Based on the increasing tensions of the Cold War, West Germany became the centre stage of a potential third world war battlefield in Europe. Only ten years after the German Wehrmacht's defeat in World War Two it was seen as crucial to create a modern German Army, the Bundeswehr. The rearmament of the Heer ground forces in the founding years of the Bundeswehr in 1956-65 can be described as ''American armour and German trucks''.
