Walther von Brauchitsch was commander in chief of the Wehrmacht from February 1938 to December 1941. He had rendered distinguished service during World War I as a member of the general staff, and when the Treaty of Versailles mandated the abolishment of the general staff, Brauchitsch continued to serve on the Truppenamt, the clandestine proxy for the outlawed body. Trained as an artillerist, Brauchitsch was instrumental in the development of the 88-mm gun, the celebrated German 88, considered by many to be the most important artillery weapon of the war. By 1936, Brauchitsch had been promoted to the well-deserved rank of lieutenant general, and he was a natural candidate to replace Werner Freiherr von Frtisch (1880-1939), who had been removed as commander in chief in 1938 on a fabricated charge of homosexuality. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of the German Armed Forces High Command, personally chose Brauchitsch not only because of his demonstrated competence but because he was politically naive, just the type of malleable figure Adolf Hitler wanted as commander in chief. In fact, Brauchitsch personally regarded the Nazi Party (NASDAP) as repugnant, but Hitler soon found a means of manipulating Brauchitsch and, through him, subordinating the Wehrmacht to his political will. Brauchitsch wanted a divorce in order to remarry, but he was unable to meet his current wife's demands for a financial settlement. From Hitler, he borrowed the necessary 80,000 marks and was thereafter personally bound to the dictator.

Brauchitsch voiced objections to Hitler's plans for the invasion of Austria (Anschluss) and Czechoslovakia, but declined to resist these war plans in any affirmative, active way. When General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944) asked him to persuade the entire general staff to resign if Hitler persisted in pressing his designs on Czechoslovakia, Brauchitsch replied that he would let events take their course. Similarly, Brauchitsch was well aware of a conspiracy among a number of officers to overthrow Hitler and the Nazi regime. When in September 1938, they attempted to persuade him, as commander in chief, to take charge of a coup, he replied that he himself would do nothing, but that he would not stop anyone else from acting. When the coup died aborning, Brauchitsch turned a deaf ear to all further appeals from Beck and others to use the army to overthrow Hitler before the dictator plunged the nation into war.

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