The Collaborative International Dictionary
Landwehr \Land"wehr`\, n. [G., fr. land land, country + wehr defense.] That part of the army, in Germany and Austria, which has completed the usual military service and is exempt from duty in time of peace, except that it is called out occasionally for drill.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wikipedia
Landwehr, or Landeswehr, is a German language term used in referring to certain national armies, or militias found in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. In different context it refers to large-scale, low-strength fortifications. In German, the word means "defence of the country"; but the term as applied to an insurrectional militia is very ancient, and lantveri are mentioned in Baluzii Capitularia, as quoted in Hallam's Middle Ages, i. 262, 10th edition.
The English term " home guard" may possibly derive from an attempt to translate the term landwehr, the earliest unit calling itself "home guard" being formed by German immigrants in Missouri in the events leading up to the American Civil War.
Landwehr is a word of German origin (literally: "land defence") and may refer to:
Military forces- Landwehr, a type of national home guard or territorial army employed historically e.g. in Germany and Austria-Hungary
- k.k. Landwehr, the territorial army of the Austrian half of the Empire of Austria-Hungary
- k.u. Landwehr, the territorial army of the Hungarian half of the Empire of Austria-Hungary
- Landwehr, Lower Saxony, a municipality in the county of Hildesheim, Lower Saxony
- Landwehr (Golßen), a village in the borough of Golßen, Brandenburg
- Landwehr (Halver), a farmstead in the borough of Halver in the county of Märkischen Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia
- Landwehr (Menden), a village in the borough of Menden, Sauerland
- Landwehr (Quarnbek), a village in the municipality of Quarnbek in the county of Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein
- Landwehr (Radevormwald), part of Radevormwald in the county of Oberbergischen Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia
- Landwehr, until 1938 Geswethen, county of Insterburg, East Prussia, since 1946: Nagornoje, settlement in Chernyakhovsky District, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia
- Landwehr (Astengebiet), a series of fortifications around the Kahler Asten in the county of Hochsauerlandkreis, Germany
- Kirchwehrener Landwehr, a stream in Hanover Region, Germany
- Landwehr (Wachau), a woodland in Wachau, Saxony near Radeberg, Saxony, Germany
- Albrecht Landwehr, mayor of in Vohwinkel 1919–1929
- Achim Landwehr (* 1968), German historian
- Gordian Landwehr (1912–1998), German Dominican prior
- Gottfried Landwehr (1929–2013), German physicist
- Heinrich Landwehr (1908–1974), German politician (SPD)
- Hermann Landwehr (1884−1955), German lawyer and ministerial official
- Johann Landwehr (recorded around 1658–1670), German artist, son of Jürgen Landwehr
- Jürgen Landwehr (ca. 1580–1646) German artist
- Karl-Heinrich Landwehr (b 1935), German company lawyer
- Ludwig Landwehr (1897−1981), German politician
- Lutz Landwehr von Pragenau (* 1963), German composer
- Mathis Landwehr (* 1980), German actor
- Wilma Landwehr (1913−1981), German politician (SPD)
Usage examples of "landwehr".
When the NRO's forward funding was discovered by Frederick Landwehr, a freshman senator who used to be an accountant, he immediately brought it to the attention of the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
We followed the road alongside the Landwehr Canal, which twists and turns through the heart of the city.
Since 1961, when the Wall was first built, following the snaky route of the Landwehr Canal had become the quickest way to get around the Wall from the neon glitter of the Ku-damm to the floodlights of Checkpoint Charlie.
Dug in between his tanks was a company of German infantry-men of the Landwehr, the local equivalent of the National Guard, farmers and shop owners for the most part, men fighting to defend not just their country, but their own homes.
Two battalions of German regulars arrived in tracked vehicles, relieving the exhausted Landwehr men, who moved back to prepare defensive positions in and around the village to their rear.
Marlin Landwehr (Newspaper Enterprise Association) in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sunday, December 2, 1979.