In photographs of Germany's senior military commanders during World War II, one object appears again and again in their hands. It is not a pistol or a map case, but a short, heavily decorated baton gleaming with gold and silver fittings. It was not a weapon and had no practical use in combat. It was the marshal's baton, one of the most exclusive symbols of military power in the entire Third Reich.
So why did Germany's top commanders walk around carrying what amounted to an oversized ceremonial stick? And what did holding one truly signify?
The baton itself was not a Nazi invention. It had a long history rooted in Prussian military tradition, and some historians trace the concept back to ancient Rome, where statues of commanders show them holding similar ceremonial staffs. In its modern German form, the baton was formally introduced in Prussia in 1852. The tradition of marshals carrying a decorated baton as a mark of the highest rank continued almost without interruption from that moment, surviving the fall of the German Empire and the turmoil of the Weimar Republic before Hitler revived it for his armed forces, the Wehrmacht.
In the Third Reich, the first marshal's baton was presented on April 20, 1936, to Werner von Blomberg, who became the first field marshal appointed under Hitler's rule. But the baton truly entered the public imagination on July 19, 1940, at a spectacular ceremony in Berlin shortly after Germany's swift and humiliating defeat of France. That day, Hitler promoted twelve generals to the rank of field marshal at once, and each received his personal baton before a watching nation. It was a deliberately staged spectacle designed to display the immense power and prestige of the Wehrmacht after a rapid and devastating military victory.
But why a baton specifically, rather than a medal, a special uniform, or another kind of award? The answer lies in exclusivity and visibility. The rank of field marshal was at the time the highest active military rank a German officer could achieve, and their numbers were remarkably few. In total, only 25 individuals received a marshal's baton throughout the Third Reich, spread across the army, air force, and navy, with Hermann Göring alone receiving two separate batons for two different ranks. A medal can be pinned to a chest and easily go unnoticed from a distance, but a heavy, ornate, glittering baton carried in the hand or tucked under the arm was instantly visible on a parade ground, in a photograph, or in a newsreel. It signaled at a single glance that this man stood above every other officer in the room.
The marshal's batons were themselves truly exceptional pieces. Each measured about 50 centimeters, roughly 20 inches, and weighed close to 6 pounds. They were deliberately heavy and solid, not lightweight or purely decorative. The grip was typically covered in red velvet and studded with rows of golden eagles and silver iron crosses along its full length, with the specific design varying by service branch. Army and Luftwaffe batons were similar in overall appearance, but air force versions incorporated the Balkenkreuz, the radial cross used on German aircraft, while navy batons for grand admirals replaced it with twisted anchor emblems. Uniquely, Hermann Göring had his own entirely distinctive design as Reichsmarschall, a rank created specifically for him at the same July 1940 ceremony to set him above every other field marshal in Germany.
Surprisingly, a newly promoted field marshal did not receive just one baton, but in fact two. The actual marshal's baton, the Marschallstab, was a dazzling handmade work of art intended for formal occasions, and it was extremely expensive. In 1940, producing a complete army marshal's baton cost around 6,000 Reichsmarks, an enormous sum at the time. Alongside it, officers also received a simpler, more modest version known as the interim baton, made from less costly ebony wood instead of precious metals and intended for daily service rather than grand public ceremonies. Even this cheaper everyday baton cost around 600 Reichsmarks, showing that the practical version of this symbol was far from an ordinary piece of military equipment.
Beyond the material value of the object, receiving the baton came with genuinely significant privileges tied to the rank itself. A newly appointed field marshal received an annual salary of 36,000 Reichsmarks for life, and crucially, this salary was entirely exempt from income tax. Field marshals were also considered never to formally retire. They remained on active duty permanently for the rest of their lives, regardless of whether they still held an active field command. So the baton was not merely a piece of theatrical display. It represented a permanent privileged status within the German military hierarchy, one that endured beyond any single campaign or battle.
It is also worth noting that the baton's psychological purpose worked in two directions at once. For soldiers under a field marshal's command, seeing that glittering baton in their leader's hand was meant to reinforce discipline, hierarchy, and the immense scale of the power above them. But for the German public and the wider world through newsreels and propaganda images, the marshal's baton became a visual symbol of German military dominance, especially during the victorious early war years. Carefully staged images of men such as Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein, or Gerd von Rundstedt holding their batons were widely circulated, reinforcing the image of an invincible German war machine run with professionalism.
That image, of course, did not last. As the tide of war turned decisively against Germany from 1943 onward, the baton increasingly became a symbol of a leadership structure in decline and sinking into despair, rather than one of endless victory. Some officers who theoretically qualified for the rank under earlier promotion standards never received the baton at all as Germany's military fortunes collapsed. When the Third Reich was finally destroyed in 1945, the rank of field marshal was abolished, and with it the tradition of the Marschallstab disappeared entirely along with the rest of the Wehrmacht command structure.
So, returning to the original question, Wehrmacht field marshals carried a baton because it was the supreme visual mark of military rank in Nazi Germany, a tradition inherited from Prussian military history that Hitler deliberately revived and exploited for maximum propaganda effect. It had no practical function on the battlefield whatsoever, but its symbolic function was enormous, instantly distinguishing a tiny handful of Germany's top commanders from every other officer in the Wehrmacht and broadcasting that status to soldiers and civilians alike, right up until the collapse of the regime that created it.