejected to shoot at their own people in 1989. The forced conscripts may have rejected to shoot at their own people. What is missing here is the following:

• listening/watching western radio/tv was illegal. Private TVs were not allowed. In some barracks even private radios were not allowed, since there was some installed speaker system. Usually communual TVs were secured against watching western stations. Lots of ingenuity went into circumventing these methods: e.g. From simply breaking the seal to using some audio dial for selecting the frequency.
• daily live in the NVA (even Sergeants were rarely being allowed outside of the barracks)

• outside of the barracks conscripts had to wear uniform
• unpunished not proportional violence from military police
• separate shopping hours for officers (inside the barracks, officers could take their pickings first)
• no alcohol allowed for conscripts inside the barracks
• soldiers could go (march) only as a company to the kitchen to take a meal, even on Sundays
• going on leave outside the barracks involved having your fingernails checked by the officer on duty

• usage of soldiers as (very uneffective) work armies to be send somewhere (very much a communist style to throw many people at some project)
• obvious intention to use the NVA against their own people because of

• restricted leave during holidays
• letting people serve in barracks far away from their home (so that they would not have to shoot at their close friends or relatives)

• bad/insufficient training for infantry (also an indicator that they were not intended to fight a normal war):

• no training for fighting inside cities
• no training for directing artillery
• RPG was intended to be used against tanks
• 7.62mm PKT was intended to be used against lightly armored troop carriers
• lot of training for crossing rivers with troop carriers and tanks
• lot of training using chemical/nuclear protection gear (called "vollschutz")
• during 3 years (1983..1986) in the motorized infantry I never saw or heard of (in multiple different locations)

• a sniper rifle
• a mortar

• until around 1985 the NVA used 7.62mm AK-47 which were very old and overused and very inaccurate (with fully automatic fire the second shot went at an angle to the first shot to the upper right)
• people with thick glasses (they could not see the tip of their gun) served in the infantry
• people with back problems served in the infantry
• boots were not suitable for marching long distances

• non existent law training:

• Geneva convention was not mentioned to anybody
• oath contained willingness to fight against "any enemy of socialism"
• no rules regarding usage of weapons other than follow commands from your officers

• non existent laws regulating military daily live -- officers were free to enforce any of their whims

• officers forcefully removed hearing protection from conscripts serving in the artillery because if was deemed "not solider like"
• officers forced soldiers to leave the ears unprotected in freezing temperatures during field training, which led to injuries due to frost bite
• officers prevented soldiers from sleeping in the barracks during time off
• officers prevented soldiers from using additional neck protection (called "oma") during (non-representational) guard duty (on guard towers)
• guard duty involved standing guard every second day without being able to sleep-in on the day between guard duties (about 2h to 3h of sleep on the day of guard duty, on normal days 8h)
• prison-like violence inside the barracks between soldiers (hazing)
• punishment was usually light or not existent, as officers did not want to appear in bad light in front of their superiors
• waste basket in soldiers quarters was checked during the day to be empty, with the effect that soldiers just threw trash out of the window
• prison-like shows of contempt for officers and the army by destroying property and vandalism
• attachment of a cartoon sticker to a barracks door caused a rage fit by an officer (this was a typical reaction to such an "event")
• since no lawn mower was available officers ordered a company of soldiers to cut grass with their personal scissors
• since no crane was available officers ordered a company of soldiers to unload railway cars full of railway ties (one around multiple hundreds of kg)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by ExcessPhase (talk • contribs) 15:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Bread Bag?

The bread bag is a minor piece of kit, why is a picture of it displayed on this page? It wasn't even used by Möt Schutzen (Motor-Rifles, the regular infantry) just Grenzers (guardsmen). That picture has no place in this article. 72.9.7.237 (talk) 18:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Mkativerata (talk) 20:25, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

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Ambiguous

"The proportion of SED members in the officer corps rose steadily after the early 1960s, eventually reaching almost 95 percent." Does it mean that 95% of SED members were in the officer corps, or that 95% of officer corp members were in the SED? 5.80.55.112 (talk) 10:34, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

95% of officer corp members were in the SEDDegen Earthfast (talk) 20:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Arms should be described

The only information is a picture of Tatra-813. Xx236 (talk) 07:12, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

de:Nationale Volksarmee#Ausrüstung and de:Liste der Technik und Bewaffnung der NVA. Xx236 (talk) 12:54, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic

During a certain period the Troops belonged to the Army, should be mentioned in the tetxt.Xx236 (talk) 07:19, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Former Wehrmacht officers as NVA generals

This part is completely unnecessary.

And by the way, it is very shameful for the author because what did he want to achieve?

To show how the former army of the former East Germany was a refuge for former generals of Nazi Germany?

Well, the West German army had incomparably more generals from the period until 1945, disproportionately more.

109.93.203.157 (talk) 17:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Scarcity of photos

In describing the uniforms care is taken to provide information about colors and epaulettes and sleeves with mentions of badges and insignia as well as tailoring and cut but a picture paints a thousand words and what is missing in this article is a full depiction of the various uniforms, their insignias, colors, and decorations. In this regard, the article is terribly impoverished. Anyone coming here for a complete description of the NVA will surely be disappointed. SanVitores (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2023 (UTC)