Wehrmachtsamt. In 1938, following the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, Hitler himself exercised the functions of the Reich War Minister. The Wehrmachtsamt was turned into the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW; High Command of the Armed Forces), which formally existed until the end of World War II. The High Command was not a government ministry, but a military command, however. Post-WW2 After World War II, West Germany started with preparations for rearmament (Wiederbewaffnung) in 1950, as ordered by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. After the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States called for a West German contribution to the defence of Western Europe (against the Soviet Union). Initially Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, a former Wehrmacht General, advised the Chancellor on these issues and led the preparations, but after Count Schwerin had talked to the press about his work, he was replaced by Theodor Blank, who was appointed as "Special Representative" of the Chancellor. As the rearmament plans met with harsh opposition by a wide circle within the West German population and contradicted the occupation statute, the government office responsible for the rearmament acted secretly, unofficially known as Amt Blank. By 1955, the number of employees had surpassed 1,300. On 7 June 1955 the office became the Ministry of Defence, or Bundesministerium für Verteidigung in German. The Bundeswehr was established and Germany joined the NATO the same year. In 1956, Germany reintroduced conscription, and the German military force quickly became the largest conventional military force in Western Europe. To confirm the ministry's importance, it was renamed Bundesministerium der Verteidigung on 30 December 1961, similar to the German names of the "classic" ministries of Finance, the Interior and Justice — though the federal minister is still denoted as Bundesminister für Verteidigung in Article 65a of the German Constitution. Until 1960, the ministry had its seat in the Ermekeil barracks in Bonn. From 1960 onwards, it was moved to a new building complex at Hardthöhe. Post-reunification After German reunification, the Bendlerblock, former seat of its Weimar Republic predecessor, became the secondary seat of the ministry in 1993. The German military has become increasingly engaged in international operations since the early 1990s, and saw combat in the 1999 Kosovo War. 21st century Until the Fall of Kabul in August 2021, Germany deployed for nearly 20 years its armed forces in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (2001-2015) and later the Resolute Support Mission (2015-2021). German