Wachtmeister (Wm; German for ´master-sentinel´ or ´watch-master´) is a military rank of non-commissioned officers (NCO) in Austria and Switzerland. The Wachtmeister was initially responsible for the guard duty of the army. Later, it became the Feldwebel equivalent NCO-grade of the cavalry and artillery. Besides Austria and Switzerland today, the rank was also used elsewhere, for example in Germany, Russia, and Poland (wachmistrz).
In the German police service, Wachtmeister denoted the lowest rank; it was abolished in the 1980s, but is still the colloquial term referring to police patrolling in uniform.
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