zotero/storage/8J9RL5ZZ/.zotero-ft-cache

Strategy for Defeat
The Luftwaffe
1933-1945
By
WILLIAMSON MURRAY
AIR UNIVERSITY AIR UNIVERSITY PRESS MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA
January 1983


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DISCLAIMER-AB STAINER
The views expressed do not necessarily reflect any formal position by the Airpower Research Institute, the Air University, the Air Training Command, or the
United States Air Force. Clearance for public release of this work under the provisions of AFR 190-1 has been accomplished .
Pur sale by the Superintemlent of Doeuments, U .S . Government Printing Office Washington, D .C . 20402


Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Murray, Williamson . Strategy for Defeat : The Lutfwaffe, 1933-1945 .
At head of title : Airpower Research Institute . "January 1983 ." Bibliography : p. Includes index. 1 . World War, 1939-1945-Aerial operations, German . 2. Germany. Luftwaffe-History-World War, 1939-1945 . 3. Germany. Luftwaffe-History . I. Air University (US) . Airpower Research Institute . 11 . Title. D787 .M841982 940 .54'4943 82-73232
ISBN 1-58566-010-8
First Printing January 1993 Second Printing July 1999 Third Printing December 2000


WILLIAMSON MURRAY
Dr. Williamson Murray earned BA, MA, and PhD degrees in history from Yale University. A former Air Force maintenance officer, Dr. Murray presently teaches at Ohio State University where he is rapidly acquiring a reputation as one of the foremost US authorities on the German Luftwaffe . An avid scholar on military affairs, Dr . Murray has written numerous articles in professional journals on various facets of military history . Another major research effort, "The Path to Ruin: The Change in European Balance of Power, 1938-1939," has just been accepted for publication by the Princeton University Press . Dr. Murray still retains his commission in the USAF Ready Reserve, serving as a major in the Air Force Intelligence Service .


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TO MY PARENTS


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CHAPTER
CONTENTS
Page
DISCLAIMER-AB STAINER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xii LIST OF MAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xix FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxiii
I THE LUFTWAFFE : ORIGINS AND PREPARATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
The Economic Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 The Development of the Luftwaffe, 1933-39 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Luftwaffe's Impact, 1933-39 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Notes, Chapter I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
II THE EASY WAR : GERMANY TRIUMPHANT, SEPTEMBER 1939-SEPTEMBER 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Background to Poland . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 The Polish Campaign and the "Phony" War . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 Scandinavia and France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 The Battle ofBritain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Notes, Chapter II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
III THE TURN TO RUSSIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
The Strategic Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Distractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Barbarossa: Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Barbarossa: The Invasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 Production and Strategy, 1940-41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 Notes, Chapter III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108


V
Page
IV ON THE BRINK : JANUARY-OCTOBER 1942. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
The East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
The Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 The West: British Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 The German Response: Air War in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132 German Production, 1942: Performance and
Implications . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139 Notes, Chapter IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
ATTRITION ON THE PERIPHERY: NOVEMBER 1942AUGUST 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147
The War in the East: November 1942August 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147 The Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 The Air War in the West: The Combined Bomber Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 The Defense of the Reich. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Losses, Production, and Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191 Notes, Chapter V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
VI ATTRITION OVER THE REICH: SEPTEMBER 1943
MARCH 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Night Defense of the Reich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 The Day Battle: Victory, September-October 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .222 The Day Battle: The Pause, NovemberDecember 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226 Defeat: January-March 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234 War in the East, the Mediterranean, and Over Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Production and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .255
Notes, Chapter VI . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256
VII DEFEAT : APRIL-SEPTEMBER 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263
"Overlord" and "Strategic" Bombing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .264 Defense of the Frontiers: The LUFTWAFFE, April-September 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .277


Page Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .291 Notes, Chapter VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .293
VIII CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .299
The Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .299 The Other Side of the Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .302 Notes, Chapter VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357
APPENDIX
1 THE PREWAR DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN DOCTRINE AND AIRPOWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
The Royal Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 The Development of Airpower in the United States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331 Notes, Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337
2 EFFECT ON A 10,000-AIRCRAFT FORCE STRUCTURE OF A 3 .6-PERCENT LOSS RATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341
3 AIRCRAFT WRITTEN OFF, BOMBER COMMAND1941-1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .343
4 EIGHTH AIR FORCE, PERCENTAGE SORTIE LOSS RATE (HEAVY BOMBERS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .345


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Table Page
I Planned and Actual Aircraft Output-1938 and 1939 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
II Aircrew Readiness-August 1938 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
III German Aircraft Losses (Damaged and Destroyed)May-June 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
IV German Aircraft Losses 1940 (All Types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
V German Fighter Losses 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
VI German Bomber Losses 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
VII Aircraft and Crew Losses-August 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
VIII Percentage of Fully Operational Ready Crews, July-September 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
IX Aircraft Losses-July-September 1940. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
X Aircraft Losses-May-September 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
XI Luftwaffe Bomber Losses--October-December 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
XII German Aircraft Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
XIII Crew and Aircraft Losses on the Eastern FrontJune 22-November 1, 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
XIV German Aircraft Losses 1941 (All Types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90
XV German Bomber Losses 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
XVI German Fighter Losses 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
XVII German Losses, All Causes-1941 (Not Including November) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93
XVIII Luftwaffe "In-Commission" Rates 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95
XIX % of Fully Operational Crews, July 1941-January 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
XX Production of German Aircraft-1939-1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
XXI Authorized and Actual Strength, Combat Aircraft
September 1939-March 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101


Page
XXII Average Monthly Production by Half Years : Fighters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
XXIIl Average Monthly Production by Half Years: Twin-Engine Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
XXIV Average Monthly Production by Half Years: Four-Engine Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
XXV German Losses, Jun-Dec 1942, by Theater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
XXVI German Aircraft Losses 1942 (All Types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
XXVII German Bomber Losses 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116
XXVIII German Fighter Losses 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117
XXIX German Losses, All Causes-January-October 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140
XXX German Losses by Theater, Jan-Nov 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148
XXXI German Fighter Losses, 1943 (Number of Aircraft) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
XXXII German Aircraft Losses, Mediterranean TheaterNovember 1942-May 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163
XXXIII Aircraft Written Off: Eighth Air Force, 1943 (Heavy Bombers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175
XXXIV Crew Losses Eighth Air Force, 1943 (Heavy Bombers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
XXXV German Aircraft Losses 1943 (All Types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
XXXVI German Bomber Losses 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
XXXVII German Fighter Losses 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
XXXVIII Fighter Pilot Loss, Jan-Aug 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187
XXXIX Fighter and Bomber Strength in Frontline Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
XL Bomber Command Strength and Aircraft Losses-1943 . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .212
XLI Bomber Command Losses, January 1943-March 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220
XLII British Bomber Losses-1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
XLIII Aircraft Losses, Schweinfurt-October 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226
XLIV Fighter Pilot Losses - Sept-Dec 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227
XLV Production of New and Reconditioned Fighter Aircraft-June-December 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229


Page
XLVI Production of New Fighters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .230
XLVII Frontline Strength and Operational Ready Rate, Fighter Force-August-December 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
XLVIII Losses in Jagdgeschwader 26 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
XLIX Bomber and Fighter Strength, Eighth Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
L Aircraft Written Off : Eighth Air Force, 1944 (Heavy Bombers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
LI German Aircraft Losses, Jan-Jun 1944 (All Types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238
LII German Fighter Losses, Jan-Jun 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
LIII Fighter Pilot Losses - Jan-May 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
LIV German Bomber Losses, Jan-Jun 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
LV Number of Loaded Wagons (Excluding a Relatively Small Number Owned Privately) Originating in Region North (Weekly Totals) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268
LVI Number of Loaded Wagons (Excluding a Relatively Small Number Owned Privately) Originating in Region West (Weekly Totals) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .269
LVII Number of Trains Passing Along the Route Valenton-Juvisy in Relation to the Tonnages of Bombs Directed Against Railway Centres Along the Route . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .270
LVIII German Fuel Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275
LIX Fighter Forces Available, Luftflotte Reich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .275
LX Distribution ofGerman Fighters, End of June 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .284
LXI Aircrew Survival Rate, Bomber Command-1939-1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . .303
LXII German Aircraft Losses, 6-Month Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .304
LXIII Bomber Losses, 6-Month Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .305
LXIV Fighter Losses, 6-Month Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .306
LXV No title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .307
LXVI No title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .308
LXVII % of Aircraft Authorized Strength. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .309


Page
LXVIII % Loss Fighter Pilot Strength, Jan 1942-Jun 1943 - Part I . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .311
LXX Flying Hours in British, American and German Training Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .314
LXXI Number of Victories Achieved Each 50 Missions Flown : 4 German Aces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315
Photographs
Following Page 61
General Walther Wever, first Chief ofStaff
Reichsmarschall Hermann Gbring and Generaloberst Hans Jeschonnek
Ernst Udet and Willi Messerschmitt
Mainstay of the fighter force : the Bf 109G
The flawed fighter : the Bf 110
The "fast" bomber: the Ju 88
The interim bomber : the He 111
The cancelled "strategic" bomber: the Do 19
The flawed "strategic" bomber: the He 177
Russian Air Force Base at Kovno after German attack, 22 June 1941
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring
Following Page 199
Field Marshal Erhard Milch visiting the 55th Bomb Wing
xv
LXIX % of Crews Operational Ready (Fully) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .313


B-17 formation attacking Brunswick
B-17's under attack by Fw 190, 29 Nov 1943, target : Bremen
The cost: B-17 straggler under the guns of an Fw 190
The cost
The cost: B-17 falling out of formation
The cost: B-17 munition handling accident
The defenders : Galland and Hermann at war game with 1st Fighter Wing, Nov-Dec 1943
The defenders : the Fw 190
The defenders : mainstay of the night fighter force-the Bf 110G
Air superiority : American fighters over B-17 formation
Attrition : destruction of a Bf 109
Attrition : Bf 109 pilot bales out
Air superiority : He 177 under strafing attack
Defeat : occupied German airfield, 1945
Goring in defeat: the Reichsmarschall removes his medals for his American captors


LIST OF MAPS
Page
The Invasion of France 1940: The Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Battle of Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
The Invasion of Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
The German Summer Offensive : 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
The Soviet Counter Attack : Stalingrad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
The Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161
Major Targets : The Strategic Bombing Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168
Escort Fighter Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172
German Air Defense-Oct 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178
Kassel 22/23rd October 1943 - Outward Route . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211
Plots on Bombers Passed Over RT & WT to Nightfighters, Raid on Nuremberg, 30/31 .3 .44. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219
The Soviet Advance, Nov 1942-Dec 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .287


THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In a work of this nature, it is not surprising that many people played a considerable role in advising me as I began and conducted my research . The strengths of this book reflect their help; its weaknesses, my failings. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Philip Flammer of Brigham Young University who introduced me to the Air War College and played a major role in developing my interest in doing a study of the Luftwaffe . At the Air University, Colonel Thomas Fabyanic, founder of the Airpower Research Institute (ARI), deserves special mention for his generous support of this project as does the current Director of the Institute, Colonel Kenneth Alnwick . Without the wholehearted support of Major General David Gray, former Commandant of the Air War College, this study could not have been conducted . I would also like to thank the following individuals at the Air War College for their help and guidance: Colonel Donald Frizzell, Lieutenant Colonels Donald Baucom, David Maclssac, David Lupton, and James True ; and my colleagues in the ARI, Dr. David Mets and Dr. Kenneth Werrell . My special thanks to John Schenk and Dorothy McCluskie of the ARI for their thorough and detailed editorial assistance. I would also be remiss if I were not to express my thanks to those who helped with the typing of this manuscript and with arrangements for my travels : especially Edna Davis, Jo Ann Perdue, Mary Schenk, Betty Brown, and Norma Todd . I must thank Rose McCall for the excellent graphics and Steve Garst, Air University Review, for designing the cover . In the academic world, my colleagues Professors I . B. Holley and Hans Gatzke deserve thanks for their help and advice . At the Ohio State University, Kenneth Watman and Bruce Nardulli were especially helpful in reviewing the content of the final manuscript. I should also like to thank Harry Fletcher for his considerable help in guiding me through the archives at the Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center. In addition, I received substantial assistance while working abroad in European archives . In Great Britain, Group Captain "Tony" Mason afforded me access to critical materials in the RAF Staff College archives ; "J . P." McDonald guided me through the materials available in
the Public Record Office (PRO) from his post in the Air Historical Branch ; and
"Freddie" Lambert and Suzanne Marsh provided invaluable research assistance. I
must also thank Professors Paul Kennedy, John Gooch, Brian Bond, and Richard
Overy for their help as well as friendship that they extended to me while I was in
Great Britain . Dr. Noble Frankland provided his time and his vast knowledge at the
Imperial War Museum . I also must thank the staffs at the PRO, the Imperial War
Museum, and the RAF Staff College . In Germany, the staffs at the military archives in Freiburg and the
Militdrgeschichtliches Forschungsamt played an invaluable role in furthering my work . In particular, I must thank Dr. Manfred Messerschmidt, Dr. Jurgen Forster, Dr. Horst Boog, and especially Dr. Wilhelm Deist and Oberstleutnant Klaus Maier for their help and friendship . Major General Hans W. Asmus provided enormous


patience, wisdom, as well as great courtesy and hospitality during my stay in Germany . I should also like to thank Oberst Werner Geissinger for his considerable help in proofreading the German as well as the English in the various drafts of this work. In the military archives in Freiburg, Frau Eleonore Miiller was most helpful, always friendly, and invariably pleasant . Finally, I must thank my wife Marjorie and my children, Alexandra and Spencer, for their support and love in all the separations that this project entailed.


Military history is a window through which we may study the lessons of past combat . These lessons become clear only after thoughtful examination of events and factors that influenced them . Organizations that have not been willing to examine the past, especially their own, have usually paid a price for that oversight . We stand today on the far side of a gulf of time which separates us from the experiences of the Second World War . Nearly forty years ago, the Allied Air Forces fought an extensive, costly battle for air superiority over the European continent . The air war over Europe represented a great struggle between fully mobilized industrial powers . This conflict had the scale, characteristics, and balance of strength between both sides which we might well experience in a future conflict . Though over time we were able to bring our massive productive superiority to bear in this war, it nevertheless was a struggle which challenged our staying power and stamina . The length and attrition of that conflict suggest that should we ever face another war on a similar scale, the clash of power may neither be short nor quickly decisive. We may again have to face a battlefield environment and set of challenges which are wholly different from what we have faced in recent conflicts . Only a few of our senior officers can call directly upon the experience of World War II to guide them in leading the Air Force. Our combat experience base is limited mainly to the events of Korea and Vietnam . Should we have to fight a large scale war again, only history can provide the necessary insights . If history has had one direct lesson for the student of war, it is that nations and their armed forces will not be fully prepared for the war that comes . If this is so, we must acquire by an extensive study of past conflicts, a flexibility ofmind and intellectual rigor that will permit us to deal with the unexpected and adapt to changing conditions as they are, not as we forecast them to be. History clearly points out that those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat old mistakes . This book is a comprehensive analysis of an air force, the Luftwaffe, in World
War II. It follows the Germans from their prewar preparations to their final defeat .
There are many disturbing parallels with our current situation . I urge every student
of military science to read it carefully. The lessons of the nature of warfare and the
application of, airpower can provide the guidance to develop our fighting forces and employment concepts to meet the significant challenges we are certain to face in the future .
ROBERT C . MATHIS General, USAF (Retired)
FOREWORD


THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK


INTRODUCTION
As with all military thought, a wide variety of political, historical, and economic factors guided the development of air doctrines in the period between the First and
Second World Wars . Yet standing above all other influences was a revulsion against the mud and despair of the trenches . Thus, it is not surprising that an Italian
senior officer, Giulio Douhet, would argue that airpower could prevent the repetition of a war that had cost Italy more than 400,000 dead. In terms of the first formulations of air doctrine, Douhet's thought did not prove particularly influential . In Britain, the development of doctrine, both within and outside of the Royal Air Force (RAF), already was well advanced by the end of the First World War.' Douhet may have exercised more influence on American doctrine, since various translated extracts of his work found their way into the library and schools of the American Air Service as early as 1922. 2 But the formulation of a precision bombing doctrine in the United States raises the question of how deeply his writings influenced early Army Air Corps pioneers . Yet, Douhet's theories are symptomatic of intellectual attitudes current among military and civilian thinkers in the post-World War I era . They are, therefore, a useful point of departure . Douhet's central, single-minded argument was that the decisive mission for an air force was "strategic" bombing .' All other missions would only detract from this role and thus were considered counterproductive and a misuse of air resources . Douhet excluded the possibility of air defense, denied fighter aircraft a place in future air forces, and argued that close air support and interdiction were an irrelevant waste of aircraft . The only role for the air force of the future would be that of "strategic" bombing . Douhet further reasoned that the more heavily armed bomber would always prove superior to the fighter in air-to-air combat .4 Underlying Douhet's arguments was a belief that bombardment of an enemy's population centers would shatter his morale and lead directly to the collapse of his war effort .' Such an attitude underlay most airpower theories between the wars and reflected a fundamental disbelief in the staying power of civilian societies . Douhet's approach represented the hope that airpower and "strategic" bombing would enable international conflict to return to an era of short, decisive wars and
thus would allow Europe to escape the mass slaughter of the last war . However, nowhere in Douhet's writings is there a sense of the technological and industrial underpinnings necessary for air war. This may subconsciously reflect the circumstance that Italy possessed none of the resources, expertise, or industrial requirements for such a war. It is worth noting, however, that most other theorists of the period were similarly reluctant to recognize the technological and industrial
complexities of their subject. In retrospect, what makes the present-day
conventional wisdom that Douhet was the prophet of airpower so surprising is the
fact that his theory denigrated all the major missions of modern air forces except
"strategic" bombing . Douhet dismissed air defense, tactical air, airlift,
XXlll


reconnaissance, and air superiority as immaterial. Not surprisingly, he also argued
that airpower eliminated the requirement for armies and navies ; consequently, there was no need for interservice cooperation . The theories of Douhet and other early airpower advocates, with their stress on
the notion that "strategic" bombing was the exclusive air mission, have exercised a
great influence on the development of air forces since that time. Commentators on
airpower have all too often tied their subject directly and exclusively to "strategic" bombing, while ignoring other possible applications. Air forces, however, have had to perform a wide variety of tasks other than "strategic" bombing. The real
contribution of airpower to final victory in the Second World War lay in the very
diversity of its capability . Ironically, the conduct of air operations in that war resembled, in many facets, the strategy of the previous conflict except that attrition came now in terms of aircraft and aircrews rather than mud-stained infantry . Month after month, year after year, crews climbed into their aircraft to fly over the
European continent . Those in charge of the air battle came to measure success by drops in percentage points of bomber and fighter losses rather than in terms of yards gained . As one commentator has pointed out :
Despite the visions of its protagonists of prewar days, the air war during the Second World War . . . was attrition war . It did not supplant the operations of conventional forces; it complemented
them . Victory went to the air forces with the greatest depth, the
greatest balance, the greatest flexibility in employment . The result
was an air strategy completely unforeseen by air commanders . . . 6
Thus, air war proved to have none of the decisive elements that prewar thinkers and advocates had so confidently predicted . Rather, air superiority and the utilization of airpower to break the opponent proved to be elusive and intractable problems . Enemy air forces could and did live to fight another day despite setbacks and defeat . Only the elimination of their supporting industries and resources, or the occupation of their bases by ground forces, guaranteed complete victory. The accomplishment of the former task proved extraordinarily difficult, while the latter indicated a degree of interdependence among air, ground, and naval forces that airpower advocates had so casually dismissed before the war. If the aircraft had added a new dimension to warfare, it had not changed the underlying principles. While the concept of "strategic" bombing intrigued prewar air forces, practical factors-the "real world" of interservice relationships, defense priorities, political
attitudes, and economic limitations-exercised an important influence over their
establishment and development . Entirely different strategic factors determined
control over the constitution and strategies of each different European air force, not to mention the Army Air Corps in the United States. To understand the course of those developments as well as the doctrine that guided the employment of airpower in the Second World War, one must grasp not only those factors influencing the air forces themselves but also the larger problems of national policy and strategy that influenced both politicians and the military.
xxiv


The Luftwaffe, as with all military organizations, was a child of its time . The theories current throughout Europe in the 1920's and 1930's with respect to the future course of warfare in general and air war in particular also were present in Germany . Conversely, and not surprisingly, the peculiar forces that had guided and molded German history exercised their influence on the growth and development of the Luftwaffe . Like their counterparts in other nations, German airmen believed that their air force would be able to exercise an important, if not decisive, impact on a future war . To them, aircraft would be the definitive "strategic" weapon in the coming conflict .' Those currents within the German military, typified by Erich Ludendorff's conceptions of total war and the mobilization of the population, not only made the mass movement of the Nazi Party attractive to many officers but also led to a greater acceptance of airpower theories among the air force officer corps .' On the other hand, Germany's location and strategic situation presented the German
miliary with a reality that they could not ignore ; one major defeat on land might
well seal the fate of the Reich before the Luftwaffe could have an impact . That represented a strategic situation quite different from that facing British and
American airmen . Besides reflecting its society, the Luftwaffe reflected the traditions and values of the Prussian officer corps . Like their brother officers in the army, Luftwaffe officers would prove imaginative, innovative, and highly competent in operational and tactical matters . They would, however, prove themselves lost in the higher realms of strategy and grand strategy, and it would be in those realms that the Reich would founder. After the war, the German generals and admirals would rush into print to prove that defeat had been largely the result of Hitler's leadership. In fact, their strategic concepts in the war proved to be as flawed as had the Fiihrer's. The German generals and admirals aided and abetted Hitler's strategy in 1940 ; and when it succeeded beyond their wildest expectations with the fall of France, they reacted in awe, suspending reason for a blind faith in the invincibility of the Reich and its Fiihrer. The strategic advice they tendered from that point forward ignored the industrial, economic, and political realities of war between industrialized nations that have existed since the American Civil War . The failure of German grand
strategy and mobilization in 1940-41 insured not only the defeat of the German
armed forces and the Luftwaffe in the coming years but a catastrophe for the German
nation as well . Therefore, exploring the causes for the defeat of the Luftwaffe, the
focus of this study, explains more than the downfall of an air force.


Notes
1 . For a detailed discussion of this point, see the excellent work by Barry D . Powers, Strategy Without Slide-Rule, British Air Strategy, 1914-1939 (London, 1976) . 2 . Robert F . Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine : A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air
Force, 1907-1964 (Montgomery, 1971), pp . 38-39 .
3 . For the purposes of this study, the use of the term "strategic" bombing will have the word strategic
inclosed within quotation marks, as this author believes that the use of the word strategic by airpower enthusiasts to connote a particular form of bombing distorts the classical meaning of the word . The difficulty into which the misuse of this word has led historians might be best characterized by the following question : In May 1940, given Germany's military situation, what was the best strategic use to which the Luftwaffe could be put : supporting the army's drive to the channel and the crushing of French and British land power, or attacking French factories and cities? The answer is clear in a classical sense .
Within the existing definitions of "strategic" and "tactical" bombing, it is not so clear . 4 . General Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air (London, 1943), pp . 16-17, 44, 55, 218, 239 .
5 . Edward Warner, "Douhet, Mitchell, Seversky : Theories of Air Warfare," Makers of Modern Strategy, ed . b y Edward Mead Earle, 2nd edition (Princeton, 1971), p . 489 .
6 . William Emerson, "Operation Pointblank," Harmon Memorial Lecture, No . 4 (Colorado Springs, 1962), p . 41 . 7 . For the basic groundbreaking work on this point, I am indebted to a lecture given in September 1980 at the Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, by Oberstleumant Klaus Maier of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Federal Republic of Germany . See the further discussion and amplification of this point in Chapter I and in my article, "The Luftwaffe Before the Second World War: A Mission, A Strategy?," Journal of Strategic Studies (September 1981) . 8 . See, in particular, the articles dealing with airpower that appeared in the Militdrwissenschaftliche Rundschau from 1936 through 1939 .


CHAPTER I
The Luftwaffe : Origins and Preparation
Since World War II, American and British advocates of "strategic" bombing
have criticized the Luftwaffe as being "in effect the hand maiden of the German army."' Such a view does not do justice to the complexity of the rearmament problem faced by the Third Reich in general and the Luftwaffe in particular . It also
misses entirely the fact that a significant body within the Luftwaffe's high command were converts to the doctrine of "strategic" bombing before the outbreak of World War 11. That Germany was not able to wage a successful "strategic" bombing campaign in 1940 reflected merely the fact that German air strategists in the prewar period, like those in other nations, had considerably overestimated their ability to inflict punishing strategic damage with the weapons at hand. Before the war, the same trends that marked the air forces of Great Britain and the United States also were present in the officer corps of the Luftwaffe . But an important geographic
consideration, the fact that Germany was a continental power, had an additional impact on German strategic thinking . In any conceivable conflict involving the military forces of the Reich, Germany faced the probability of land operations at the
outset of hostilities . Thus, it would scarcely improve Germany's strategic position if-at the same time that the Luftwaffe launched aerial attacks on London, Paris, and Warsaw-Germany's enemies defeated the Wehrmacht on the border and overran Silesia, East Prussia, and the Rhineland .
THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
Constraining and guiding the course of German rearmament throughout the 1930's was an economic situation considerably different from that which determined British or American rearmament .' The only raw material possessed by Germany in any abundance was coa1.3 All other raw materials required for the
continued functioning of the German economy, not to mention the successful prosecution of war, had to be imported to one extent or another. Imports of oil, rubber, aluminum, and other critical materials necessary for the continued functioning of the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht were all subject to blockade .
Moreover, in peacetime the Germans had to use a substantial portion of their
industrial production to export goods in order to earn the foreign exchange
necessary to pay for these strategic raw material imports needed for rearmament .
Symptomatic of this German economic vulnerability was the situation in the
petroleum industry. In order to maintain an increasingly motorized economy and to
cut down on dependence from foreign sources, the Germans pushed construction of
synthetic fuel plants (i .e ., plants that used coal to make petroleum products) .


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
Nevertheless, in spite of substantial investments in a synthetic fuel industry, synthetic production never caught up with demand during the 1930's . While the percentage of synthetic fuel in terms of consumption steadily increased in this period, Germany imported more fuel in 1937 than she had at the beginning of the decade.' Demand had simply increased faster than production .' The fuel situation in the summer of 1938 reflects the extent of the problem . In June of that year, supplies in storage tanks could cover only 25 percent of mobilization requirements--on the average, four months of full wartime needs . Supplies of aviation lubricants were as low as 6 percent of mobilization requirements .' This was, of course, a reflection of Germany's inherent inability to meet petroleum requirements from her own resources and her considerable problem in earning foreign exchange to pay for strategic raw material imports . In fact, the most serious constraint on German rearmament in the 1930's was the lack of foreign exchange. Without hard currency to cover imports, German industry could not reach the level of armament production demanded by the Wehrmacht and Hitler . Indeed, the Reich experienced increasing difficulties in acquiring these raw materials required for military production. A series of more difficult economic crises, caused by a lack of foreign exchange, marked the course of German rearmament throughout the 1930's .' Beginning in 1930, a worldwide depression
had caused a sharp dropoff in the value of German exports that continued through 1934 . Thereafter, only a marginal recovery took place . As a result, holdings of foreign exchange steadily dwindled, and this shortage of hard currency in the thirties set definite limits on the level of raw material imports available to support rearmament .' As early as the fall of 1934, the German cotton industry held reserves for no more than two weeks' production, rubber plants for two months, and the petroleum industry for three to three and one-half months . Moreover, foreign suppliers already were becoming doubtful as to the liquidity of the German economy and, as a result, would not deliver on credit . 9 By 1935, this situation had caused significant portions of German industry to draw down stockpiles . From March to December 1935,
stockpiles of major industrial raw materials fell dramatically; and for the remainder
of the 1930's, the German economy lived a hand-to-mouth existence, scratching to
find sufficient foreign exchange to pay for imports .
By 1937, the German economy was suffering serious shortages of steel because
of a lack of ore imports, while the industry itself was operating at barely 83 percent
of capacity . 10 These economic difficulties affecting rearmament most likely played
a role in pushing Hitler into the confrontations of 1938 . Here again, despite substantial financial gains made by the Anschluss with Austria, efforts to expand the rearmament program, to build up synthetic and munition industries, to begin the massive construction of the Westwall project, and to mobilize for the Czech crisis severely strained the German economy . In November 1938, Hermann G6ring admitted that the German economic infrastructure had reached a point of maximum
economic distress." As a direct result, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the German armed forces high command, made major reductions in steel and raw


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
material allocations to armament production ." Continuing difficulties led Hitler to announce to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, that Germany must wage an "export battle" (Exportschlacht) to raise foreign exchange. Simultaneously, he announced further reduction in Wehrmacht allocations : steel, 30 percent ; copper,
20 percent ; aluminum, 47 percent ; rubber, 14 percent . 's Problems stemming from both insufficient foreign exchange and raw materials guided the course of the German rearmament. Neither were available in sufficient quantity to build a massive "strategic" bombing force. Moreover, the army, given Germany's strategic position as a continental power, laid claims to resources that any rearmament program had to meet. Finally, the country's doubtful access to foreign supplies of petroleum products raises the question as to whether Germany could support an independent "strategic" bombing offensive . Thus, it is clear that definite economic constraints limited German air planners in the creation of the Luftwaffe, and the force they molded both before and during the war was influenced by different strategic factors than those guiding either the British or the Americans .
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LUFTWAFFE, 1933-39
The Germans faced considerable difficulties in the creation of an air capability with the onset of rearmament in 1933. Given the fact that no German air force survived from the Great War except as a camouflaged planning staff within the army and that the capacity for civil aircraft production was largely inadequate for military purposes, the development of the Luftwaffe was an enormously complex and difficult task. Considering the fact that within six and a half years this force would go to war and render vital support in the early campaigns, the Germans were most successful in their efforts . The first strategic problem on Hitler's ascension to power in January 1933 was the perception that a still disarmed and vulnerable Reich faced the possibility of a preventive war, waged by her neighbors to stop the resurrection of Germany as a military power. As Hitler told his generals shortly after he had come to power, if France possessed any statesmen, she would wage war in the immediate future . '4 Thus, whatever theoretical advantages might accrue to Germany through the possession of a "strategic" bombing force in the late 1930's, the Third Reich faced the possibility of an imminent war. Future "strategic" bombing capabilities would do nothing for present military difficulties, while the tactical potential of a less
sophisticated, more conventional air force would be more quickly realized for utilization in a contemporary military confrontation . German interest in a "strategic" air weapon goes back to the early days of the First World War . Frustrated at the imposition of a distant blockage in 1914 by the
Royal Navy, German naval strategists looked for a means to strike at the British Empire . As early as August 1914, Rear Admiral Paul Behncke, Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, urged that the navy's Zeppelins attack London, the heart of the British Empire . Such attacks, he argued, "may be expected,whether they involve London or the neighborhood of London, to cause panic in the population which may


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
possibly render it doubtful that the war can be continued ." 15 Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz noted in a letter of November 1914 that :
The English are now in terror of the Zeppelin, perhaps not without reason . I contend here . . . . I go for the standpoint of "war to the knife," but I am not in favor of "frightfulness . . . . . . Also, single
bombs from flying machines are wrong ; they are odious when they hit and kill old women, and one gets used to them . If [however] one could set fire to London in thirty places, then what in a small way is odious would retire before something fine and powerful . 16
When the Zeppelin campaign failed, the Germans attacked London with the heavier-than-air bomber . That campaign, even if it did not achieve great material damage, did lead to the creation ofthe Royal Air Force." The defeat of 1918 and the conditions of the Versailles Treaty eliminated aircraft from the German arsenal . Not only was Germany denied access to new technology
as represented by the submarine, the airplane, and the tank, but the peace also severely limited the size and capability of Germany's military services. The victorious Allies, however, could not prevent the Germans from thinking about their experiences and the weapons ofthe last war. Hans von Seeckt, father of the Reichswehr, insured that the miniscule army left to Germany included a small body of officers (180) who had had experience in the conduct ofthe air battles in the Great War . As was the case with the development of motorized/mechanized warfare, Seeckt showed considerable prescience with respect to airpower" and saw to it that its advocates possessed at least some voice within the army . '9 Limitations imposed by Versailles forced German aviation into a narrow framework . Nevertheless, extensive subsidies to civil aviation contributed to the survival of Germany's aviation industry, and preparations for air rearmament during the Weimar Republic played a significant role in the establishment of the Luftwaffe during the Nazi period .z° Germany's lead in civil aviation was such that by 1927, German airlines flew greater distances with more passengers than their
French, British, and Italian competitors together .z' This experience in long-distance flying, navigation, and instrument flying obviously had a positive impact on developing the Luftwaffe in the interwar period . Still, the problems facing the Nazis in January 1933 in the creation of an air force
that could serve as an effective tool of diplomatic and military policy were
enormous . Only a tiny cadre of experienced officers existed within the army and
navy; Lufthansa experience was not directly convertible into a military force ; and
the German aircraft industry, weakened not only by the depression but also by
internecine quarrels amongst its almost bankrupt firms, was not prepared for
massive expansion . The Luftwaffe was favored at its birth, however, by the fact that its patron and first leader, Hermann Goring, was Hitler's right-hand man . Goring's political pull insured that the Luftwaffe gained position as an independent service and that it enjoyed a privileged status in interservice arguments over allocation of funding and resources . While funding did not represent a problem in the early days of


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
rearmament, by the late thirties serious economic difficulties impacted on all
services-but on the Luftwaffe least of all because of Gbring's position. Unfortunately, however, for the efficient functioning of the German command system, G6ring, as Minister of Aviation, refused to subordinate himself to the Minister of War, Werner von Blomberg. Thus, Blomberg faced the impossible task of coordinating and controlling the three services. His problems were further
compounded by the fact that Goring, as Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, went around him at every opportunity ." In the long run, G6ring had a disastrous impact on the Luftwaffe's history and his position as number two in the political hierarchy prevented Hitler from removing him even after his many failures demanded such action . Initially, G6ring's political tasks as Hitler's chief aide during the consolidation of power (the establishment of the Gestapo, the savaging of the Communists, and the purge of Ernst R6hm and the S .A.) absorbed a substantial portion of "der Dicke's" time ." Thus, while G6ring as Reich Air Minister and after March 1935 Commander in Chief played at the role, at least until 1936 others made the substantive decisions creating the new force. G6ring's mental framework was that of a squadron-level fighter pilot which he had been in the First World War ; and throughout his tenure as Luftwaffe commander, he remained largely ignorant of supply, logistics, strategy, aircraft capabilities, technology, and engineering-in other words, just about everything having to do with airpower . Compounding his ignorance was the fact that G6ring took a rather loose view on the subject of hard work, and his visits to the Air Ministry were sporadic at best. In July 1938, during an address to aircraft manufacturers, Goring even admitted that he saw Ernst Udet, at this time in charge of all the Luftwaffe's technical departments, only once a week .24 The long-range implications of such leadership spelled disaster. Nevertheless, in the short term, G6ring's political pull was ofgreat use in the establishment of an independent air arm. G6ring was particularly fortunate in his leading subordinate . Erhard Milch, G6ring's and Hitler's selection for the position of State Secretary in the new Air Ministry, possessed tremendous drive, a thorough knowledge of the production capabilities of the German aircraft industry, a detailed understanding of its
managers and designers, and, perhaps most importantly, excellent connections within the political leadership of the newly established Third Reich." Milch's brashness and arrogance eventually led to conflict with more conventional Luftwaffe officers who had remained professional soldiers during the Weimar
period . Those regular officers never forgot that Milch had left the military after the
war to become the eventual head ofLufthansa . The other senior officers of the Luftwaffe came from the Reichswehr. Of
particular note here is Blomberg's contribution to the establishment of the new
service's officer corps . In 1933, on the occasion of the founding ofthe Air Ministry, Blomberg commented that the new Luftwaffe would require an elite officer corps with "a tempestuous spirit of attack ." 26 More to the point, he insured that the army transferred first-class officers to the new service . Significantly, not only personnel with flying experience moved to the Air Ministry but also highly trained officers


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
from the army's general staff transferred to the Luftwaffe . Blomberg offered Goring a choice between Walther Wever and the future Field Marshal Erich von Manstein
for the position of Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe ; Goring chose the former . When Wever died in an aircraft crash in 1936, Blomberg initially considered offering Goring the future chief of the army's general staff, General Franz Halder, as a replacement ." Along with Wever, other army luminaries such as Albert Kesselring and Hans Jeschonnek transferred to the Luftwaffe . Jeschonnek, among other accomplishments, had finished first in his class at the Kriegsakademie, usually a sure sign of promise for a quick rise to the top of the military profession .28 By October 1933, 228 officers up to the rank of colonel had transferred from the older services . By January 1939, a further 70 had followed along with 1,600 noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and enlisted men . Blomberg demanded that individuals selected for transfer represent the "best of the best . "29 The high quality of these officers should not obscure the fact that the Luftwaffe's officer corps and general staff, never in their short careers, reached a level of homogeneity and competence that the army officer corps and general staff enjoyed . The simple mechanics of expansion alone ruled out such a possibility . From 1933 to 1935, the Luftwaffe developed a personnel strength of approximately 900 flying officers, 200 flak (antiaircraft) officers, and 17,000 men . In addition to the army, the officer corps came from widely different sources ; many pilots entered the Luftwaffe directly from civil aviation, while veterans of the First World War further fleshed out the officer corps . From this mixture, the Luftwaffe expanded to a strength of 15,000 officers and 370,000 men by the outbreak of the war . 3° Within the officer corps alone, the sheer magnitude of the expansion resulted in an entirely understandable lack of coherence and a notable lack of strategic competence . Shortly after the surprise Japanese attack on Hawaii when Hitler asked his military staff for the location of Pearl Harbor, none, including his Luftwaffe officers, could locate the American naval base ." Luftwaffe officers, understandably given the shortness of their service's lifespan, had an immense task of catching up and maintaining currency in the . technical aspects of their service . The result was that they became at best technocrats and operational experts with limited vision." Thus, with perhaps the exception of Wever and to a lesser extent Milch, the officer corps showed a lack of understanding of the larger issues revolving around the interrelation of airpower to national strategy, defects which may, indeed, have been nothing less than fatal . At the outset of rearmament in 1933, German planners faced the problem as to
what role the Luftwaffe would play within the larger framework of national strategy .
In May 1933, Milch, the key figure in the Luftwaffe's organization and
development in the 1933-36 period, received a major study from one of his Lufthansa subordinates, Dr . Robert Knauss, on the strategic concept for the new air force. 33 Knauss' report contained major elements of Douhet's "strategic" bombing philosophy, Tirpitz's "risk theory," and what would today be regarded as "deterrence" doctrine . He believed that the purpose of the regime was the "restoration of Germany's great power position in Europe" and argued that since


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
Poland, and particularly France, would resist such a development, Germany faced the immediate possibility of a preventive war waged by those two powers . To overcome German military weakness through rearmament, thereby re-establishing Germany's great power status, Knauss suggested the rapid creation of a strong air force . The decisive element in this force would be the deterrent effect of a fleet of 400 four-engine bombers . Knauss argued that modern industrialized society offered targets which, when destroyed, would halt the enemy's industrial production and that population centers offered the possibility of breaking the enemy's morale. Naturally, he felt that the newly created totalitarian society of Germany could
endure the pressures of bombing better than the fractured societies ofthe British and French democracies . Thus, if Germany possessed a "strategic" bombing fleet, her putative enemies-Poland and France-would think seriously before incurring the risk of air attack on major population centers. Above all, Knauss argued that the creation of such a bombing fleet offered a greater possibility for affecting the European military balance than did the establishment of army divisions or the construction of naval surface units . The creation of such a bomber force aborted for several reasons . First, the army was hardly enthusiastic about such a strategic conception . Colonel Konrad Gossler, head of the Truppenamt's operation section, argued that a clear separation between the homeland and the combat front no longer existed . Thus, both opposing air forces possessed the same opportunity to attack their enemy's homeland . Moreover, since the beginning of time, Gossler argued, each new weapon had led many to conclude that the old weapons of war were no longer needed . This had simply not happened . Finally, he objected that such a conception, if realized, "might destroy war by making it impossible for both sides ." Such arguments would lead inevitably to pacifism!14 More decisive for the actual establishment ofthe Luftwaffe was the discovery that German aircraft industry lacked the designers, industrial capacity, or experience to build such a "strategic" bombing fleet . During the summer of 1933, Milch and his planners found that they could barely squeeze 1,000 aircraft out of industry for the first production program . Most of that effort consisted of training aircraft to expand
the flying base .'5 The "combat" aircraft hardly deserved that characterization . From a January 1933 industrial base of 4,000 workers, the aircraft industry
expanded to 16,870 workers in 1934 and to 204,100 workers by the fall of 1938 . 36 To a great extent, this represented Milch's great triumph as an organizer and
bureaucrat . While Milch played the decisive role in the administrative and industrial tasks of
creating the Luftwaffe, Wever played a no-less-important role in formulating the
new service's doctrine and strategy . He was not an unabashed advocate of
"strategic" bombing but rather argued for a broadly based air strategy . Wever did
not believe that the Luftwaffe's existence as a separate service gave it a mission entirely independent of the army and navy. Rather, he argued that its mission should complement those of the other services . Thus, the Luftwaffe's contribution to victory could involve attacks on an enemy's air forces, his army, his fleet, or


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
even the destruction of his resources and armament industry . The conditions of the
general situation and overall national strategy would determine in what form one would wage the air battle . While not denying the possibility of air defense or the importance of fighters, Wever felt that the "decisive weapon of air warfare is the bomber. "" Meanwhile, a careful analysis ofGermany's strategic situation raised doubts as to whether "strategic" bombing should be the Luftwaffe's sole mission . A war game conducted during the winter of 1933-34 indicated that a bomber fleet alone could not immediately destroy the enemy's air fleet . The conclusion was that strong fighter forces, as well as antiaircraft guns, were necessary to protect the Reich's industrial and population centers.38
Wever's thinking on the subject of airpower was best summed up in the formulation of German air doctrine that first appeared in 1935: "Conduct of the Air
War (Die Luftkriegfuhrung) . "39 As with most German military doctrinal statements, this one was a clear, concise formulation . It was not meant to restrict or dogmatize but rather to give air force commanders the widest latitude and to encourage maximum flexibility . Among the chief points enunciated was the reiteration ofWever's point that the employment of the Luftwaffe should reflect the overall framework of national grand strategy. Within grand strategy, the critical tasks of the Luftwaffe would be the attainment and maintenance of air superiority, support of the army and the navy, attacks on enemy industry, and interdiction between front and homeland . "The nature of the enemy, the time of year, the structure of his land, the character of his people, as well as one's own military capabilities" would determine how one should employ airpower.4° Wever's doctrinal statement stressed that air resources should not be used piecemeal nor should frequent changes be made in goals . In all likelihood, however, one could probably not clearly separate the struggle with an enemy air force from support provided to the army and navy. Unlike most airpower theorists, he showed a ready understanding for the fact that air superiority would be a most elusive goal . Changing technical capabilities, new production, and replacement of losses would all combine to allow the enemy to fight another day . While Wever felt that "strategic" bombing attacks on the enemy's industrial and economic sources of power could have an absolute impact, he warned that such an offensive might take too long to be decisive and might thus be too late to help the army and the navy. He emphasized that only the strongest cooperation among the three services could achieve the overall objectives of national grand strategy. The air war against the enemy industrial base should occur only when (1) an opportunity existed to
affect quickly the war's course, (2) when land and naval preparations had prepared the way, (3) when a stalemate had occurred, or (4) when a decisive effect could only be achieved through the destruction of the enemy's economic sources of
power. Wever's death in the spring of 1936 was a major blow to the Luftwaffe . However, it did not result in cancellation of the four-engine "strategic" bomber
project as some have claimed .4' In 1936, the Air Ministry cancelled the


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
development of the four-engine Dormer Do 19 and Junkers Ju 89, because suitable engines were not yet available from the German aircraft industry to provide adequate power.* The failure to have a suitable engine available in 1936 and 1937 reflected the fact that German air rearmament had only begun in 1933. As a result, German engine research and development was in some important respects behind what was occurring in Great Britain and the United States . Moreover, the long lead-time required for engine development constrained German aircraft design
throughout the 1930's . The Germans did embark on the He 177 project in 1937 in the belief that Heinkel could design and build a long-range "strategic" bomber by the early 1940's. The design of the He 177, in effect, represented an effort to shortcut the development process of a high-powered engine for a heavy bomber by placing four engines within two nacelles . Heinkel designers expected that by cutting down on the drag, they would have a bomber comparable to other four-engine aircraft with more powerful engines . Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, they were never able to overcome the difficulties inherent in the design ; hence the failure of the program reflected the failure of engineering and not a lack of interest in
"strategic" bombing .42
Wever's broadly based approach to the question of airpower should not obscure the fact that his writings never denied the possibility that "strategic" bombing could play an important part in air warfare . Moreover, a significant portion of the Luftwaffe's doctrinal thinking remained enamored with "strategic" bombing
throughout the thirties . There was an obvious reason why this should be so: The concepts of total war and total mobilization had proved attractive to much of the German military throughout the interwar period . While Seeckt argued for establishment of an elite army, Ludendorff articulated the concept that modern war had become total . Unlike most interwar military thinkers who sought to escape the horrors of World War I's mass warfare, Ludendorff embraced what had happened and argued that Germany must prepare in ruthless fashion during peace for the next war . Among other things, Ludendorff argued that war involved the entire population in the conflict, not just armies . In his view, economic production had become as important as battles on the frontline .41 The 1918 collapse convinced him that Germany required a dictatorship for the next war and, even more importantly, that some method must be found to inspire the national unity that had come apart in
the last months of the war.44
From the first, the Nazi Party appeared as a particularly attractive means to insure such a unity of national will. Hitler's popularity with the masses offered the
possibility of establishing a national cohesion that the conception of total war demanded.45 Thus, what made the Nazi movement attractive to the military throughout the 1930's was the fact that the Nazis seemingly provided the
psychological basis and preparation necessary for total war. "Ein Volk, ein Reich,
*German aircraft designations do not contain a hyphen between manufacture and model number. American designations do . The text will
reflect national preferences.


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
ein Fiihrer" was more than a slogan ; in the mass rallies and propaganda displays, it guaranteed that the 1918 collapse would not recur . Thus, Ludendorff's conception of total war and the mass movement of the Nazi Party provided an affinity between the military and the National Socialist movement that helps explain the readiness of the officer corps to serve a party that hardly represented their upper-class attitudes . Many within the Luftwaffe found in this political and psychological preparation for war a basis to argue that the next war would be a total war of the air and that because of the national unity that the Nazis had created, Germany could better withstand such a struggle . In the May 1933 memorandum discussed above, Knauss argued that "the terrorizing of the enemy's chief cities and industrial regions through bombing would lead that much more quickly to a collapse of morale, the weaker the national character of his people is, and the more that social and political rifts cleave his society ." Knauss assumed that a totalitarian society like Nazi Germany would prove more capable of enduring bombing attacks than the fractured
societies of Britain and France.46 Such attitudes played an important role in Luftwaffe thinking throughout the remainder of the thirties . Knauss himself went on from the Air Ministry to become the head of the new Air War College in Gatow. There, under his leadership, the emphasis remained solidly on "strategic" bombing until the outbreak of the war . Nearly all lectures concerned the "strategic" uses of airpower; virtually none discussed tactical cooperation with the army .47 Similarly, the emphasis in the military journals centered on "strategic" bombing. The prestigious Militdrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, the new journal of the War Ministry, founded in 1936, published a number of theoretical pieces on future developments in air war. Nearly all discussed the use of "strategic" airpower with some emphasizing that aspect of air warfare to the exclusion of others .48 One author commented that European military powers were increasingly making the bomber force the heart of their airpower. The maneuverability and technical capability of the new generation of bombers were such that "already in today's circumstances the bomber offensive would be as unstoppable as the flight of a shell . -49 Major Herhudt von Rohden, eventually the head of the general staff's historical section, went so far as to argue that unlike the army and the navy, only the air force was in the position to attack the enemy in depth and to launch immediately "destructive attacks against the economic resources of the enemy from all directions. " Moreover, von Rohden stressed, the Luftwaffe should not be an auxiliary to the other two services . Interservice cooperation did not mean dividing the Luftwaffe up and parceling out its personnel and materiel to support ground or
naval tactical purposes . Rather, interservice cooperation meant using the Luftwaffe in "a unified and massed `strategic' air war" that could provide for better long
range support .° The failure of the Luftwaffe to progress further towards a "strategic" bombing
capability is attributable to several factors . The first is that many within the
Luftwaffe thought that they possessed sufficient capability with their twin-engine aircraft to launch "strategic" attacks against Germany's most likely continental opponents-France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland . England presented greater
10


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
problems, but even here General Felmy, Commander of Luftf otte 2 and charged with planning of an air war against Britain in 1939, saw possibilities . Concluding the 1939 spring planning effort, Felmy admitted to his subordinates that the Luftwaffe did not yet possess any of the prerequisites for a successful "strategic"
bombing offensive against Great Britain. He did suggest, however, that the panic that had broken out in London in September at the height of the Munich crisis
indicated that a massive aerial onslaught directed against London might break Britain's powers of resistance." A second factor lay on the technical side: The engineers never solved the He 177 design difficulties . Moreover, not only did Germany not possess the economic strength and resources to build a "strategic" bombing force on the scale of the British and American effort of 1943-44 but few airmen of any nation in the prewar period had foreseen the enormous magnitude of the industrial and military effort that "strategic" bombing would require . Thus, it is not surprising that Germany was not much better prepared to launch a "strategic"
bombing campaign than Britain in 1939. As previously mentioned, Wever's death in 1936 was disastrous for the future course of the Luftwaffe but in a sense other than that which most historians have suggested . First, he provided the glue that held the Luftwaffe together in the early rearmament years. He got on relatively well with other Luftwaffe leaders, including
Milch, and all respected his qualities of intellect and leadership. Second, and equaljy important, Wever possessed both a practical military mind and a first-class strategic sense that thought in terms of the long pull and not just immediate, ,operational problems . Given the financial and raw material constraints on rearmament, Wever could not have created a "strategic" bombing force in the thirties in terms of what the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) would have in 1943 and 1944 . Nevertheless, his presence would have mitigated the rather haphazard approach that characterized the Luftwaffe in the late thirties and early forties . The caliber of Wever's successors underlines his importance to the Luftwaffe . Albert Kesselring, his immediate successor, was a troop leader par excellence, but overall he was not an effective Chiefof Staff and did not get along well with Milch . The back-biting between the two led to Kesselring's replacement by Hans-Jurgen
Stumpff within a year." The latter proved little better than Kesselring ; and in
February 1939, Goring named Hans Jeschonnek as Chief of the Luftwaffe's General
Staff. Despite his brilliance at the Kriegsakademie, Jeschonnek proved no better
than his predecessors . He was arrogant, shortsighted, and had had several bitter
run-ins with Milch .s' Moreover, Jeschonnek fell under Hitler's spell and swallowed
the line that the Fiihrer was the "greatest commander in history ." As a result, he never possessed the independent judgment that his position required . Shortly after Munich, Hitler demanded a fivefold increase in the Luftwaffe by 1942, an impossible goal given the economic constraints and the megalomaniacal proportion of the program . (Such a force would require 85 percent of the world's aviation fuel and would cost 60 million RM, a total equivalent to all German defense spending
for the 1933-39 period .) Senior officers correctly concluded that there was no


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
prospect of accomplishing such a plan . Jeschonnek, however, announced, "Gentlemen, in my view it is our duty to support the Fuhrer and not work against
him. "54 Such an attitude was not consistent with the traditions of the general staff, but fully conformed to Hitler's belief that his generals were there not to give advice but to carry out orders ." The almost yearly changes in the position of Chief of Staff from 1936 to 1939 was not the only result of G6ring's mishandling of the Luftwaffe . He now severely constrained Milch by balancing the State Secretary with others within the Luftwaffe's bureaucracy. Ernest Udet, a great fighter pilot in World War I and barnstormer of the 1920's, received an appointment as head of the Luftwaffe's technical departments as well as the Office of Air Armament where he controlled research and development for the Luftwaffe . Udet did not possess the technical or engineering skills to handle such responsibilities and was a dreadful administrator. He had no less than 26 separate departments reporting directly to him." In sum, G6ring possessed neither the ability nor background to run the enormously expanded Luftwaffe . Milch was increasingly isolated from the centers of power; and the other top leaders, such as Kesselring, Udet, and Jeschonnek, did not possess Wever's strategic insight. Long-range planning and strategic thinking went by the boards, and the Luftwaffe increasingly became a force that reacted to day-to-day political and operational pressures. The result of this increasingly chaotic organizational situation showed up most directly in the production programs of the late prewar period . Even considering their raw material shortages and their economic and foreign exchange difficulties, the Germans undercut the production capacity of their aircraft industry . Waste, obsolete production methods, and bad planning characterized the efforts of even the major manufacturers. Throughout the late 1930's, the Germans produced numerous plans for aircraft production due to constantly changing goals and priorities . By 1939, aircraft production was only 70 percent of stated production goals (goals that were significantly under Hitler's demand for quintupling of the Luftwaffe) . 57 The following figures in Table I's reflect the shortfall between planned expansion and actual production figures in the last years of peace.
12
TABLE I
Planned and Actual Aircraft Output-1938 and 1939
1938 Plan Nos . All Types Combat
1939 Plan Nos . All Types Combat
6 5,800 4,129 8 9,957 7,095
7 6,021 3,971 10 8,299 6,051
7/8 6,154 3,710 10/11 8,619 6,357
Actual Actual Production 5,235 3,350 Production 8,295 4,733


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
The mobilization plans, done by the general staff under Jeschonnek, and the production plans of Udet's technical experts continued to diverge-the former influenced by pressure from Goring and Hitler (and the real possibility of war), the latter under the impact of the distressing economic situation discussed at the
beginning of this chapter . The repercussions of this situation were not immediately apparent since the Luftwaffe's size and strength proved sufficient to meet initial wartime demands in Poland and France. But in long-range terms, this unbridgeable gulf between the general staff and the Luftwaffe's technical departments made industrial planning almost irrelevant in the consideration of German strategy . There
was no person or agency, except Goring, in overall charge of strategic planning, force structure, or industrial production. The results led directly to the situation of
1943,44. Beginning in 1936, but with increasing force in 1937, the Luftwaffe transitioned into its second generation of aircraft . The emphasis from above on statistics complicated an inherently difficult process . As Goring stated, what mattered were numbers "to impress Hitler and to enable Hitler, in turn, to impress the world . -19 Milch at least mitigated some of the worst aspects of this numbers craze . In 1935, he recognized that most models in production were obsolescent and refused to increase their production levels . But to stop aircraft production just because nothing better was yet available would have been counterproductive, especially since a national goal was to expand aircraft production capacity. Fortunately for the Luftwaffe, the Ju 52, produced as a bomber during this period, proved an outstanding transport aircraft and formed the backbone of the Luftwaffe's airlift force throughout the Second World War . 6° Complicating the introduction of new aircraft were the difficulties experienced by German engine manufacturers in producing engines that met comparable performance standards of American and British industry.6' The fact that the Ju 52 was not an adequate bomber in any respect led to pressure from the bomber units for replacement . As a result, the Air Ministry rushed the Ju 86, He 111, and Do 17 into production before complete evaluation . None of the three was fully satisfactory with the Ju 86 virtually useless, while the
He 111 showed the most potential for improvement . 62 The 1936 medium bomber program was meant to serve as an interim measure until a third generation of bombers arrived . Udet's growing love affair with the dive bomber disastrously affected that program . In Spain, the Luftwaffe had experienced difficulty in hitting targets accurately from high altitude, while the Ju 87 was most
accurate in putting bombs directly on target . From this experience, Udet concluded
that every bomber should be a dive bomber . There were sound arguments for the need to achieve more accurate bombing, because the low production capacity of the German munitions industry in the late thirties did not allow for much wastage of bombs.63 But the decision that the next generation of bombers should have the characteristics of dive bombers was manifestly impractical, if not impossible . The results were serious for both the Ju 88 and the He 177 . In the case of the Ju 88 prototype, Udet's demand that it possess a dive-bombing capability, along with 50,000 other design changes, increased the aircraft weight from 7 to 12 tons with a
13


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
concomitant loss in speed from 500 km/h to 300 km/h . Moreover, these changes
delayed actual production by at least a year .64 The additional requirement that the He 177 be able to dive bomb came in the middle of program development and virtually insured that, given an inherently complex engine design, the model would never evolve into an effective heavy bomber .65 Goring's and Hitler's fascination with numbers also served to distort the maintenance and supply system . Theoretically, the Luftwaffe based its approach to airpower on the belief that a flying unit was not combat-ready unless it possessed modern, reliable aircraft backed up by a first-class maintenance organization and supply system. Using this rationale, frontline units had to receive adequate numbers of replacement aircraft and reserves of spare parts. In an "after action" report on the Czech crisis, the chief of the Luftwaffe's supply services reported that these requirements had not yet been met.66 Among other items, he underscored the fact that the number of aircraft engines in maintenance and supply depots represented only 4 to 5 percent of total engines in service. The basic reason why this situation existed was in Goring's refusal to follow recommendations that the Luftwaffe devote 20 to 30 percent of production to provide adequate inventories of spare parts .6' Instead, the Germans assigned production almost exclusively to firstline strength because of the political outlook of the top leaders and their fascination with numbers . This practice continued throughout the war. As a result, theLuftwaffe was chronically short spare parts and had to cannibalize with a direct and negative impact on operational ready rates.
THE LUFTWAFFE'S IMPACT, 1933-39
The Luftwaffe's initial strategic purpose had been to deter Poland and France from launching a preventive war against the Reich. It was neither notably successful nor unsuccessful in this role. Hitler's diplomatic skills, particularly the 1934 Non Aggression Pact with Poland, were more important in altering the European diplomatic balance of power. The French, at least in the early period of German rearmament, were somewhat blase about the implications of the Luftwaffe . As late as September 1937, one military leader told the British that with "a veritable forest of guns" over the Maginot Line, France could prevent the German air force from intervening in the land battle .6$ The following month, the French assured the visiting British Chief of the Imperial General Staff that they planned to strengthen the Maginot Line to counter German aircraft superiority and that they believed any "enemy would require an unrealizable supremacy of machines to get over the
antiaircraft defenses . . . . 69 If at first the air threat did not impress the French, it certainly upset the British. Stanley Baldwin's remark that the bomber "would always get through" is ample testimony to British fears about the air threat . There is, of course, some irony here, because at least until 1937-38 Hitler did not seriously consider Great Britain as a possible opponent . Nevertheless, British alarms over the "growing air threat" and their hopes of realizing an air limitation agreement between the European powers
were a useful diplomatic tool that allowed Hitler to manipulate the island power.
14


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
If the threat of the Luftwaffe, along with the army's buildup in the mid-thirties, impressed many Europeans with the resurgence of German military power, the reality was a different matter . The conclusion drawn from an assessment of an April 1936 war game in the Luftwaffe staff warned that German air rearmament thus far was insufficient and inferior to the French air force .'° Not until 1938 did the Luftwaffe begin to realize its potential . Before that point, events in southern Europe had already influenced the Luftwaffe's development . While the Germans completed the first stages of rearmament, the Spanish Civil War occurred . Hitler willingly provided substantial aid to the rebels, especially in the air, but regarded the war mostly as useful in distracting Europe's attention from the growing danger of Nazi Germany ." For the Luftwaffe, Spain was a helpful testing ground for its aircraft and tactics . The Ju 52 quickly showed its limitations as a bomber and was soon relegated to its World War 11 role as a transport; the He 51 biplanes proved inferior to Russian aircraft supplied to the Republic. By 1937, the Germans had introduced the Bf 109 fighter, the He 111, and Do 17 bombers, as well as a few Ju 87 dive bombers . All these aircraft soon indicated their relative worth . On the ground, the 88mm flak gun proved itself effective not only as an antiaircraft weapon but also against ground targets . 72 The fighter commander Adolph Galland, however, felt that the combat experience gained in Spain led the Luftwaffe to overestimate the performance of antiaircraft weapons, thereby
distorting future programs for the air defense ofthe Reich.'s Perhaps of greater importance, the Germans learned invaluable combat lessons in Spain which they quickly absorbed into their doctrine . The development of close air support and cooperation with the army came directly from the Spanish Civil War . Wolfram von Richthofen, Manfred's cousin, arrived in Spain out of favor with the Air Ministry in Berlin . His conception of air war upon arrival was not substantially different from most other Luftwaffe officers at that time; in other words, close air support for the army ranked at the bottom of his priorities. However, once in his position as Chief of Staff to the Condor Legion, Richthofen recognized that the theories of airpower and Spanish political realities did not have much in common . The stalemate on the ground, the lack of suitable "strategic" targets, and the great Nationalist weakness in artillery led Richthofen to consider using his forces to support directly Franco's offensive against Bilbao .74
Against considerable opposition and without official sanction, Richthofen developed the technique and tactics of close air support for ground forces in
offensive operations.'S None of the elements required for such operations existed
within the Luftwaffe before the offensive against the Basque Republic. To begin
with, there was an overall lack of experience and technical expertise, for
communication between ground and air units (particularly radio) did not yet exist.
By the time Richthofen was through developing the concept and tactics, the
Germans had recognized the necessity for closer cooperation and improved
planning between ground and air units, had established close communication links
and recognition devices, and had detailed Luftwaffe liaison officers to serve directly
with frontline units . All of this was due to Richthofen's drive and imagination .'6
15


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
The lessons of "strategic" bombing were more muted . On the one hand, one after action report (Erfahrungsbericht) went so far as to emphasize the impact upon morale of bombing the Republic's work force, i .e ., attacks resulting in supposedly bad discipline among the working class . Continuous attacks even by small bombing units against a single city, especially where antiaircraft defenses were insufficient, had "deeply impressed and depressed" the population." Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe's yearbook for 1938 suggested that "strategic" air warfare in Spain had not occurred for a variety of reasons . The Nationalists had been in a position to destroy utterly Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia with incendiaries but had not done so because of the delicate political problems involved in a civil war . Franco had not attacked the major ports because these lay within the "international zone" and had
not authorized attacks on armament factories since Spain possessed so few .'e Conversely, Captain Heye of the Seekriegsleitung (naval high command) gained a different impression after talking with Luftwaffe officers during a 1938 visit to Spain. He reported on his return to Berlin :
Disregarding the military success accompanying the Luftwaffe's use in immediate support of army operations, one gets the impression that our attacks on objects of little military importance, through which in most cases many women and children . . . were hit, are not a suitable means to break an opponent's resistance . They seem to strengthen his resistance . . . . The memory of the air attack on Guemica by the (Condor] Legion still today affects the population and permits no friendly feelings for Germany in the population of the Basques, who earlier were thoroughly friendly to Germany and
in no manner Communistic. 79
Significantly, whatever their attitudes towards the effects of bombing, the Spanish Civil War confirmed in some Germans' minds the belief that fighter aircraft and civil defense measures would be of importance in the coming war. In 1937, Udet increased the proportion of fighters to bombers from the existing 1-to-3 ratio
to 1-to-2 . e° Moreover, unlike their counterparts in Britain, German airpower experts
"believed that civil defense measures could appreciably reduce casualties in an air
attack . "8' Spain also indicated the difficulties of hitting targets by both day and night . The
experience gleaned from night attacks proved generally beneficial, while the
problem of hitting targets accurately in daylight missions helped push Udet towards
his conception that every bomber should have a dive-bombing capability . At night,
the Germans discovered the difficulties not only in finding targets but in hitting them ." This led to a recognition that navigational aids were critical for bad weather and night operations. In March 1939, Kesselring admitted that even given a high level of technical competence, he doubted whether the average bomber crew could hit their target with any degree of accuracy at night or in bad weather ." To help overcome this difficulty, Luftwaffe scientists experimented with radio direction systems as an aid to navigation and as a technological answer to the problem of
bombing targets in conditions of limited visibility. The "Knickebein" system, first used in the Battle of Britain, was a direct result .84
16


The introduction of a new generation of bombers and fighters after 1936 caused serious transition problems. High accident rates coupled with low in-commission rates continued to plague the transition program as late as the summer of 1938 . At that time, Luftwaffe operational ready rates were surprisingly low. On August 1, 1938, the in-commission rate for bombers was 49 percent, for fighters 70 percent, and for the whole force 57 percent .85 Only after drastically reducing flying and training time could the Luftwaffe bring its in-commission rate to a respectable level by the end of September 1938, shortly before the onset of the planned invasion of Czechoslovakia." The level of aircrew training was equally deplorable . In August, the Luftwaffe possessed barely two-thirds of its authorized crew strength, and over 40 percent of the crews on duty were not fully operational . Table 11 17 helps to point out the extent of the problem .
TABLE II Aircrew Readiness-August 1938
Moreover, the chief of supply services pointed out in an after action report on the Czech crisis that:
In the last months [before Munich], the following
special measures were carried through concurrently : (I) equipping of many new units ; (2) rearming of numerous units ; (3) early partial
overhaul for approximately 60 percent of frontline aircraft; (4) replacement of spare parts ; (5) rebuilding of numerous aircraft in
supply depots, units, and industry; (6) rearmament of many aircraft ; (7) accelerated introduction of partially overhauled motors . . . ; (8)
establishment of four new air groups and one new airfield . . . ; (10)
preparation and resupply of mobilization supplies corresponding to
the newly established units, rearmed units, and transferred units . . . . The compression of these tasks into a very short time
span has once more and in clear fashion pointed out the known lack
of readiness in the maintenance of flying equipment as well as
among technical personnel . . . .
The consequence of these circumstances was : (a) a
constant and, for firstline aircraft, complete lack of reserves both as
accident replacements and for mobilization ; (b) a weakening of the
aircraft inventory in the training schools in favor of regular units;
(c) a lack of reserve engines and supplies for the timely equipment of airfields, supply services, and depots both for peacetime needs as well as mobilization . 88
ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
17
Type of Aircraft
Authorized
Number of Crews
Crew Fully Operational
Training Status Partially Operational
Strat Recon 228 84 57
Tac Recon 297 183 128 Fighter 938 537 364 Bomber 1,409 378 411
Dive Bomber 300 80 123
Ground Attack 195 89 11
Transport 117 10 17
Coastal and Navy 230 71 34 TOTAL 3,714 1,432 1,145


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
While the Luftwaffe was not prepared to face a military confrontation over Czechoslovakia," it had a major impact on British and French diplomacy . Throughout the late 1930's, the British Chiefs of Staff had reiteratively warned their ministers about the German air danger . In late March 1938, they emphasized that in a military confrontation over Czechoslovakia, Germany would dominate the air and, moreover, that the entire Luftwaffe might concentrate on Britain as the most promising method of winning the war. In addition, they warned that while earlier studies had considered a possible air attack in 1939, an air offensive in 1938 would cause more damage because fewer defenses yet existed.9° Upon his return from meeting Hitler at Godesberg, Chamberlain remarked to his Cabinet colleagues that he had just flown up the Thames and had imagined German bombers taking the same course .9' Nevertheless, in the final analysis, fears about the Luftwaffe probably were not decisive in molding the British response to German threats before Munich . In fact, by September 1938 many leading appeasers felt that the West could beat Germany in a war,12 while the British military in late September came around to the view that "the latent resources of our Empire and the doubtful morale of our opponents under the stress of war give us confidence as to the ultimate outcome [of a war] . "9s But the terrible costs of World War I lingered in British minds and
tempered the response . As the Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, told the Cabinet he "could not feel we were justified in embarking on an action that would result in
such untold suffering . "94 The Luftwaffe's effect on the French in 1938 can, at best, be described as causing both panic and a collapse in morale. After the French Chief of Air Staff had visited Germany in mid-August and had been shown a display of aerial might, he returned to Paris to advise his government that the French air force would last barely two weeks against the Luftwaffe . 95 The spectacle that the French Foreign Minister,
Georges Bonnet, made in warning the German ambassador that an attack on
Czechoslovakia would lead to war, while at the same time begging that Germany
not put France in a position where she must honor her obligations, reflected
desperate French fears concerning the German air threat .96 At the end of September
1938, a senior general told the British military attachd that in a European war,
"French cities would be laid in ruins [because] . . . they had no means of defense ." He added that France was now paying the price for the years of neglect of her air
force. 91 There was, of course, no more talk about a forest of guns over the Maginot
Line . What is Surprising, given the predilection of some historians to argue that Munich saved Britain from the Luftwaffe, is the fact that the German air force had made almost no preparation to wage war against the British. In August 1938, a staff officer of Luftflotte 2, responsible in 1938 for operations over the North Sea and
against the British Isles, suggested that Germany's current capability to attack
Britain would amount to pin pricks ." In late September, General Felmy,
Commander of Second Air Force, warned the high command that "given the means
at his disposal, a war of destruction against England seemed to be excluded."99 In
18


May 1939, Felmy concluded an address by highlighting the lack of preparation for a "strategic" bombing offensive against Britain. He doubted whether the Luftwaffe could achieve more than a limited success in 1940 and admitted that the Luftwaffe would not have one air division fully trained and prepared to attack Britain in the summer of 1939. Considering Second Air Force's equipment, preparations for an air offensive on Britain were totally inadequate (vollig ungenugend) . 100 This state of affairs was a result of Germany's strategic situation . Luftwaffe
planners had to face the fact that their first commitment would be to a major ground war . The conduct and the success of those operations would determine whether Germany would surmount her narrow economic and strategic base and thus be able to fight a protracted world war. If not, the war would end right there. In 1938, "Fall Griin," the proposed attack on Czechoslovakia, would have involved the Wehrmacht in a major land campaign against the Czech Republic, leaving the army with only weak ground forces to protect the Polish and French frontiers . As was the case with "Fall Weiss," the attack on Poland, the Wehrmacht would then have faced a major ground campaign in the west. 101 The result of this strategic situation was that the Luftwaffe tied its plans for both 1938 and 1939 closely to the operations of the army. The tasks of the two air fleets assigned to support the invasion of Czechoslovakia were to destroy the Czech air force, to hinder the mobilization and movement of reserves, to support the army's
advance, and only then to attack the enemy's population.'° 2 Similarly, the Luftwaffe's general staff underscored that the most important missions in the west would be to attack the French air force and prevent a breakthrough along the Westwall by Allied forces . 103 The same pattern repeated itself in 1939, except that this time Hitler refused to allow himself to be robbed on an opportunity to wage his "little war ."
CONCLUSION
ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
In conclusion, several features of prewar Luftwaffe doctrine deserve further
elaboration . The first, and most obvious, is that the prevailing historical picture of a Luftwaffe tied closely to the army's coattails is no longer tenable . Most Luftwaffe leaders from Goring through the general staff believed, as did their counterparts in Britain and the United States, that "strategic" bombing was the chief mission of an
air force and that in such a role they would win the next war . 104 They probably did
not consider the twin-engine aircraft at their disposal in 1937 and 1938 sufficient for
a campaign against Britain, Russia, or the United States ; but within the context of Central Europe, were not such aircraft adequate for attacking Warsaw, Prague, and Paris? Most Germans thought so, and certainly the leaders ofthe French and British air forces agreed with them. For the long run, the Luftwaffe had begun work on a
four-engine bomber for more distant targets . Like most of their contemporaries in other air forces, Luftwaffe officers considerably overestimated the possibilities and potential of "strategic" air war, both in terms of industrial damage and its impact on morale . This was neither surprising nor unique, since there was so little
19


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
empirical evidence on which to base predictions . The prevalence of such attitudes
within the Luftwaffe's officer corps helps explain Rotterdam as well as the seemingly casual shift from an air superiority strategy to a direct attack on London during the Battle of Britain. Moreover, in their approach to "strategic" bombing, the Germans showed a greater awareness of the difficulties involved in finding and
hitting targets at night or in bad weather than did other air forces . For instance, their preparations in developing blind bombing devices like "Knickebein" were further
advanced by a full two years than those of the RAF . When Adolph Hitler launched the Wehrmacht against Poland on September 1, 1939, to begin the Second World War, the Luftwaffe was in a considerably better position than it had been the previous fall . The staff and commanders had solved most of the teething problems that had marked the transition into a new generation of aircraft in 1937 and 1938 . Air units possessed modern equipment, and antiaircraft and airborne forces gave the Germans capabilities that other European air forces could not match. In 1939, the Luftwaffe was closer to realizing the potential
of the aircraft, while the doctrine of close air support and cooperation with the army placed the German air force in the position to have a decisive impact on the coming battles beside the army's armored forces . Nevertheless, there were problems . Above all, there were serious deficiencies in the character of the Luftwaffe's leadership since most of those occupying top positions were incapable of thinking for the long pull . On the technical and production side, the Germans appeared well on their way to disaster . By the spring of 1939, British aircraft production was approaching German levels and in 1940 would actually surpass German output .'°s The fact that Goring had shunted Milch aside and turned the technical and production side over to Udet insured that this ominous trend would continue. Further exacerbating the Luftwaffe's dangerous position were certain critical research and development decisions taken in the last month before the outbreak of war. In December 1938, Milch pushed through a major reorganization of the production system so that the aircraft industry could concentrate on developing a few superior aircraft . 101 In August 1939 shortly before
the outbreak of war, Goring along with Udet, Milch, and Jeschonnek decided to
constrict development and production. They placed strong development emphasis
on the He 177, Ju 88, and Me 210.'°' While such emphasis was not meant to halt
research and development on the next generation of aircraft, it did tend to slow
down experimentation . When the Germans awoke to the danger in 1942, it was
already too late ; they would fight the great air battles of 1943 and 1944 with
basically the same equipment that they had used against Poland .' As discussed above, there were factors pushing the Germans towards a broader conception of airpower than was the case in Britain and America . Economic reality placed severe limits on the nature and force structure of the Luftwaffe in the prewar period . Even more important than this limiting factor was Germany's general strategic placement in the heart of the European continent . Unlike British and American air strategists, German air strategists faced the prospect of a large-scale land battle from the moment that a war began and were never in a position to ignore
20


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
entirely the demands of Germany's ground forces . Simultaneously, most German airmen did believe that "strategic" bombing would be a decisive factor in the coming war . Thus, German air strategy was a combination of these two divergent elements . So with the outbreak of hostilities, German airmen found themselves in quite different strategic circumstances than they had originally envisioned. Unfortunately for the West, the broader based approach of Wever, along with a
greater flexibility in Luftwaffe doctrine, corresponded more closely to the combat capabilities of aircraft in the late 1930's than did the almost exclusive "strategic" bombing doctrines of the RAF or the US Army Air Corps . 109 The real war of 1939 and 1940 was not the war for which most of the Luftwaffe had prepared, but it was a war in the initial stages to which it could and did adapt, and to which it applied airpower in cooperation with the army to gain an initial, devastating strategic victory that unfortunately, from the German perspective, could not be sustained .


Notes
1 . For this view, see Dennis Richards, The Royal Air Force, 1939-1945 (London, 1953), p . 29 ; Asher Lee, The German Air Force (New York, 1946), pp . 16-17 ; and even surprisingly Sir Charles Webster
and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany (SAOAG), Vol . I, Preparation
(London, 1961), p . 125 .
2 . For a fuller discussion of the impact of the German economic situation on rearmament, see my dissertation : Williamson Murray, "The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939," Yale University dissertation, 1975, Chapter V . 3 . For a discussion of the German coal situation, see : Institut fiir Weltwirtschaft an der Universitat Kiel, "Die Kohlenversorgung Europas durch Grossdeutschland unter den gegenwartigen kriegswirtschaftlichen Gesichtspunkten," Oct 1939, National Archives and Records Service (NARS)
T-84/195/1560466 .
4 . Abschrift einer Aufstellung der Uberwachungsstelle fur Mineral61 vom 3 .5 .38 ., "Deutschlands
Mineraldl nach In- and Auslandsaufkommen in den Jahren 1928-1937 in 1000t," NARS
T-77/282/1107267 . There is an additional problem present here . The synthetic fuel process and its basic
raw material, coal, were not conducive to the production of high-octane gasoline, and the Luftwaffe would have a major problem throughout the war in obtaining sufficient amounts of high-octane aviation fuel .
5 . Speech by Korvettenkapitan Haensel, 4 .3 .39 . wahrend des Kriegsspieles des Marinekommandoamtes in Oberhof, p . 13, NARS T-1022/PG49089 . 6 . OKW Economic Staff, "Die Arbeiten des Wi Rii Amtes an der Mineraldl-Versorgung," p . 37, NARS T-77/282/1107267 .
7 . For a fuller discussion of these problems, see: Hans-Erich Volkmann, "Aussenhandel and Aufrustung in Deutschland, 1933 bis 1939," Wirischaft and Riistung am Vorabend des Zweiten
Weltkrieges, ed . b y Friedrich Forstmeier and Hans-Erich Volkmann (Dusseldorf, 1975), p . 85 . 8 . Ibid ., p . 89 . 9 . Ibid . 10 . Dieter Petzina, Autarkiepolitik im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1968), p . 103 .
11 . International Military Tribunal (IMT), Trial of Major War Criminals (TMWC), XXXII, Doc . #3575PSS . 12 . Ibid ., Doc . #1301PS . 13 . J . Dulffer, Weimar, Hitler and die Marine : Reichpolitik and Flottenbau, 1920-1939 (Ddsseldorf, 1973), p . 504 . 14 . Edward W . Bennett, German Rearmament and the West, 1932-1933 (Princeton, 1979), p .324 . 15 . Douglas H . Robinson, "The Zeppelin Bomber," The Air Power Historian (July 1961), p . 133 . 16 . Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, My Memoirs, Vol . II (New York, 1919), pp . 271-72 . 17 . For an excellent discussion of the German "strategic" bombing effort in World War I, see : Francis K . Mason, Battle Over Britain (New York, 1969), Chapter I . 18 . For Seeckt's interest in the development of motorized forces and his recognition of their
importance for future defense policy, see : Reichswehrministerium, Chef der Heeresleitung, Betr:
"Harzdbung 8 .1 .22 .," NARS T-79/65/000622 .
19 . For the best description of Seeckt's contribution to the carrying over of a portion of Germany's
World War I air force into the body of the Reichswehr, see : Karl-Heinz Volker, "Die Entwicklung der
militdfschen Luftfahrt in Deutschland, 1920-1933," in Beitrdge zur Militdr-und Kriegsgeschichte, Vol .
III, (Stuttgart, 1962), pp . 126-27 . 20 . For a discussion of the historiography surrounding the Weimar period's contribution to the
Luftwaffe, see : Edward L . Homze's outstanding study Arming the Luftwaffe, The Reich Air Ministry and
the German Aircraft Industry, 1919-1939 (Lincoln, 1976), pp . 40-41 . For the other outstanding study of
the Luftwaffe after 1933, see : Karl-Heinz Volker, Die deutsche Luftwaffe, 1933-1939 : Aufbau, Fuhrung
und Rllstung der Luftwaffe Bowie die Entwicklung der deutschen Luftkriegstheorie (Stuttgart, 1967) .
From the small corps of flying officers within the Reichswehr, 97 army and 19 naval officers would reach general officer rank in the Luftwaffe . In addition, a number of army officers such as Kesselfng and Wever would transfer to the Luftwaffe and then learn to fly after 1933 . Volker, "Die Entwicklung der militarischen Luftfahrt in Deutschland, 1920-1933," pp . 284-88 .
21 . Ibid ., p . 32 .
22 . It is worth noting that the army was no more willing to allow the establishment of a joint services high command .
22


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
23 . For a discussion of G6ring's role in the Nazi seizure of power, see Karl Dietrich Bracher,
Wolfgang Sauer, and Gerhard Schulz, Die Nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung (K6ln, 1960) . 24 . IMT, TMWC, XXXVIII, Doc . 140-R . 25 . For an interesting study of Milch and his contribution to the Luftwaffe, see David Irving's The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe, The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch (Boston, 1973) . 26 . Wilhelm Deist, Manfred Messerschmidt, Hans-Erich Volkmann, Wolfram Wette, Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 1, Ursachen and Voraussetzung der deutschen Kriegspolitik (Stuttgart, 1979), p . 478 . 27 . Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, pp . 60, 235 . 28 . Ibid ., p. 236 . It is worth noting that Jeschonnek had been a pilot in World War I and subsequently served mostly with the air planning staffs within the Reichswehr during the Weimar period .
29 . Deist, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . I ., pp . 478-79 . 30 . Ibid ., p . 479 . 31 . Horst Boog, "Higher Command and Leadership in the German Luftwaffe, 1935-1945," Air Power and Warfare, Proceedings of the Eighth Military History Symposium, USAF Academy, ed . by
Colonel Alfred F. Hurley and Major Robert C . Ehrhart (Washington, 1979) .
32 . Dr . Boog's above cited article is particularly useful in his discussion of the intellectual limitations
of the Luftwaffe's officer corps .
33 . Bernard Heimann and Joachim Schunke, "Eine geheime Denkschrift zur Luftkriegskonzeption Hitler-Deutschlands vom Mai 1933," Zeitschriftf4rMilitirgeschichte, Vol . III (1964), pp . 72-86 . 34 . Klaus A . Maier, Horst Rohde, Bernd Stegemann, and Hans Umbreit, Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem Europdischen Kontinent (Stuttgart, 1979), p . 44 . 35 . For a full discussion of the different programs and the industrial and engineering problems that the Luftwaffe faced, see : Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, Chapter IX . 36 . Deist, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . I, pp . 480-81 ; see Homze,
Arming the Luftwaffe, p . 184, for a detailed breakdown of worker distribution within the aircraft
industry . 37 . See, in particular, Wever's lecture to the German Air War College, 1 .11 .35 . "Vortrag des
Generalmajors Wever bei Erbffnung der Luftkriegsakademie and Lufttechnischen Akademie in Berlin
Gatow am I . November 1935," Die Luftwaffe (1936) . 38 . Karl-Heinz V61ker, Dokumente and Dokumentarfotos zur Geschichte der deutschen Luftwaffe
(Stuttgart, 1968), Doc . # 184, p . 429 .
39 . "Die Luftkriegf0hrung," Berlin 1935 ; copy made available to the author by Oberstleumant Klaus
Maier of the Militiirgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Freiburg, Federal Republic of Germany .
40 . Ibid ., paragraph 11 . 41 . See Herbert M . Mason, Jr., The Rise of the Luftwaffe (New York, 1973), pp . 213-15 ; Peter
Calvocoressi and Guy Wint, Total War (London, 1972), p . 492 ; Dennis Richards, Royal Air Force,
1939-1945, Vol . I (London, 1953), p . 29 ; Basil Collier, The Defense of the United Kingdom (London,
1957), p . 121 ; Telford Taylor, The Breaking Wave (New York, 1967), p . 83 ; and Webster and
Frankland, SAOAG, Vol . 1, p . 125 .
42 . V61ker, Die deutsche Luftwaffe, pp . 132-33 ; and H . Schliephake, The Birth of the Luftwaffe
(Chicago, 1972), pp . 38-39 . For further amplification on the failure to have a heavy bomber in the later
1930's, see Edward L . Homze's excellent piece, "The Luftwaffe's Failure to Develop a Heavy Bomber
Before World War II," Aerospace Historian (March 1977) . For a fascinating and groundbreaking work
on the problems of engine development, see Edward W . Constant, III, The Origins of the Turbo Jet
Revolution (Baltimore, 1980) . See also C . Fayette Taylor, Aircraft Propulsion, A Review of the
Evolution ofAircraftPiston Engines (Washington, 1971) .
43 . See the discussion by Hans Speier, "Ludendorff-. The German Concept of Total War," Makers of Modern Strategy, ed . by Edward_ Mead Earle (Princeton, 1943) . I would also like to thank Oberstleumant Klaus Maier of the MiliOrgeschichtliches Forschungsamt for making available to me his lecture given at the Air War College in September 1980 in Montgomery, Alabama, that clarified the connection and importance of the concept of total war and its relationship to the development of Luftwaffe doctrine .
44 . Erich Ludendorff, Kriegsfiihrung and Politik (Berlin, 1922), pp . 328-33 .
45 . See the interesting discussion of this point in Deist, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 1, pp . 124-25 .
46 . Heimann and Schunke, "Eine geheime Denkschrift zur Luftkriegskonzeption Hitler-Deutschlands vom Mai 1933," pp . 72-86 .
23


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
47 . See Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (1933-1945), issued by the Air
Ministry (ACAS) (London, 1948), p . 42 .
48 . See, in particular, Oberst (E) Frhr . v . Bulow, "Die Grundlagen neuzeificher Luftstreitkriifte,"
Militkrwissenschgftliche Rundschau (1936) ; Major Bartz, "Kriegsflugzeuge, ihre Aufgaben and
Leistung," (1936) ; and particularly Major Herhudt von Rohden, "Betrachtungen uber den Luftkrieg," also Milit6rwissenschaftlicheRundschau 4 parts (1937) . 49 . Bartz, "Kriegsflugzeuge, ihre Aufgaben and Leistung," p . 210 .
50 . von Rohden, "Betrachtungen abet den Luftkrieg," Part I, pp . 198-200 .
51 . BA/MA, RL7/42, Luftflottenkommando 2, Fuhrungsabteilung Nr . 7093/39 g . Kdos, 13 .5 .39 .,
Schlussbesprechung des Planspiels, 1939 . Those who desire another example of how senior staff officers
thought the Luftwaffe would wage an independent "strategic" air war should consult: Chef des Organisationsstabes im Generalstab der Luftwaffe Nr . 50/38 Chefsache, An den Chef des Generalstabes
der Luftwaffe, "Organisationsstabee I950," NARS T-971/36/0002 . 52 . Irving,The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe, p . 47 .
53 . Ibid ., p . 69 . Although many times, Milch's abrasive personality led him into major conflicts with
his fellow Luftwaffe officers, the fault in this case seems to have lain with Jeschonnek . 54 . Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, pp . 223-24 .
55 . Deist, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . I, p . 645 .
56 . Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe, p . 68 .
57 . R . J . Overy, "German Aircraft Production 1939-1942 : A Study in the German War Economy,"
Cambridge University dissertation, 1977, p . 2 ; for a discussion of the prewar German production plans, see : R . J . Overy, "The German Pre-War Aircraft Production Plans : November 1936-April 1939," English Historical Review (1975) . 58 . Ibid ., p . 11 . 59 . Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, p . 106 .
60 . Deist, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 1, pp . 484-85 .
61 . Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, pp . 82-87 and 158-63 . 62 . Ibid ., pp . 120-21 . 63 . For the surprisingly low capacity levels of the German munitions industry in the thirties, see : Bericht des Hewn Professor Dr. C . Krauch fiber die Lage auf dem Arbeitsgebiet der Chemie in der Sitzung des Generalrates am 24 .6 .41 . , NARS T-84/217/1586749 . 64 . Deist, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . I, p . 490 . 65 . Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, pp . 167-68 .
66 . Milch Collection, Imperial War Museum, Reel 55, Vol . 57, Der Chef des Nachschubamts, Nr . 3365/38, g . Kdos ., Berlin, 3 .11 .38 ., Anlage L . E . 2 . Nr . 15 .222/3 8 g . Kdos, Berlin, Oki 1938,
"Erfahrungsbericht uber die Spannungszeit 1938," p . 3270 .
67 . Richard Suchenwirth, The Development of the German Air Force, 1919-1939 (New York, 1970),
p . 148 .
68 . PRO CAB 23/89, Cab 35(37), Meeting of the Cabinet, 29 .9 .37 ., p . 215 .
69 . PRO CAB 21/575, 15 .10 .37 ., "French and German Maneuvers," a note by Field Marshal Sir C .
Deverell on his visit . The French, of course, might have been disguising their real fears from a
thoroughly unreliable ally . Still, they spent little on their air force until the awakening of 1938 .
70. Volker, Dokumente and Dokumentarfotos zur Geschichte der deutschen Luftwaffe, Doc . # 196, p .
449 . 71 . Gerhard Weinberg, The Foreign Policy ofHitler's Germany, 1933-1936 (Chicago, 1970), p . 298 .
72 . "Einsatz der deutschen Flakartillerie in Spanien," Aus Koehlers Flieger Kilender 1940 ;
"Flakeinsatz "wahrend des Feldzuges in Spanien," Auszug aus einer Ausarbeitung von Gen . Lt . Karl
Veith vom Mai 194, Karlsruhe Collection, Albert F . Simpson Historical Research Center (AFSHRC) : K
113 .302 . 73 . "Auswirkung der Erfahrungen in Spanien," Aus einer Ausarbeitung von Generallt . Galland uber
die Luftverteidigung des Reiches, 1946 . Ibid .
74 . Conversation with Generalmajor a .D . Hans W . Asmus, Baden Baden, November 7 and 8 ; 1, 980,
and letter from General Asmus, February 6, 1981 .
75 . Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, pp . 16-17 .
76 . "Lehren aus dem Feldzug in Spanien, Einsatz von Schlachtfliegem," aus einer Studie der 8 . Abt .
des Generalstabes aus dem Jahre 1944 ; Hans Hennig Freiherr von Beust, "Die deutsche Luftwaffe im
spanischen Krieg," 2 .10 .56 ., p . 162, AFSHRC : K 113 .302 .
77 . Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, p . 53 .
24


ORIGINS AND PREPARATION
78 . Oberst Jaenecke, "Lehren des spanisehen Biirgerkrieges," Jahrbuch des deutschen Heeres, 1938 (Leipzig, 1939) . 79 . OKM, B . Nr ., l . Abt. Skl. l a 961/38g .Kdos ., Berlin, 14 .7 .38., Geheime Kommandosache, NARS T-I022/2957/PG48902 . 80 . Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, p. 172. 81 . PRO CAB 63/14, I . O. (S)l ., 19 .7 .37., Air Raid Precautions Department, Intelligence Section, visit to Berlin of Major F. L . Fraser, "Interview with Ministeralrat Grosskreuz ." 82 . Von Beust, "Die deutsche Luftwaffe im spanischen Krieg," p. 140ff. 83 . BA/MA RL 2 II/101, "Zusammenhdnge zwischen Meteorologic and Taktik," Vortrag: General derFlieger Kesselring, Chef der Luftflotte 1 ., 1 .3 .39., p. 5. 84 . See PRO AIR 20/1623, Air Scientific Intellience Report No . 6, "The Crooked Leg," 28 .6 .40., for a discussion of how British intelligence discovered the German system . 85 . Air Historical Branch, Air Ministry, VII, Translations : Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability Statistics, G 302694/AR/9/51/50 . 86 . BA/MA RL 7/164, Der Kommandierende General and Befehlshaber der Luftwaffengruppe 3., 1 .12 .38., "Erfahrungsbericht fiber die Spannungszeit 1938 : Teil II ." 87 . Air Ministry, The Rise andFall of the German AirForce, 1933-1945 (London, 1948), pp . 19-20. 88 . Milch Collection, Imperial War Museum, Reel 55, Vol. 57, Der Chef des Nachschubamts, Nr . 3365/38, g. Kdos ., 3.11 .38. ; Anlage L.E . 2 . Nr . 15 .222/38, "Erfahrungsbericht uber die Spannungszeit," p. 3270 . 89 . For a fuller discussion of this issue, see my article, "German Air Power and the Munich Crisis," War and Society, Vol . II, ed . by Brian Bond and Ian Roy (London, 1977) . 90 . Public Record Office (PRO) CAB 53/37, COS 698 (Revise), CID, COS Subcommittee, "Military Implications of German Aggression Against Czechoslovakia," 28 .3 .38 ., pp . 150-51 . 91 . PRO CAB 23/95, Cab 42(38), Meeting of the Cabinet, 24 .9 .3 ., p. 178 . 92 . Neville Henderson admitted that Germany might not last more than "a certain number of months ." PRO FO 800/309, Part IV, letter from Henderson to Cadogan, 4.9 .38. Halifax told the Cabinet in midSeptember 1938 that "he had no doubt that if we were involved in war now, we should win it after a long time ." PRO CAB 23/95, Cab 39(38), Meeting of the Cabinet, 17 .9 .38., pp . 98-99. 93 . PRO CAB 53/41, COS 773, COS Subcommittee, "The Czechoslovak Crisis," 29 .9 .38 . 94 . PR O CAB 23/95, Cab 39(38), Meeting of the Cabinet, 17 .9 .38 ., pp . 98-99. 95 . For General Vuillemin's visit to Germany, see: Documents diplomatiquesfran(ais (DDF), 2nd
Series, Vol. X, Doc. #401, 18 .8 .38., Doc . #429, 21 .8 .38., and Doc. #444, 23 .8 .38. For what he told
his government, also see: Paul Stehlin, Temoignage, Pour l'histoire (Paris, 1964), pp . 86-91 . For Vuillemin's advice at the end of the month, see: DDF, 2nd Series, Vol . XI, Doc . #377, 26 .9 .38. 96 . Akten zur deutschen auswdrtigen Politik (ADAP), Series D, Vol . II, Doc. #422, 2 .9 .38. 97 . PRO CAB 24/279, CP 206(38), Colonel Fraser to Phipps, 23 .9 .38., p. 52 . 98 . Vortragsnotiz fiber Besprechung mit to des Befehlshabers der Luftwaffengruppe Braunschweig,
25 .8 .38., NARS T-1022/2307/34562.
99 . L. W . Gr . Kdo. 2., Fuhrungsabteilung, Nr . 210/38, 22 .9 .38 ., "Planstudie `Fall Blau' ." Quoted
by Richard Suchenwirth, Hans Jeschonnek, pp . 39-40. 100 . BA/MA RL 7/42, RL 7/43, Luftflottenkommando 2 ., Fiihrungsabteilung, Nr . 7093/39, 13 .5 .39.,
"Schlussbesprechung des Planspieles 1939 ." 101 . For a fuller discussion of the overall strategic situation at the time of Munich in 1938, see my
article: Williamson Murray, "Munich, 1938 : The Military Confrontation," Journal of Strategic Studies
(December 1979) .
102. Concerning Luftwaffe planning for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, see in particular BA/MA RL
7/164, Der Kommandierende General and Befehlshaber der Luftwaffengruppe 3 ., 1 .12 .38.,
"Erfahrungsbericht fiber die Spannungszeit 1938 ." 103. IMT, TMWC, Vol . XXV, p . 381 . 104. One of the surprising elements in the widespread willingness to accept the legend that the Luftwaffe was the "hand maiden" of the army is the fact that Goring never got along with the army, and it thus seems totally contradictory from what we know of his personality that he would accept a role that
subordinated his air force to the army in overall German strategy . 105. Overy, "The German Pre-War Aircraft Production Plans: November 1936-April 1939," p. 796. 106 . Milch Collection, Imperial War Museum, Reel 64, Vol . 65, p. 7400: 13 .12.38 ., "Vortragsunterlagen fiir den Vortrag vor dem Herm Generalfeldmarschall," p. 7419 . 107. Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, p. 229 .
25


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
108 . It should be noted that the Allies also fought these 1940 battles by and large with the aircraft in production or on the drawing boards . 109 . See Appendix I for a description of the development of air doctrine in Britain and the United States .


CHAPTER 11
THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT, SEPTEMBER 1939-SEPTEMBER 1940
BACKGROUND TO POLAND
The German triumph over Czechoslovakia in September 1938 misled not only Hitler but his military as well and created the psychological preconditions that contributed heavily to the decision to attack Poland the following year-a decision that precipitated the Second World War . Almost immediately after the signing of the Munich agreement, Hitler regretted that he had backed away from a limited war against Czechoslovakia . Further aggravating his displeasure was the fact that the Sudetenland's inclusion within Germany did nothing to relieve the Reich's serious economic problems . Goring admitted in November 1938 that economic difficulties had reached the point where no more workers were available, factories were at full capacity, foreign exchange was completely exhausted, and the economy was in dire straits .' These economic troubles meant that in early 1939, the regime had to reduce the Wehrmacht's steel allocations by 30 percent, copper by 20 percent, aluminum by 47 percent, rubber by 30 percent, and cement from 25 percent to 45 percent . 2 Under these conditions, the temptation to seize the remainder of Czechoslovakia and gain control of its industrial resources as well as its considerable holdings of foreign exchange was overwhelming . In March 1939, using Czech political troubles as an excuse, Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to complete what Munich had
begun . He threatened the Czech leader, Dr. Emil Hacha, by declaring that if Czechoslovakia refused to accede to German demands, "half of Prague would be in ruins from bombing within two hours, and that this would be only the beginning . Hundreds ofbombers were waiting the order to takeoff, and they would receive that
order at six in the morning, if the signatures were not forthcoming . "3 But the seizure of Prague in March 1939 was one of the last of Hitler's peaceful
conquests . (Several weeks later, the Nazis browbeat Lithuania into surrendering the
port city of Memel .) The diplomatic explosion, resulting from the seizure of
Prague, finally forced the British government to make a serious commitment to the
continent and to alter the "business-as-usual" approach that they had taken towards
rearmament . Yet, the new British course was due more to internal political pressure, precipitated by the British public's outrage, than of a basic change in the government's attitude . Great Britain now attempted diplomatically to bolster Europe against further Nazi aggression . However, British leaders did not yet regard
war as inevitable and, as a result, did not seek to create military alliances against
27


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
that eventuality . The slow and hesitant approach towards Russia in the summer of 1939 hardly indicated serious preparation for war. Also during this period, the British offered the Germans a major economic loan if they behaved themselveshardly the sort of policy to deter Adolf Hitler .4 The Fuhrer's reaction to British criticism and diplomatic activity was at first outrage and then contempt. As he told his staff, he had seen his opponents at Munich and they were worms.' After hearing that the British had extended a guarantee to Poland at the end of March, he shouted : "I'll cook them [the British] a stew they'll choke on . "6 But as the summer progressed, Hitler seems to have convinced himself that Britain would not intervene in a military campaign against Poland . Both the aforementioned inadequacies of British diplomacy and the skill with which Hitler manipulated the European powers led him to conclude that he could get away with a small war on Poland . By signing the Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact, thus removing the Soviet Union from the list of possible enemies, Hitler, in effect, isolated the Poles more thoroughly than he had the Czechs the previous year. Further confirming Hitler in his small war thesis was the consensus among the Luftwaffe that the threat of "strategic" bombing (or terror bombing) would serve to keep the Western Powers out of an eastern war.' Ironically, the unpreparedness of the Luftwaffe in the fall of 1938 played a role in Hitler's decision not to push the Czech crisis into a direct military confrontation but rather to negotiate at Munich . However, the spectacle that the British managed to make out of themselves that late September as they dug slit trenches and passed out gas masks played an important role in shaping Hitler's as well as the Luftwaffe's strategic thinking in 1939 . As mentioned earlier, when speaking to his senior commanders, General Felmy, commander ofLufifotte 2, had speculated in May 1939 on the moral pressure that a terror bombing campaign against London might offer. The events in Britain in the fall of 1938 suggested to Felmy that a high degree of war hysteria already existed in Britain and that the Third Reich should take full advantage of such a state of affairs in contrast to the hesitant behavior of Germany's World War I government. $ That same month, the Fifth Section (intelligence) ofthe general staff echoed such sentiments. It reported that in every respect, compared to other European air forces, the Luftwaffe was the best prepared .
Germany is, on the basis of all reports, the only state that in respect to equipment, organization, tactics, and leadership has advanced to
a total conception of preparation and leadership of an offensive as
well as defensive air war . This fact indicates a general advance in
military preparedness and with it a strengthening of the whole
military situation .
As proof of the value of air superiority, the intelligence experts pointed to the Italian success in Abyssinia and particularly to Germany's diplomatic triumph the previous
autumn . They argued that panic in London and Paris over the threat of air attacks
had contributed directly to the Munich surrender and suggested that the parliamentary systems of the Western Powers gave Britain and France considerably
28


THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
less flexibility in strategic policy than an authoritarian Nazi Germany . This line of reasoning led to the dangerous suggestion that it was "quite possible that in spite of [Western] pacts and promises to Eastern Europe, a conflict in that region would remain localized."9 In early July, both Hitler and Goring visited the Luftwaffe's test station at Rechlin to examine the latest in research and development . The technical experts did a thorough job of implying that aircraft and equipment in the design and test stages were close to production . Although this was not the case, the demonstration provided one more confirmation to the Fuhrer that the Luftwaffe not only possessed current superiority over its opponents but would maintain such superiority for the foreseeable future . In 1942, Goring recalled: "The Fuhrer took the most serious decisions on the basis of that display . It was a miracle that things worked out as well as they did and that the consequences were not far worse. "'° While the Rechlin demonstration did not aim at supporting Hitler's inclination for a military solution to the Polish question but rather at convincing him that the Luftwaffe should receive more of the defense budget for the coming years, it undoubtedly helped to push Hitler towards the precipice . On August 22, 1939, Hitler met with senior military officers to announce the reasons behind his inclination to settle accounts with Poland . I' He gave pride of place to his historical uniqueness and the danger that he could "be eliminated at any time by a criminal or a lunatic ." Second in importance was the fact that Germany's economic situation was precarious . "Because of the constraints on us, our economic situation is such that we can only hold out for a few more years ." Four days later, Hitler summed up his general evaluation of the strategic situation in a letter to Mussolini :
As neither France nor Britain can achieve any decisive successes in the west, and as Germany, as a result of the agreement with Russia, will have all her forces free in the east after the defeat of Poland, and as air superiority is undoubtedly on our side, I do not shrink from solving the eastern question even at the risk of complications with the West . 12
What is interesting in the above calculation of risks is that the Luftwaffe played a
role in two out of three factors the Fuhrer cited. The belief in the short war against
Poland, of course, rested on the army as well as the Luftwaffe, but clearly the
German air force contributed to a belief that Poland would not take long to destroy .
The emphasis on air superiority undoubtedly represented a miscalculation that the
Luftwaffe could deter the Western Powers by the mere threat of major air attacks
against their population centers . As we now know Hitler was wrong, not so much in
his estimate of Western leadership, for that remained cautious, overpessimistic, and
unwilling to take risks, but rather in his failure to recognize that Western popular
opinion was so incensed at German actions that Chamberlain and Daladier had no
choice but to declare war in response to a German invasion of Poland ."
Hitler's remarks in August 1939 to his generals just prior to the invasion of
Poland raise an interesting historiographical question as to the nature of the war that
29


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
the Germans expected to fight . Since the war, a number of Anglo-American historians have argued that before the war Hitler and the German high command deliberately developed a "Blitzkrieg strategy" which they then applied on the battlefields of Europe from 1939 to 1941 .'° The heart of this strategy supposedly was the close cooperation of tactical air and armored formations in the accomplishment of deep armored drives into enemy rear areas. By choosing such a strategy, the Germans, the argument runs, escaped the necessity of rearming in depth. On the armored side of the argument, several major difficulties exist with such a theory . First, the German army did not emphasize the establishment of an armored force in its rearmament program, and there is no evidence that Hitler interfered in the formulation of army doctrine before the war ." As the previous chapter suggests, there are also problems relating to airpower. Close air support
developed in Spain with little urging from the Luftwaffe's high command in Berlin, while many German air force leaders and general staff officers remained enamored with the concept of "strategic" bombing . Hitler's emphasis on airpower in his August speech to the generals suggests that at the beginning of the war, he placed higher reliance on the deterrent value as well as the actual capabilities of airpower in the coming war than most historians have allowed . The impact of the Polish
campaign on German air strategy and the initial strategic response of Hitler to the war in the west provide further support for such a thesis .
THE POLISH CAMPAIGN AND THE "PHONY" WAR
In the early morning hours of September 1, 1939, German bombers and fighters delivered heavy attacks on targets throughout Poland . Unlike the previous year when the Czechs had fully mobilized by the end of September, the German attack caught the Poles in the process of mobilizing . '6 Interestingly, the Luftwaffe considered launching an all-out attack on military installations and armament factories in Warsaw to paralyze Polish resistance. But bad weather prevented the launching of such a "knockout" blow. By the time the weather had cleared, the interdiction and close air support aspects of operations were going so well that the general staff hesitated to shift the emphasis ." One must also note that at the conclusion of the Polish campaign, the Luftwaffe launched massive air assaults against military targets in Warsaw . In these raids, the Germans were not adverse to any collateral damage inflicted on the civilian populace. Complicating Poland's strategic difficulties at the beginning of the campaign was the fact that her high command had not separated operational from political requirements . To defend those areas regarded as politically essential, the Poles had distributed their forces in indefensible regions such as the Corridor and Silesia . As a result, their army was unable to defend itself and to carry out a prolonged
resistance .'s Within the first days of the campaign, panzer units from General Walther von
Reichenau's Tenth Army had broken out into the open, thereby achieving
operational freedom . By September 6, tank units were halfway to Warsaw, the
30


THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
Corridor had been closed, and the Polish army was disintegrating . The Polish air
force put up substantial resistance in the first days of the war; its pilots, as they
would do in the Battle of Britain, not only proved themselves tenacious and brave but highly skilled as well . Overwhelming German superiority, however, soon told . '9 On the ground for the first time in modern war, the combination of armored mobile formations supported by aircraft proved devastatingly effective .z° Interdiction strikes made it impossible for the Poles to move large bodies of troops in the open, while efforts by Polish troops to fight their way out of encirclements, especially along the Bzura River, collapsed in the face of Luftwaffe bombing. These air attacks so demoralized the Poles that some troops threw away their weapons ."
After the fall of most of Poland, the Germans faced the problem of forcing the capital to surrender . Richthofen, in charge of the air assault on the city, requested permission to destroy Warsaw completely as "it would, in the future, be only a customs station . " Operational orders from the OKW for the attack on the city were more restrained and only required that the bombardment aim at eliminating those
installations judged essential for the maintenance of life in the city."
By the end of September, not only had the Germans managed to destroy the Polish army and air force but Poland had ceased to exist as an independent nation . The Wehrmacht had won this victory at a surprisingly low cost. Polish losses were 70,000 dead, 133,000 wounded, and 700,000 prisoners against the Germans; while German losses were only 11,000 dead, 30,000 wounded, and 3,400 missing . 21
Despite the overwhelming nature of the victory, serious problems remained for the Germans to resolve in the areas of high strategy, the national economy, and the Wehrmacht's actual versus anticipated military performance . In particular, the army high command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH) was most dissatisfied with the level of performance of even active duty regular formations. Serious shortcomings had shown up throughout the regular army, while reserve and Landwehr units were well below the standards acceptable to senior army commanders ."
But the largest problem confronting Hitler was the fact that Germany faced a
major European war. The Luftwaffe had not succeeded in deterring the West from honoring its obligations to Poland. Moreover, Hitler had calculated that the combination of the Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact, supplies from the Balkans, and autarkic measures taken in the 1930's would mitigate the effects of an Allied
blockade . He had assured his generals before the outbreak of war that Germany had
little reason to fear a blockade, since it would "be ineffective due to our autarky and
because we have economic resources in the East. We need have no worry. . . . The
East will deliver us grain, cattle, coal, lead and zinc ."" Reality, however, proved
quite different . Import tonnage fell 57 percent . By January 1940, the value of
imports had fallen to RM 186 million as compared to RM 472 million in January
1939, while import tonnage declined from 4,445,000 tons the previous year to 1,122,000 tons .26 With such problems, the long-term outlook appeared exceedingly dangerous . Moreover, petroleum reserves declined from 2,400,000 tons at the
31


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
beginning of the war to 1,600,000 tons in May 1940, 2' while gasoline supplies fell from 300,000 tons in September 1939 to 110,000 tons by April 1940 . 2 $ This critical economic situation, caused by the outbreak of a wider European war than Hitler had expected, helps to explain an historical puzzle : Why throughout the fall and early winter of 1939 did Hitler push so strongly for an immediate offensive
in the west?29 Because of these economic pressures, Hitler felt that the Wehrmacht must move before the economy's difficulties affected German fighting srength . In early October, he warned that time favored Germany's enemies . "The danger, in case of a prolonged war, lies in the difficulty of securing from a limited food and raw material base [enough to sustain the] population, while at the same time securing the means for the prosecution of the war. "'° Thus, the pressure for an immediate offensive . On the same day that Hitler was justifying the factors behind his strategy, he issued "Directive No. 6 for the Conduct of the War." In it he spelled out the territorial goals of the coming campaign as well as its strategic purposes :
(a) An offensive will be planned on the northern flank of the western front through Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland . This offensive must be launched at the earliest possible moment and
in the greatest possible strength .
(b) The purpose of this offensive will be to defeat as much . . . of the French army and . . . the forces of the allies fighting at their side, and at the same time to win as much territory as possible in Holland, Belgium, and northern France to serve as a base for the successful prosecution of the air and sea war against England and as a wide protective area for the economically vital Ruhr ."
Hitler's order that the armed forces launch a fall offensive in the west caused an enormous row with the generals. On the basis of "after action" reports from Poland and the western front, army leaders argued that their troops could not meet the demands that a western campaign would place on them . '2 In retrospect, the generals were correct: The fall and winter of 1939-40 provided the necessary time to bring regular, reserve, and Landwehr divisions up to the same high standard of performance . Generally, the Luftwaffe seconded the army's efforts to postpone the western offensive ." Weather conditions in central Europe, however, probably played a greater role in Luftwaffe calculations. The air staff was happier with the
performance in Poland than was the army high command and, of course, the air force did not face the problem of training enormous numbers of reservists . Still, the pause between the end of the Polish campaign and the beginning of air operations against Norway allowed the Germans to augment considerably their air strength. On September 2, 1939, the Luftwaffe possessed 4,161 aircraft: 604 reconnaissance, 1,179 fighters, 1,180 bombers, 366 dive bombers, 40 ground attack, 240 coastal, and 552 transports . By the beginning of April 1940, the number had increased to 5,178 aircraft: 671 reconnaissance, 1,620 fighters, 1,726 bombers, 419 dive
32


THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
bombers, 46 ground attack, 230 coastal, and 466 transport .34 In addition, the
general quality of the bomber force rose somewhat with the widespread introduction of the Ju 88 into its squadrons .
Hitler's approach to Germany's strategic problems in the fall of 1939 further suggests a belief at the top level that the Luftwaffe could and would be the decisive weapon in the coming struggle. Historians, as well as the German generals of that time, have noted that the fall offensive did not aim to achieve a decisive success against the French army. Rather, as Hitler's directive made clear, its fundamental aim, while crippling as much of the Allied armies as possible, was "to win as much territory as possible in Holland, Belgium, and northern France to serve as a base for the successful prosecution ofthe air and sea war against England" [my emphasis] . Such territorial gains would allow the German air force to strike at the heart of English power and also serve as a buffer against air attacks on "the economically vital Ruhr . "3s
The Luftwaffe's chief of intelligence, "Beppo" Schmid, argued in late November 1939 for an exclusive air strategy . The Wehrmacht, he suggested, should not carry out any operations against the French, but rather the entire strength of the Luftwaffe, with whatever help the navy could provide, should concentrate against English imports . German air strategy would emphasize attacks on English ports and docks, and Schmid noted that, "Should the enemy resort to terror measures-for example, to attack our towns in western Germany-here again [retaliatory] operations could be carried out with even greater effect due to the greater density of population of London and the big industrial centers . "36 While elements from Schmid's memorandum were present in an OKW Directive of November 29, Hitler was unwilling to go quite so far and risk all on an air-sea war against Britain before certain preconditions had been met. The OKW stated that an attack on British imports could not occur until the army had either defeated the Allied armies in the field or until it had seized the coast opposite Britain ."
The great fall campaign never took place . Hitler himself does not seem to have abandoned the idea of such a campaign until January 1940 when an aircraft carrying the plan crash-landed in Belgium . However, the weather, one of the worst winters in memory, resulted in repeated postponements until January . Thereafter, Hitler, supported by Army Group A, forced the OKH to alter the plans for the western
campaign to a massive armored thrust through the Ardennes. The new strategy
aimed not at creating the strategic basis for an air and naval offensive against
Britain but rather at the strategic overthrow of the Allied position on the continent .
While many army commanders doubted the operational feasibility of a deep
penetration armored drive, Hitler supported the radicals urging a rapid exploitation
across the Meuse ." Almost concurrently, German planning turned towards Scandinavia . The Altmark affair convinced Hitler that the British would not respect the neutrality of Scandinavia and that Germany must move to protect the critical ore imports from northern Sweden that moved through Narvik . Thus, the decision to attack Norway in the spring ."
33


THE INVASION OF FRANCE 1940: The Plans
OKH PLAN, OCT 1939 FINAL PLAN MARCH 1940
pH7 G1
0
d
aH


THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
Within the framework of these two great operations, the strategy of the three services was integrated rather than separate . While there were instances where the
Luftwaffe acted as an independent force, its basic mission in both campaigns lay within the carefully structured framework of overall German strategy . As one of Hitler's directives for the fall offensive in the west suggested, "the air force will prevent attacks by the Anglo-French air forces on our army and will give all necessary direct support to the advance . "^° It was not a case of the Luftwaffe being subordinated to the dictates of the army or the navy (in the case of Norway) but rather that overall air strategy fit within the conceptual design of the campaign's strategy . Thus, the Luftwaffe's role followed closely Wever's thoughts on air strategy and the role of airpower in future wars. The general strategic conception and military purposes of the campaign had determined how the Germans would use their air resources .
SCANDINAVIA AND FRANCE
On April 7, 1940, German sea, land, and air forces struck Denmark and Norway . Within the first hours, Danish resistance had collapsed . In Norway, despite almost complete surprise, the Germans were not as successful. The occupation of Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik went without serious difficulty, even though the landings
were dangerously exposed to countermoves by British naval forces.4' At Oslo and Christiansand, the Germans ran into serious opposition, and at both locations
intervention by the Luftwaffe turned the scales. In the latter case, German bombers silenced forts guarding the harbor entrance so that the navy could land troops . At Oslo, the forts protecting the capital, despite their ancient equipment, shelled and sank the heavy cruiser Blucher and, for most of the day, denied German landing forces access to the city. However, German paratroopers seized the airport, and reinforcements rushed in by air overawed the Norwegian population. The breathing space provided by the defenders of the Oslo fjord did allow the Norwegian government to escape and set in motion measures of resistance. Nevertheless, by the end of the first 24 hours, the strategic situation from the Norwegian perspective was hopeless. With all important harbors and airfields in German hands, the Luftwaffe dominated Norwegian resistance and prevented the intervention of the
Royal Navy except against Narvik . In the course of operations, the German air
force played a crucial role in maintaining air superiority, in providing support to advancing ground forces, and in supplying widely scattered forces . 4 z No matter what the tactical successes of the Norwegian campaign might have
been, the impact of the campaign on Germany's strategic situation was negative both for the short as well as the long haul. In the latter case, Norway proved a
strategic drain throughout the Second World War. Moreover, the conquest of the
Lorrain ore fields in the campaign against France mitigated the need for Swedish
iron ore . Those imports, while useful, were never decisive .4' The short-range strategic impact was even more dubious ., By the time that naval operations in Norwegian waters had concluded, the German navy had ceased to exist as an effective surface force. By mid-June, Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief
35


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
of the navy, was down to one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and four destroyers;
the remainder of the fleet was either at the bottom of the ocean or in drydock
undergoing repair.°° The naval staff compounded the inevitable naval losses that went with such a campaign by what can only be categorized as strategic incompetence . In late May and early June, afraid that the war would end before its two battle cruisers had significantly engaged enemy forces, the naval high
command risked the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst in strategically pointless
operations in northern waters . As a result, both were seriously damaged and did not
return to service until December 1940. 45 Considering that Raeder had already
broached the possibility of an invasion of Britain with the Fiihrer as early as the
20th of May, such a frittering away of naval strength in the north is quite
surprising .46 With initiation of operations against Scandinavia, the Germans completed preparations for a move against the West . On May 10, 1940, the Wehrmacht began an offensive aimed at the strategic overthrow of its opponents . Operations against Holland and northern Belgium by Army Group B confirmed Allied expectations as to German strategy and fixed their attention away from the decisive threat . Meanwhile, German armor moved through the Ardennes until it hit the Meuse . By the evening of the 13th, Panzer Group Kleist had three bridgeheads across the river. Within less than two days, the Germans achieved operational freedom and were rolling towards the English Channel . At that time, Germany's opponents believed that the Wehrmacht enjoyed overwhelming superiority . As we now know, except in the air (and even here German superiority was not overwhelming), the Germans did not enjoy a significant, quantifiable advantage ." Their victory was due to an operational plan whose serious risks were more than offset by corresponding advantages that would not have been present in a more conventional operation . Second, German training and doctrine were more realistic and demanding than those of their opponents . Third, the army and the Luftwaffe had closely integrated their plans to meet the overall demands of German strategy. German air attacks that accompanied the start of the offensive aimed at achieving
air superiority over the Low Countries and northern France. In the first hours, a
significant portion of the Luftwaffe's effort struck at Allied air forces and their
ground organizations . Neither the Dutch nor the Belgians were capable of serious
opposition as most of their equipment was obsolete . The British had stationed a
significant force of bombers and fighters ("Hurricanes") in northern France to
support the British Expeditionary Force. 48 The French air force, unfortunately, was
in great disarray as it was transitioning to a newer generation of aircraft (as had the
Luftwaffe in 1937-38 and the RAF in 1938-39 with similar results) . The French were, in fact, having considerable difficulty in equipping squadrons with new aircraft as well as maintaining operational ready rates. In early 1940, some French squadrons ran in-commission rates of barely 40 percent, and the pressure of operations only compounded their difficulties .49 The Allies' defeat in the campaign should not obscure the fact that the French air force fought well, and its experienced
pilots, often in inferior equipment, fought tenaciously ."'
36


THEEASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
The first German air strikes against the Belgians and Dutch virtually eliminated
their air forces as possible factors in the campaign ; the British and French also
suffered heavy aircraft losses on the ground and in the air . But the first day's
operations did not come lightly . On May 10, the Germans lost 83 aircraft (not
including Ju 52's), including 47 bombers and 25 fighters, equalling the worst losses
for a day in the Battle of Britain . On the following day, the Germans lost a further
42 aircraft, including 22 bombers, 8 dive bombers, and 10 fighters ."
Significantly, the Luftwaffe launched few attacks on Allied forces advancing into
Belgium to meet Army Group B's drive . Rather, it shielded General Gert von
Rundstedt's forces moving through the Ardennes from the prying eyes of Allied
reconnaissance aircraft. By the 12th, Luftflotte 3 reported general superiority over
its opponents, and German aircraft now turned increasingly to attacks on the Allied
transportation network and to supporting the advance of ground forces. Reinforcing the impression made by air attacks in the early days of the campaign went the
psychological impact of German paratrooper operations. Luftwaffe airborne forces seized strategic bridges throughout Belgium and Holland, while German glider forces captured the supposedly impregnable fortress of Eban Emael . Such successes created an impact out of all proportion to German paratrooper strength." By materially aiding Army Group B's advance, they furthered the impression of Allied commanders that the Wehrmacht's offensive weight lay in the north . Like the German army, the Luftwaffe had prepared for the coming campaign with ruthless efficiency. Richthofen had honed his "Stukas" to a fine edge ." Now on the banks of the Meuse, the work paid off. On the 13th, German infantry (an integral part of the panzer divisions) began to cross the river. Guderian had carefully worked out plans with his air counterpart, General Bruno Loerzer, Commander of Fliegerkorps II. The two had decided that the Luftwaffe would provide continuous support rather than a massive, one-shot attack. It would thus force French artillerymen and infantry to keep their heads down while German infantry made the crossing . Despite interference at higher levels, the plan went like clockwork . 5° Continuous "Stuka" attacks on French reservists holding the line had a devastating effect ." By nightfall, the Germans had established a secure bridgehead; by the next day, tanks were across; and by the 15th, the panzers were in the open with a clear run to Abbeville . The use of dive bombers to support the Meuse crossings played a major role in one of the most decisive strategic victories in the military history of the 20th century . In the north, Dutch resistance collapsed in the face of the German assault . By the
third day, the 9th Panzer Division had reached the outskirts of Rotterdam . On May 14, the 54th Bomber Wing shattered the center of that city and killed over 800 and rendered 80,000 homeless despite the fact that negotiations were already in motion to surrender the town. After the war, quite naturally, there was a paucity of
individuals willing to accept responsibility . Whether or not the bombing was a
deliberate act of terror, as Telford Taylor suggests, it "was part of the German
pattern of conquest-a pattern woven by Hitler and the Wehrmacht. " 36 To avoid the
possibility that the Luftwaffe would destroy another city, the Dutch Commander in
37


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
Chief surrendered all his forces in Holland on the next day. At that time, the
Germans were not hesitant to note the connections'
Exploitation by German armored formations proceeded with utmost dispatch . What is remarkable is the speed with which short-range fighter and dive bombers moved forward to support ground forces that were rapidly drawing out of range . By the 17th, within 24 hours of the French evacuation, German fighters were establishing their operational base at Charleville, west of the Meuse . For several days, fuel, ammunition, parts, and ground personnel flew in by Ju 52's since the army's movement into the ever-deepening pocket had choked the Meuse bridges . The forward operating base was so short of fuel that ground personnel siphoned all
but the minimum amount of gasoline from every noncombat aircraft landing at Charleville. This rapid deployment forward was due entirely to an air transport system of Ju 52's.58 The system supported the army as well as the air force in its drive to the Channel ; and shortly after the fighters had moved to Charleville, the Luftwaffe flew in 2,000 army technicians to establish a tank repair facility at the same location .59 The next stage of the campaign led to one of the more controversial episodes in the war, the famous "stop order" that resulted in the eventual escape of most of British Expeditionary Force and large numbers of Frenchmen through Dunkirk . Available evidence contradicts the well-publicized post-war testimony of German generals that Hitler was responsible for halting the movement of German tank forces short of Dunkirk . The most careful reconstruction suggests that Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt and Hitler, supported by a number of other senior officers, stopped the armor before it could cut Allied forces off from
Dunkirk . 6° Given the extent of German success and their understandable nervousness, as well as a desire to protect their armored forces for the anticipated conquest of France, the stop order made sense at the time. Interwoven with this German caution was a considerable underestimation of how swiftly the British could organize and conduct a withdrawal operation . On May 25, Goring
compounded what was in retrospect a serious strategic mistake by suggesting to Hitler that the Luftwaffe could by itself destroy what was left ofAllied armies in the
Low Countries ." Hitler found Goring's proposal sufficient to delay further the ground offensive against the Dunkirk perimeter . By the time the army moved forward, the opportunity had been lost; the enemy had entrenched and had begun a
full-scale evacuation. Over Dunkirk, the Luftwaffe suffered its first serious rebuff of the war. As
Galland has noted, the nature and style of the air battles over the beaches should have provided a warning as to the inherent weaknesses of the Luftwaffe's force structure .6z Admittedly, the Germans fought at a disadvantage . Although positioned
forward at captured airfields, the Bf 109 was at the outer limits of its range and possessed less flying time over Dunkirk than did the "Hurricanes" and "Spitfires" operating from southern England . German bombers were still located in western Germany and had even farther to fly . Thus, the Luftwaffe could not bring its full weight to bear so that when its bombers hammered those on the beaches or
38


embarking, the RAF intervened in a significant fashion . German aircraft losses were high, and British fighter attacks often prevented German bombers from performing with full effectiveness . Both sides suffered heavy losses . During the nine days from May 26 through June 3, the RAF lost 177 aircraft destroyed or damaged; the Germans lost 240.63 For much of the Luftwaffe, Dunkirk came as a nasty shock. Fliegerkorps II reported in its war diary that it lost more aircraft on the 27th attacking the evacuation than it had lost in the previous ten days of the
campaign .6a The destruction or forced evacuation of the entire Allied left wing in the Low Countries (consisting of the most mobile and best trained divisions) made the defense of France hopeless . Nevertheless, the remaining French forces put up a creditable defense in early June, suggesting what they might have accomplished with better leadership in May . Their hopeless military position made defeat quick and brutal . To a certain extent, the strategic collapse of the entire western position has obscured the significant attrition of German armored and air forces that took place during the fighting . At the beginning of the western offensive, the army possessed 2,574 tanks.65 By the armistice, the Germans had lost 753 tanks or nearly 30 percent of their armored forces .66 Luftwaffe losses of aircraft were on a similar
scale (see Tables 111,67 IV,6e V,69 and VI'°).
Tables III through VI underscore the extent of German aircraft losses in the Battle of France . They suggest that the tendency to view the Battle of Britain as a separate episode from the defeat of France does not do justice to the resistance of Allied air forces in the spring of 1940 and distort the fact that for five months, from May through September, the Luftwaffe, with only a short pause, was continuously in action . The break in morale of bomber pilots, reported over London in midSeptember 1940, thus was the result not only of the strain of fighting over Britain but of operations that had been continuous from the previous May.
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
Serious German aircraft losses from the spring campaign greatly weakened the Luftwaffe before the Battle of Britain. Had that been the only disadvantage under which the Luftwaffe operated, German strategic problems would have been daunting enough, given the difficulties of mounting a major combined arms
operation. Unfortunately for the Germans, the strain that recent battles had imposed on their military structure represented only a small portion of the problem; a whole host of strategic, economic, tactical, and technological problems had to be faced and surmounted before the Reich could solve the "British question ." What made an inherently complex task impossible was the overconfidence that marked the German leadership in the summer of 1940 . Hitler, basking in a mood of preening self-adulation, went on vacation . During a visit to Paris after the signing of the armistice, tours of World War I battlefields, and picnics along the Rhine, the last thing on Hitler's mind was grand strategy ." The high command structure, however, was such that without Hitler there was no one with either the drive or
39


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
TABLE III
German Aircraft Losses (Damaged and Destroyed)--May-June 1940
Destroyed on Operations
Damaged on Operations
Type Aircraft
Due to
Enemy Action
Not Due to Enemy Action Total
Damaged Not on Operations
Total Damaged
Total Damaged and Destroyed
Total Damaged and Destroyed as Percent of Initial Strength
Close Recce 13 4 17 1 18 96 28%
Long-Range
Recce 12 8 20 1 21 109 34%
Single-Engine Fighters 33 92 125 25 150 407 30%
Twin-Engine Fighters 20 6 26 3 29 139 38% Bombers 116 47 163 40 203 724 41% Dive Bombers 20 7 27 1 28 150 36%
Transport 8 14 22 5 27 240 45%
Coastal 3 5 88 4 12 51 21% TOTAL 225 183 488 80 488 1,916 36%
Type Aircraft
Strength
4 .5 .40 .
Due to Enemy Action
Not Due to Enemy Action Total
Destroyed
Not on Operations
Total Destroyed
Losses as Percent of Initial Strength
Close Recce 345 67 5 72 6 i8 23%
Long-Range Recce 321 68 18 86 2 88 27%
Single-Engine
Fighters 1,369 169 66 235 22 257 19%
Twin-Engine Fighters 367 90 16 106 4 110 30% Bombers 1,758 438 53 491 30 521 30% Dive Bombers 417 89 24 113 9 122 30%
Transport 531 188 18 206 7 213 40%
Coastal 241 20 16 36 3 39 16% TOTAL 5,349 1,129 216 1,345 83 1,428 28%


20r.
BATTLE OF BATTLE OF LONDON FRANCE BRITAIN "BLITZ"
2.02%
TABLE IV
GERMAN AIRCRAFT LOSSES 1940 (ALL TYPES)
x
16 .1 °~u
15.6% cnn
g 1%
MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC


30%
20%
1004
0
p
TABLE V
GERMAN FIGHTER LOSSES 1940
BATTLE OF BATTLE OF LONDON FRANCE BRITAIN "BLITZ"
MAY JUNE JULY AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC 1»,


30°x°
20°x°
BATTLE OF BATTLE OF LONDON FRANCE BRITAIN "BLITZ"
TABLE VI
GERMAN BOMBER LOSSES 1940
18.9%
6%
1 1 1 1l11 MAY JUNE JULY AUG SEP OCT NOV
mma
-c
n
'c
1
DEC zy


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
strategic vision to pick up the reins-a state of affairs precisely in accord with the Fuhrer's wishes . Until mid-July 1940, Hitler believed that England would sue for a peace that he would have happily extended to her . As early as May 20, Hitler had remarked that
England could have peace for the asking .'z Nothing in British behavior in the late 1930's suggested that Hitler's expectation was unrealistic . In fact, there were still some within the British government who regarded Churchill's intransigence with distaste . In late May, Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, expressed his alarm at the relish with which Churchill approached his task, while "Rab" Butler, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, told the Swedish minister in London that "no opportunity would be neglected for concluding a compromise peace if the chance [were] offered on reasonable conditions ."" But the mood in Britain had changed . Churchill, furious at Butler's indiscretion, passed along a biting note to Halifax . Butler's whining reply that he had been misunderstood and had meant no offense indicates how much things had changed since Churchill had assumed power ." But one must stress that Churchill's
toughness as the nation's leader reflected a new mood in Britain . In late June 1940, Admiral Dudley Pound told the French liaison officer at the Admiralty that "the one object we had in view was winning the war and that it was as essential for them [the French] as for us that we should do so. . . . All trivialities, such as questions of
friendship and hurting people's feeling, must be swept aside ." 15 Indeed they were, when for strategic reasons, the British government ordered the Royal Navy to attack and sink the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir .76 The Germans missed the new British resolve almost completely, and Hitler's strategic policy from the summer of 1940 though 1941 sought a method, whether it be military, diplomatic, or political, to persuade the British to make peace. The mood in Berlin was euphoric, since the Germans believed that the war was nearly over. All that remained, from their viewpoint, was to find the right formula for ending hostilities . Confirming this perspective was a strategic memorandum of late
June in which Alfred Jodl, the number two man in the OKW, suggested that "the
final victory of Germany over England is only a question of time .' 171 Jodl's
approach to the English "problem" reflected a general failing within the officer
corps of all three services. As the campaign in the west in 1940 had shown, the
tactical and operational performance of German military forces was without equal .
The problem lay on a higher level: that of strategy. The Germans, if they had
mastered the tactical and operational lessons of World War I, had not mastered the strategic lessons of that terrible conflict . While the French failure to learn from the last war had immediate consequences in May 1940, in the long run German unwillingness to face that war's strategic lessons had an even more catastrophic impact on their history. German strategic planning and discussions throughout the summer of 1940
reflect, in glaring fashion, a failure to grasp the essentials of strategy . The navy had
squandered its battle cruiser assets in strategically meaningless operations off


THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
Norway in the late spring. The army drew up a plan for the proposed cross-channel invasion, code named "Sea Lion," that one can charitably describe as irrelevant to and ignorant of the general state of available naval strength . The Luftwaffe throughout the summer, following Goring's lead, paid minimal attention to the operational problems of a channel crossing by the army in the belief that its victory over the RAF would make an invasion unnecessary . 78 Jodl's June memorandum posed two possibilities for German strategy against England : (a) "a direct attack on the English motherland; (b) an extension of the war to peripheral areas" such as the Mediterranean and trade routes. In the case of a direct strategy, there existed three avenues : (1) an offensive by air and sea against British shipping combined with air attacks against centers of industry ; (2) terror attacks by air against population centers; and (3) finally, a landing operation aimed at occupying England . The precondition for German success, Jodl argued, must be the attainment of air superiority . Furthermore, attacks on British aircraft plants would insure that the RAF would not recover from its defeat . Interestingly, Jodl suggested that air superiority would lead to a diminishing capacity for the RAF bomber force to attack Germany . It is in this context that German attacks in the coming struggle on Bomber Command's bases must be seen. By extending the air offensive to interdict imports and to the use of terror attacks against the British population (justified as reprisal attacks), Jodl believed that the Luftwaffe would break British willpower . He commented that German strategy would require a landing on the British coast only as the final blow ("Todesstoss") to finish off an England that the Luftwaffe and navy had already defeated. 19 On June 30, 1940, Goring signed an operational directive for the air war against England . After redeployment of its units, the Luftwaffe would first attack the RAF, its ground support echelons, and its aircraft industry. Success of these attacks would create the conditions necessary for an assault on British imports and supplies, while at the same time protecting German industry . "As long as the enemy air force is not destroyed, it is the basic principje of the conduct of air war to attack the enemy air
units at every possible favorable opportunity-by day and night, in the air, and on
the ground-without regard for other missions ." What is apparent in early
Luftwaffe studies is the fact that the German air force regarded the whole RAF as
the opponent rather than just Fighter Command. Thus, the attacks on Bomber
Command bases and other RAF installations partially reflected an effort to destroy
the entire British air force rather than bad intelligence . Parenthetically, the losses in
France directly influenced Goring's thinking. He demanded that the Luftwaffe
maintain its fighting strength as much as possible and not allow its personnel and
materiel to be diminished because of overcommitments . 8° In retrospect, the task facing the Germans in the summer of 1940 was beyond
their capabilities. Even disregarding the gaps in interservice cooperation-a must in
any combined operations-the force structure, training, and doctrine of the three
services were not capable of solving the problem of invading the British Isles . The
Norwegian campaign had virtually eliminated the Kriegsmarine as a viable naval
force. Thus, there were neither heavy units nor light craft available to protect
45


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
amphibious forces crossing the Channel . The lack of escorting forces would have made "Sea Lion" particularly hazardous because it meant that the Germans possessed no support against British destroyer attacks coming up or down the Channel . The Admiralty had stationed 4 destroyer flotillas (approximately 36 destroyers) in the immediate vicinity of the threatened invasion area, and additional forces of cruisers, destroyers, and battleships were available from the Home Fleet." Even with air superiority, it is doubtful whether the Luftwaffe could have prevented some British destroyers from getting in among the amphibious forces ; the Navy certainly could not . The landing craft that circumstances forced the Germans to choose, Rhine River barges, indicates the haphazard nature of the undertaking as well as the tenuous links to supplies and reinforcements that the Germans would have had across the Channel . Just a few British destroyers among the slow moving transport vessels would have caused havoc .
Air superiority itself represented a most difficult task, given Luftwaffe strength and aircraft capabilities . Somewhat ironically, the strategic problem confronting the Germans in the summer of 1940 represented in microcosm that facing Allied air forces in 1943 . Because of the Bf 109's limited range, German bombers could only strike southern England where fighter protection could hold the loss rate down to acceptable levels . This state of affairs allowed the RAF a substantial portion of the country as a sanctuary where it could establish and control an air reserve and where British industrial power, particularly in the Birmingham-Liverpool area, could maintain production largely undisturbed . Moreover, the limited range of German fighter cover allowed the British one option that they never had to exercise: Should the pressure on Fighter Command become too great, they could withdraw their fighters north of London to refit and reorganize ; then when the Germans launched "Sea Lion," they could resume the struggle . Thus in the final analysis, the
Luftwaffe could only impose on Fighter Command a rate of attrition that its commanders would accept . The Germans were never in a position to attack the RAF over the full length and breadth of its domain . Similarly in 1943, Allied fighters could only grapple with the Germans up to a line approximately along the Rhine . On the other side of the line, the Luftwaffe could impose an unacceptable loss rate
on Allied bombers . Not until Allied fighters could range over the entire length and
breadth of Nazi Germany could Allied air forces win air superiority over the
continent.
The rather long preparatory period between the end of the French campaign and the launching of the great air offensive against the British Isles was due to more than just German confidence that the war was over and that Britain would accept peace . The losses suffered in the spring and the extensive commitments of aircraft and aircrews in the May-June battles demanded considerable time for rest and recuperation as well as the integration of fresh crews into bomber and fighter units .
Moreover, the speed of the German advance had caused several major
redeployments of air units to keep up with ground operations . The attack on Britain now required another major redeployment and the preparation of permanent
46


THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
airfields and facilities for an extended campaign . The logistical difficulties involved in establishing a new base structure far from Germany were considerable . Further complicating the Luftwaffe's tasks was an inadequate intelligence system. While the gap between the British and the Germans was not yet wide, the British were on the way towards gaining a decisive edge in intelligence collection." Already the British had enjoyed their first successes in breaking into the German "enigma" coding system, and poor signal discipline by the Luftwaffe throughout the war provided the British with easy access to German air force communications traffic . The impact of "Ultra" (the comprehensive generic term for intelligence based on intercepted and decoded German messages) on the Battle of Britain is not entirely clear. The official historian of British intelligence in the war claims that it had no direct impact on the battle, while another historian argues that "Ultra" indicated German targets for the August 15 attacks early enough for Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Commander in Chief of Fighter Command, to use the decrypts in his conduct of that day's air battles ." What is clear is that "Ultra," in combination with `Y' Service intercepts of German radio traffic, gave the British an increasingly accurate picture of the German order of battle as air operations continued into September . 1' Finally, the Battle of Britain witnessed the integration of British scientists directly into the intelligence network . The combination of scientists with signals and other intelligence gave the Allies a detailed picture of German scientific advances as well as the enemy's tactics and operations . Conversely, the picture of Allied developments remained almost opaque to the Germans .85 The first clear break in scientific intelligence came when the British-on the basis of a few scraps of information drawn from crashed aircraft, the interrogation of captured aircrews, and several "Ultra" messages-deduced the nature of the German blind bombing system, the so-called "Knickebein" method." This was the first ofmany triumphs . The undervaluing of intelligence and a concomitant underestimation of enemy capabilities marked Luftwaffe operations throughout the war." These defects showed up in appreciations written by the Luftwaffe's intelligence section for the air offensive on Britain . However, given the successes of May and June and the overestimation of airpower capabilities then current in the air forces of the world, it is perhaps understandable that the Germans misjudged their opponents . In a study dated July 16, Luftwaffe intelligence estimated the "Hurricane" and "Spitfire" well below their actual performance capabilities, made no mention of Britain's radar-controlled air defense system, and ended on the optimistic note that "the Luftwaffe, unlike the RAF, will be in a position in every respect to achieve a
decisive effect this year. "I' The initial Luftwaffe estimate on the duration of the coming campaign was four
days for the defeat of Fighter Command in southern England, followed by four
weeks during which German bombers and long-range fighters would mop up the remainder of the RAF and destroy the British aircraft industry." On July 21, G6ring intimated to his commanders that beside the RAF, the British aircraft industry represented a critical target for winning air superiority . Above all, the initial strategic goal must aim at the weakening of the morale and actual strength of British
47


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
fighter units . Interestingly, Goring suggested that his fighter forces exercise maximum operational latitude, and to this end commanders should not tie them too closely to the bombers . Such a strategy would allow the fighters to use their speed and maneuverability .9° Three days later, Fliegerkorps I delineated four direct missions for the Luftwaffe in the coming battle . The first and most important was to win air superiority by attacks on the RAF and its industrial support, particularly the engine industry; second, to support the Channel crossing by attacks against the enemy fleet and bombers, and eventually through direct aid for the army ; third, to attack British ports, supplies, and imports ; and finally, independent of the first three tasks, launch ruthless retaliatory terror attacks on majorBritish cities.9'
The first phase of the battle, July through early August, involved exploratory operations over the Channel as the Germans, preparing for a major offensive in August, sought to draw Fighter Command out and to close the Channel . Neither side came out a clear winner, but one can perhaps criticize the Admiralty for continuing coastal convoys in the face of the air threat from across the Channel and the Air Ministry for accepting an additional responsibility for Fighter Command to protect a relatively unimportant movement of ships . By the end of July, despite losses, both sides were stronger numerically than at the end of June . 9z Even before the Germans launched their aerial assault, code-named "Eagle Day," distressing tactical problems had appeared over the Channel . The bombers and "Stukas" had proven as vulnerable to British fighter attack as they had over Dunkirk, while the Bf 110 proved unable to defend itself adequately against "Hurricanes" and "Spitfires ." Only the Bf 109 showed itself equal to the "Spitfire" and superior to the "Hurricane ." Thus, the single-engine fighter force had to provide protection to all bomber sorties and Bf 110 missions, as well as conduct its own campaign against Fighter Command. The helplessness of German bombers faced with British fighter opposition was reflected in Goring's early August directive that German fighters flying cover should stick close to the units they were protecting and not allow themselves to be deflected from their primary mission by the appearance of single enemy aircraft . 91 The air battles in mid-August underlined the weakness of the Luftwaffe's force structure . On August 15, RAF fighters based in central and northern England
decimated German bombers and Bf 110's flying unescorted from Scandinavia and
proved once and for all that unsupported daylight bomber operations against Britain
were nearly impossible. RAF opposition in the north also disproved the German
view that Dowding would concentrate his entire strength in the south to meet the air
threat from across the Channel . In that area, the contest for air superiority lasted for
a little over a month. Flying up to three sorties a day, the Bf 109 force could not be
everywhere; and as bomber and Bf. 110 losses mounted, the fighter squadrons unfairly came under criticism from Goring and his staff for insufficientlyprotecting the bombers .94 The fuel supply of the Bf 109 limited the arena within which the Luftwaffe grappled with Fighter Command, as well as the time that fighter formations could remain with the bombers . Surprisingly, the Condor Legion had successfully experimented in Spain with drop tanks that extended the Bf 109's
48


BATTLE OF BRITAIN
v
v
i
THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
~_i FIGHTER COMMAND BASES LUFTWAFFE FIGHTER BASES
LUFTWAFFE BOMBER BASES
o -o RAF GROUP BOUNDARIES
LUFTFLOTTE BOUNDARIES
RANGE OF OF 109 ___RANGE OF LOW LEVEL RADAR
RANGE OF HIGH LEVEL RADAR


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
range by upwards of 125 miles; none were available for use in 1940-a state of affairs quite similar to what was to occur in the US Army Air Forces in 1943 .95 On August 15, an easily discouraged Goring questioned the promising attacks that the Luftwaffe had made on radar install ations .96 Thereafter, the Germans left the British radar network alone and concentrated on Fighter Command, aircraft bases, and sector stations in southern England . The pressure that these attacks placed on the air defense forces has received justifiable attention from historians, and Dowding's conduct ofthe air battle, supported by the Commander of 11 Group, Keith Park, ranks among the great defensive victories of the war. What has not been so clear is that these air battles placed a comparable, if not
greater, strain on the Luftwaffe's resources . For the week beginning with "Eagle
Day" on August 13 and ending on August 19, the Germans wrote off approximately 284 aircraft, or 7 percent of their total force structure, or approximately 10 percent of all aircraft deployed in the three air fleets facing Britain as of July 20.9' For August, aircraft losses were 774 from all causes, or 18 .5 percent of all combat aircraft available at the beginning of the month.98 Such a high attrition rate had an obvious impact on crew strength and morale. As Table VII 99 indicates, pilot losses for August were disproportionately high compared to aircraft losses, undoubtedly reflecting the fact that most of the air fighting occurred over the Channel or British territory .
TABLE VII
Aircraft and Crew Losses-August 1940
The attrition of experienced aircrews in the battle is indicated by a steady drop in the percentage of operational ready crews present in the squadrons over the summer (see Table VIII'°°) .
Aircraft Pilots Written Off Killed Captured Injured Uninjured Missing
Me 109 229 57 3 41 47 84 Me 110 123 48 2 6 19 48
Do 17 75 22 2 14 10 26 He 111 98 36 1 9 15 34
Ju 88 104 33 4 5 17 44 Ju 87 - - 62 20 1 5 9 28


TABLE VIII
PERCENTAGE OF FULLY OPERATIONAL READY CREWS
JULY - SEPTEMBER 1940
BOMBERS BF 1095 BF 110s . . ., . .
JUL 7 JUL 16 JUL 23 JUL 30 AUG 3 AUG 10 AUG 17 AUG 24 AUG 31 SEP 7 SEP 14 SEP 21 ao
90% 
84% 83 % ° 85% 82% 401"*
801/0 - 81% 81% 80% 78%~,
*# am .,43%
k x "" v I 81%"" 81 %".;6 %
70%
w.. ... .
75% ~''..
73
%
70% 71%
70°/."",..1., 76% "comma
74% 744°%4
77%
690/0 67% " '". .d"6~6/n0nnuuynnnnufuu
65% 66%
. .OJp
,~~. 64%
" I~
60°/, - W
61% 60% 591/9
50%
11 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 i 1 I 1


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
The figures in Tables VII and VIII only hint at the problem . Not only had the
Germans lost many of their most experienced combat crews but by September 1940, the percentage of operational ready crews against authorized aircraft had dropped to an unacceptable level . On September 14, Luftwaffe Bf 109 squadrons possessed only 67 percent operational ready crews against authorized aircraft. For
Bf 110 squadrons, the figure was 46 percent ; and for bombers, it was 59 percent . One week later, the figures were 64 percent, 52 percent, and 52 percent, respectively. 101 Conversely, aircraft losses for July through September give the impression that
the Germans were running out of aircraft as well as aircrews! (See Table IX .'°z)
Table X'° 3 indicates the cumulative effect of losses from May through September . These losses indicate the Luftwaffe's heavy commitment for the period .
The impact of losses over southern England combined with inclinations already present in Luftwaffe doctrine to induce a change in German air strategy early in September . Attacks on Britain's air defense system through September 6 had given no indication that Fighter Command was weakening . As a result, Goring-at Kesselring's urging and with Hitler's support-turned to a massive assault on the British capital . This all-out effort, directed at London's East End and the Thames docks, accorded well with Douhet's theories and the German's own belief that ruthlessness could pay extra dividends .
Hitler's conversion to the assault on London reflected a predilection that would haunt the Luftwaffe in the coming years : his insatiable fascination with a retaliatory air strategy in reply to enemy bombings . On September 4, the Fuhrer declared in Berlin: "When they declare they will attack our cities in great measure, we will eradicate their cities. . . . The hour will come when one of us will break, and it will not be National Socialist Germany!" '°'
The results of the great September 7 raid on the London docks were indeed spectacular. Over the night of September 7-8, London firemen fought nine fires that they rated over 100 pumps, and one fire on the Surrey docks of over 300 pumps . 105 The attack of September 7 did not entirely step over the line into a clear terror bombing effort since the primary target was the London docks, but there clearly was
an assumed hope of terrorizing the London population. The relief to Fighter
Command provided by this change in German strategy benefited not so much the
exhausted fighter crews who still faced considerable fighting but rather the ground
infrastructure of the British air defense system (the maintenance personnel,
airfields, and sector stations needed to keep the aircraft flying) .
The heavy night bombing and daylight probes of the next week put heavy
pressure on both London's inhabitants and German bomber crews. However, not
until September 15 did the Luftwaffe launch the next massive daylight attack on London. This strike represented the climactic moment of the battle . While on earlier occasions the Germans had lost more aircraft, the stunning impact of a Fighter Command that was rested and prepared by a week of less critical operations
52


TABLE IX
Aircraft Losses-July-September 1940
Destroyed on Operations
Damaged on Operations
THE EASY WAR : GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
53
Type Aircraft
Strength
29 .6 .40 .
Due to Enemy Action
Not Due to Enemy Action Total
Destroyed
Not on
Operations
Total Destroyed
Total Destroyed as Percent of Initial Strength
Close Recce 312 1 2 3 5 8 3%
Long-Range
Recce 257 47 14 61 9 70 27%
Single-Engine
Fighters 1,107 398 79 477 41 518 47%
Twin-Engine
Fighters 357 214 9 223 12 235 66% Bombers 1,380 424 127 551 70 621 45%
Dive Bombers 428 59 10 69 19 88 21%
Transport 408 3 1 4 11 15 4% Coastal 233 38 29 67 14 81 35%
TOTAL 4,482 1,184 271 1,455 181 1,636 37%
Type Aircraft
Due to Enemy Action
Not Due to Enemy Action Total
Not on Operations
Total Damaged
Total Damaged and Destroyed
Total Damaged and Destroyed as Percent of Initial Strength
Close Recce 0 3 3 9 12 20 6%
Long-Range Recce 6 8 14 5 19 89 35%
Single-Engine Fighters 47 83 130 55 185 703 64%
Twin-Engine Fighters 49 11 60 5 65 300 84% Bombers 118 118 236 98 334 955 69%
Dive Bombers 22 6 28 21 49 137 32%
Transport 1 1 2 9 11 26 6% Coastal 4 6 10 12 22 109 47%
TOTAL 247 236 483 214 697 2,339 52%


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
54
TABLE X
Aircraft Losses-May-September 1940
Destroyed on Operations
broke the back of the attack. Unlike the previous week when the Luftwaffe had devastated the Thames docks, the bombers now scattered over London and ran for the coast . As a consequence, there was no concentrated pattern to the bombing. 106 The failure of the daylight offensive in September led to the cancellation of "Sea Lion" and to a rethinking ofGerman air strategy against Britain as part ofan overall reassessment . The Germans now turned to a night bombing offensive. The strategic problem that faced the Luftwaffe was how exactly it could conduct this campaign . As with the air superiority battle of August and early September, this problem was,
in many ways, similar to that facing those directing the Allied "strategic" bombing campaign of 1943 and 1944. German planners had to decide whether the Luftwaffe should deliver the weight of its attack against a specific segment of British industry such as aircraft factories, or against a system of interrelated industries such as Britain's import and distribution network, or even in a blow aimed at breaking the morale of the British population . The bombing offensive against London, referred to as the Blitz, attempted to achieve simultaneously all three strategies, none of
which proved decisive . 101 As with the daylight attacks, the Luftwaffe did not possess
the strength or the capabilities to achieve these objectives, but these direct attacks
on British military industrial targets and population centers only spurred British desires to repay the Germans in kind .'0'
Type Aircraft
Strength 4 .5 .40 .
Due to Enemy Action
Not Due to Enemy Action Total
Destroyed Not on Operations
Total Destroyed
Aircraft Destroyed in May-Sep Period as of Initial Strength
Close Recce 345 68 7 75 11 86 25%
Long-Range Recce 321 115 32 147 11 158 49%
Single-Engine Fighters 1,369 567 145 712 63 775 57%
Twin-Engine Fighters 367 304 25 329 16 345 94%
Bombers 1,758 862 180 1,042 100 1,142 65%
Dive Bombers 417 148 34 182 28 210 50% Transport 531 191 19 210 18 228 43%
Coastal 241 58 45 103 17 120 50%
TOTAL 5,349 2,313 487 2,800 264 3,064 57%


TABLE XI
Luftwaffe Bomber Losses---October-December 1940
THE EASY WAR : GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
One aspect of the German night bomber offensive deserves closer scrutiny . The switch to night bombing resulted from a realistic appreciation that German fighters were not sufficiently numerous to protect the bombers from devastating British fighter attacks. The night effort led to a drastic falloff in bomber losses due to combat ; and through the winter of 1941, British night fighter and antiaircraft defenses were generally ineffective against German intruders. While combatrelated losses were low, the accident rate remained high . Luftwaffe crews flew these combat missions at night and in bad weather, or trained in less-than-perfect conditions to achieve the flying proficiency required . Thus, to list only combat losses considerably understates the attrition taking place . From October to
December 1940, bomber losses due to noncombat causes ran well over 50 percent of all losses each month; while for the whole period, 63 .5 percent of bomber losses resulted from noncombat causes . (See Table XI. 109 )
CONCLUSION
As with most wars, those who participated in or who observed the Battle of
Britain and the Blitz drew conclusions compatible with their own views on force
structure and doctrine . Nevertheless, in every sense, those directing the Luftwaffe came off least well in the "lessons learned" analysis. Although the Germans had
suffered the hardest psychological knocks, since it had been their air offensive that had failed, their reaction seems best represented by Jeschonnek's remark shortly before the invasion of Russia : "At last, a proper war!""° Before going on to examine the full implications of such a statement, one should note that Jeschonnek and the general staff paid minimal attention to the attrition that had taken place not
55
Total No . of Bombers at Beginning of Month
Bombers Destroyed Due to Enemy Action
Bombers
Destroyed on Operations But Not Due to Enemy Action
Bombers Destroyed Not on Operations
Total Destroyed
October 1940 (28 .9 .40 .) 64 78 29 171 1,420
November 1940 (2 .11 .40 .) 14 57 13 84 1,423
December 1940 (30 .11 .40 .) 62 58 9 129
1,393
Average TOTAL 1,412 140 193 51 384


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
only in the Battle of Britain but in the land campaign that had preceded it. Thus, willfully and confidently, they embarked on a campaign to conquer the largest nation in the world with an air force that quantitatively was virtually the same size as it had been the previous year and that was arguably weaker in terms of crew experience and training . Moreover, industrial production of aircraft had stagnated for the third consecutive year. For the British, the Battle of Britain confirmed what operations over the Heligoland Bight had indicated the previous December-daylight bomber operations in the face of enemy fighters were not possible . Surprisingly, German night operations, which often did not achieve either concentration or accuracy in bombing, did not raise the obvious question of the RAF's bombing accuracy over German territory . Not until the summer of 1941, on the basis of Bomber Command's own operations, did the British recognize that only one-third of their bombs were falling within 5 miles of the target (a target circle equal to 78.54 square miles)."' Nor did the fact that massive German bombing of London had not diminished but rather strengthened British morale make much impression. On this very point, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Commander in Chief of the RAF, remarked at that time that the Germans surely could not take the same level of pounding as had the British people . 112 The American assessment of the tactical lessons was equally dubious . Army Air Forces' observers attributed the high loss rate of German bombers at the hands of British fighters to inadequate defensive armament and airframe size, to flying missions at too low a level, and to poor formation discipline under attack. "' The Army Air Forces' plan of employment, drawn up in August 1941 for America's possible entrance into a European war, argued that "by employing large numbers of aircraft with high speed, good defensive power, and high altitude," its bombers could penetrate deep into the heart of Germany in daylight without unbearable losses . "" The impediment that the Bf 109's lack ofrange placed on German bomber operations did not receive proper recognition until the disaster over Schweinfurt in October of 1943 had again underscored the need for long-range fighter support . According to American official historians, such an oversight "is difficult to account
for . 11115
In one critical respect, however, the British and American air forces drew the correct lesson from the Battle of Britain. Both air forces concluded that the German
force structure had been inadequate to meet the demands of the battle . Encouraged by an overestimation of actual German air strength, both air forces set targets for
their industrial production and force structure that demanded enormous increases in
air strength. Thus, at the same time that the Germans continued a minimum
program of air armament, Britain and the United States set in motion preparations
that gave them a decisive quantitative edge in the later years of the war . The air
struggle of those years, as with the 1940 battles, rested on numbers of aircraft, industrial capacity and production, and availability of trained aircrews . The basis of Allied superiority, thus, would rest on the production programs drawn up in 1940 and 1941 by both sides.
56


Notes
1 . IMT, TMWC, Vol . XXXII, Doc . #3575, p . 413 . 2 . Jost Ddlffer, Weimar, Hitler and die Marine, Reichspolitik and Flottenbau 1920-1939 (Dusseldorf, 1973), p . 504 . 3 . William L . Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York, 1960), pp . 446-47 . 4 . For a fuller discussion of this criticism of British policy, see my soon-to-be-published study The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939, Chapters X and XI . This is a fundamentally
different view than that expressed by Gerhard Weinberg in The Foreign Policy of Nazi Germany, Vol . It
(Chicago, 1981) . Readers interested in the subject are invited to compare the differing interpretations . 5 . IMT, TMWC, Vol . XXVI, Doc . #798PS, p . 338 . 6 . Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p . 467 .
7 . I am indebted to Oberstleumant Dr . Klaus Maier of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt for this line of argument . 8 . BA/MA RL 7/42, RL 7/43, Luftflottenkommando 2 ., Fuhrungsabteilung, Nr . 7093/39, 13 .5 .39 ., "Schlussbesprechung des Planspieles 1939 ."
9 . Maier, et al., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 11, pp . 63-64 . 10 . Quoted in David Irving, The War Path, Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (New York, 1978), p . 225 ; for further discussion of this visit, see Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe, pp . 73-74 . 11 . Documents on German Foreign Policy (DGFP), Series D, Vol . VII . Doc . # 192, 22 .8 .39 .
12 . Ibid ., Vol . VII, Doc . #307, 26 .8 .39 .
13 . See the outstanding article on the real attitudes within the Chamberlain Cabinet by Peter Ludlow,
"The Unwinding of Appeasement" in Das "Andere Deutschland" im Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed . by L . Kettenacker (Stuttgart, 1977) . 14 . For the economic side of such a strategy, see Burton Klein, Germany's Economic Preparations for War (Cambridge, 1959), and Alan Milward, The German Economy at War (London, 1965) . On the military side of the argument, see Larry Addington, The Blitzkrieg Era and the German General Staff, 1865-1941 (New Brunswick, 1971) . For a recent restatement of the theory, see F . H . Hinsley, E . E . Thomas, C . F. G . Ransom, R . C . Knight, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Vol . I (London, 1979), Chapter 1 . 15 . For a fuller discussion of these issues, see Murray, "The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939," Chapter I . 16. Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, p . 117 . 17 . "The Luftwaffe in Poland," a study produced by the German Historical Branch (8th Abteilung), 11 .7 .44 ., AHB, Translation No . VII/33 . 18 . For a fuller discussion of the planning and conduct of operations in the Polish campaign, see :
Robert M . Kennedy, The German Campaign in Poland 1939 (Washington, 1956) ; and Maier, et al ., Das
deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 11, Part IV .
19 . For an interesting discussion of the Polish campaign in the air, see J . S . Orworski, "Polish Air
Force Versus Luftwaffe," Air Pictorial, Vol . 21, Nos . 10 and 11, October and November 1959 .
20 . In fact, it can be argued that it was only in Poland that the Germans integrated armored formations
and close air support into a coherent operational concept . It was only in Poland that a significant body
within the German army's high command became convinced that an armored exploitation strategy was in
the offing .
21 . Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 11, p . 124 ; for a detailed account
of the battle along the Bzura, see Rolf Elbe, Die Schlacht an der Bzura im September 1939 aus deutscher
and polnischer Sicht (Freiburg, 1975) . 22 . "German Bombing of Warsaw and Rotterdam," Air Historical Branch, Translation VII/ 132 .
23 . Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 11, p . 133 .
24 . For a fuller discussion of the state of the German army after the Polish campaign and its efforts to
correct its deficiencies, see my article in Armed Forces and Society (Winter 1981), "The German
Response to Victory in Poland : A Case Study in Professionalism ." 25 . IMT, TMWC, Vol . XXVI, Doc . #798 PS, pp . 342-43 .
26 . Schlesisches Institut fur Wirtschafts- and Konjunkturforschung, "Zahlen des deutschen
Aussenhandels seit Kriegsbeginn," August 1940, pp . 2-7, NARS T-84/195/1560551 .
27 . Bericht des Herm Professor Dr . C . Krauch (fiber die Lage auf dem Arbeitsgebiet der Chemie in der
Sitzung des Generalrates am 24 .6 .41 ., "Treibstoff-Vorrdte," NARS T-84/217/1586749 .
57


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
28 . In particular, see Harold C . Deutsch, The Conspiracy Against Hitler in the Twilight War
(Minneapolis, 1968), who regards Hitler's desire for a western offensive in the fall as completely irrational . 29. Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 11, p . 267 .
30 . OKW files : "Denkschrift and Richtlinien fiber die F0hrung des Krieges im Westen," Berlin, 9 .10 .39 ., NARS T-77/775 . 31 . H . R . Trevor-Roper, ed ., Blitzkrieg to Defeat, Hitler's War Directives (New York, 1965), Directive #6 for the Conduct of the War, 9 .10 .39 ., p . 13 .
32 . For a fuller discussion of these "after action" reports and their impact on army thinking, see my article "The German Response to Victory in Poland : A Case Study in Professionalism ."
33 . Maier, et al ., Das deutscheReich and derZweite Weltkrieg, Vol . 11, p . 242 .
34 . Air Historical Branch, Translation No . VII/107, "Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability Tables,
August 1938-April 1945 (compiled from the records of VI Abteilung Quartermaster General's Department of the German Air Ministry) . Dates for the figures are September 2, 1939, and April 6, 1940 . 35 . Trevor-Roper, Blitzkrieg to Defeat, Directive #6 for the Conduct of the War, 9 .10 .30 ., p . 13 . 36 . "Proposal for the Conduct of Air War Against Britain," made by General Schmid of the German Air Force Operations Staff (intelligence), 22 .11 .39 ., AHB, Translation No . VII/30 . 37 . Trevor-Roper, Blitzkrieg to Defeat, Directive #9, "Instructions for Warfare Against the Economy of the Enemy," 29 .11 .39 ., p . 18 . 38 . See, in particular, Guderian's description of the major argument in the March conference between himself and Generals Halder and Busch . Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London, 1952), pp . 90-92 . For fuller accounts of arguments within the German high command over the proper strategy for the coming campaign, see: Telford Taylor, The March of Conquest (New York, 1958) ; Alistair Home, To
Lose a Battle, France 1940 (London, 1969) ; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Fall Gelb . Der Kampf um den
deutschen Operations plan zur Westoffensive 1940 (Wiesbaden, 1957) ; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Dokumente zur Vorgeschichte des Wesfeldzuges 1939-1940 (Gottingen, 1956) . 39 . Taylor, The March ofConquest, p . 90 .
40 . Trevor-Roper, Blitzkrieg to Defeat, Directive #6 for the Conduct of the War, 9 .10 .39 ., p . 14 . These instructions for the immediate operational employment of the Luftwaffe do not contradict the thesis that the purpose of the campaign was to create the conditions for a strategic offensive (air and naval) against Britain . For a fuller description of Luftwaffe tasks, see : ObdL, Fbhrungsstab la Nr . 5330/39, 7 .12 .39 . Weisung Nr . 5, Luftkrieg im Westen . AFSHRC : K 113 .306 .2 . 41 . The misreading of these German naval operations by the Admiralty and by Churchill in particular must be counted as one of the great British failures of the Second World War. 42 . The clearest account of the campaign in English is contained in Taylor, The March of Conquest;
see also T. K . Derry, The Campaign in Norway (London, 1952) ; S . W . Roskill, The War at Sea,
1939-45 (London, 1954) ; and Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II .
43 . For the best discussion on the importance of Swedish iron ore imports to the Reich, see : Rolf
Karlbom, "Sweden's Iron Ore Exports to Germany 1933-1944," Scandinavian Economic History
Review, No . 1 (1965) . 44 . Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich an derZweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, p . 224 .
45 . Ibid ., 221-24 . It should be stressed that the navy risked these ships partially to gain an
advantageous position for the post-war budget debates . 46 . Raeder claims in his memoir that he only raised the issue of a possible invasion to pre-empt the
topic . His strategy thereafter indicates that from the start, he never considered an invasion a serious
possibility . See Erich Raeder, Strugglefor the Sea (London, 1952), p . 331 .
47 . For a numerical comparison of the forces employed in this campaign, see in particular R . H . S .
Stolfi, "Equipment for Victory in France in 1940," History (February 1970) . There is, of course, another aspect and that is the qualitative difference . See also my article in Armed Forces and Society, "The German Response to Victory in Poland : A Case Study in Professionalism ."
48 . For the disposition of RAF forces in France at the start of the 1940 campaign, see Major L . F .
Ellis, The War in France and Flanders, 1939-1940 (London, 1953), map between pages 34 and 35 .
49 . See, in particular, Patrice Buffotot and Jacques Ogier, "L'armee de fair francaise dans la
campagne de France (10 mai-25 juin 1940)," Revue historique des Armies, Vol . II, No . 3, pp . 88-117 .
50 . For an interesting discussion of the relative experience level of pilots in the French and German air
forces, see : J . Curry, "Hawk 75 in French Service," American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Vol . 11, No . 1 (Spring 1966), pp . 13-30 .
58


THE EASY WAR : GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
51 . "Der Einsatz der deutschen Luftwaffe wahrend der ersten 11 Tage des Frankreichfeldzuges,"
Auszfge aus den taglichen Lagemeldungen des Oberbefehlshabers der Luftwaffe, Abt . Ic ., AFSHRC : K 113 .306-3, v . 2 .
52 . Seventy German paratroopers ended up on top of Eben-Emael and were sufficient to force the surrender of the fort with its 1,200 defenders . "Der Handstreich auf die Werk-Gruppe Eben-Emael am 10 . Mai 1940," NARS T-971/35/1019 .
53 . KTB VIII Fl . Korps, BA/MA RL8/45 .
54 . For Guderian's account, see Panzer Leader, pp . 79-82 . See also "Der Bericht der Luftwaffe fiber
die Durchf0hrung," Auszug aus den taglichen Luftlagemeldungen des Oberbefehlshabers der
Luftwaffe-Lagebericht Nr . 251, 14 .5 .40, AFSHRC : K 113 .306-3, v . 2 ; and KTB VIII Fl . Korps, BA/MA RL 8/45 . 55 . For the collapse of the French infantry under "Stuka" attack, see Home, To Lose a Battle, France, 1940, pp . 290-92 . 56 . Taylor, March of Conquest, p . 203 . 57 . See the diary entry for General von Waldau's diary : Auszugweise Wiedergabe aus dem pers6nlichen Tagebuch des Generals von Waldau vom Maa 1939-10 .4 .42 Chef des Luftwaffenffihrungstabes . AFSHRC : K 113 .306-3, v . 2 . 58 . "Das Jagdgeschwader 27 des VIII . Flieger-Korps im Frankreichfeldzug, 1940," Generalmajor a .
D . Max Ibel, 25 .6 .53 ., BA/MA, RL 10/591 .
59 . Generaloberst Haider, Kriegstagebuch, Vol . I, ed . by Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (Stuttgart, 1964), diary entry for 16 .5 .40 . 60 . See the carefully worked out argument in Taylor, The March of Conquest, pp . 255-03 .
61 . Testimony by former Chief of Intelligence Schmid on 18 .6 .54 ., AFSHRC: K 113 .306-3, v . 3 .
62 . Adolf Galland, The First and the Last (New York, 1954), p . 6 . 63 . Ellis, The War in France and Flanders, p . 246 . The German losses, it should be noted, were for the entire western theater of operations, but most of the Luftwaffe's effort was concentrated in this time period over Dunkirk . 64 . "Einsatz des II . Fliegerkorps bei Dankirchen am 27 .5 .40 . : Schwerer Tag des II . Fliegerkorps," AFSHRC: K 113 .306-3, v . 3 . 65 . Guderian, Panzer Leader, p . 75 . 66 . Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, p . 294 . 67 . These two tables are drawn from two major compilations of the Air Historical Branch . They are
AHB, Translation VII/107, "Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability Tables, August 1938-April 1945" ;
and Translation VII/83, "German Aircraft Losses, September 1939-December 1940." These tables, in turn, were compiled from the German Quartermaster records then in the hands of the AHB .
68 . BA/MA RL 2 III/1025, gen . Qu . 6 . Abt . (III A), "Front-Flugzeug-Verluste," 1940 .
69 . Ibid . 70. Ibid .
71 . For Hitler's mood after the defeat of France, see Telford Taylor, The Breaking Wave (New York,
1967),pp .53-54 .
72 . IMT, TMWC, Vol . XXVIII, Jodl diary entry for 20 .5 .40 .
73 . The Earl of Birkenhead, Halifax (Boston, 1966), p . 458 ; and Llewellyn Woodward, British
Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London, 1962), p . 53 .
74 . For the British files on this incident, see PRO FO 371/24859 and FO 800/322 .
75 . PRO ADM 205/4 undated and unsigned memorandum .
76 . For a full discussion of the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, see the thoughtful
study by Arthur Marder in From the Dardanelles to Oran (London, 1974), Chapter V .
77 . Chef WFA, 30 .6 .40., "Die Weiterfiihrung des Krieges gegen England," IMT, TMWC, Vol .
XXVIII, pp . 301-03 .
78 . Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, pp . 378-79 .
79 . Chef WFA, 30 .6 .40 ., "Die Weiterfiihrung des Krieges gegen England," IMT, TMWC, Vol .
XXVIII, pp . 301-03 .
80 . BA/MA RL 211/27, "Allgemeine Weisung fur den Kampf der Luftwaffe gegen England," ObdL,
Fiihrungsstab Ia Nr. 5835/40, 30 .6 .40 . 81 . Roskill, The War at Sea, Vol . I, pp . 248-49 . 82 . For the intelligence advantage that the British enjoyed, see : R . V . Jones, The Wizard War (New
York, 1978) ; Hinsley, et al ., British Intelligence in the Second World War, Vol . I; Ronald Lewin, Ultra
Goes to War (New York, 1978) ; and Brian Johnson, The Secret War (London, 1978) .
59


STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
83 . Hinsley, et al ., British Intelligence in the Second World War, Vol . I, pp . 176-77 ; and Harold
Deutsch, "Ultra and the Air War in Europe and Africa," Air Power and Warfare, pp . 165-66 . For the
German view on Ultra's impact, see Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, p . 384 .
84 . For the contribution of "Y" Service, see Aileen Clayton, The Enemy is Listening (London, 1980) . 85 . See, in particular, Jones, Wizard War and Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords (London,
1978) . 86 . In particular, see PRO AIR 20/1623 Air Scientific Intelligence Report No . 6, "The Crooked Leg," 28 .6 .40 ., for R . V . Jones' initial report and estimation of the "Knickebein" system . 87 . See particularly, Boog, "Higher Command and Leadership in the German Luftwaffe, 1935-1945," Air Power and Warfare, p . 145 . 88 . Mason, Battle Over Britain, Appendix K, OKL, 16,7 .40 ., Operations Staff Ic . 89 . Basil Collier, The Defense of the United Kingdom (London, 1957), p . 160 . 90 . BA/MA RL 2 II/30, "Besprechung Reichsmarschall am 21 .7 .40 ."
91 . BA/MA RL 8/1 Generalkommando I . Fliegerkorps Abt . I a Nr . 10260/40, 24 .7 .40 ., "Gedanken uber die Fuhrung des Luftkrieges gegen England . "
92 . Basil Collier, The Battle of Britain (New York, 1962), pp . 62-75 .
93 . BA/MA RL 2 II/30, H . Qu ., 2 August 1940, Aktenvermerk .
94 . See Galland, The First and the Last, pp . 24-29 . 95 . Ibid ., p . 24 . 96 . BA/MA RL 2 IU30, Besprechung am 15 .8 .40 . 97 . The figures of Luftwaffe aircraft written off (60 percent or greater damage) comes from the loss tables in Mason, Battle Over Britain, pp . 241-43, 247, 263-G4, 272-73, 274, 281-84, 286-87 ; the 7 percent figure represents total Luftwaffe aircraft types involved in the Battle of Britain as of August 10 based on AHB, Translation No . VII/107, "Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability Tables, August 1938-April 1945" ; while the 10 percent figure represents aircraft deployed in the three air fleets as of
July 20, Mason, Battle Over Britain, p . 128 .
98 . Figures based on: AHB, Translation No . VII/107, "Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability Tables,
August 1938-April 1945" ; and AHB, Translation VII/83, "German Aircraft Losses, September
1939-December 1940 ."
99 . This table is drawn from the Luftwaffe loss reports in Mason, Battle Over Britain . With the
exception of the Bf 109 figures in which, with only a pilot aircrew, losses directly reflect pilot losses, this
table estimates pilot losses as pilots are not directly identified among crew losses . The Mason tables only concern air fleets involved in the battle so that losses in the Reich or in OTUs (Operational Training
Units) are not counted . The figures for pilots killed, captured, injured, uninjured, or missing are not
directly equivalent to aircraft written off since, in some cases, pilots were killed or injured in accidents in
which the aircraft was not written off . In other losses, aircraft were destroyed with no aircrew losses involved (i .e ., enemy bombing, ground accident) . However, since only those pilots who were uninjured
returned to duty, the extent of pilot losses is obvious . Finally, the high number of missing aviators indicates that many pilots were captured by the British .
100 . Based on figures in the quartermaster returns in BA/MA RL 2 III/708 and 709 .
101 . Based on figures drawn from BA/MA RL 2 III/709 for 14 .9 .40 . and 21 .9 .40 .
102 . AHB, Translation VII/83, "German Aircraft Losses, September 1939-December 1940."
103 . Ibid .
104 . Quoted in Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol . II, p . 386 .
105 . Mason, Battle Over Britain, p . 363 .
106 . Ibid ., pp . 387-91 .
107 . For an excellent discussion of various arguments over target selection and strategy in the post
September 15 period, see : Maier, et al ., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp . 388-96 .
108 . Air Marshal `Bert' Hams recalls taking Sir Charles Portal up to the roof of the Air Ministry to
watch the spectacular results of one of the December raids on London . Harris interview, RAF Staff
College, Bracknell, England .
109 . Table drawn from AHB, Translation No . VII/83, "German Aircraft Losses, September
1939-December 1940" ; and AHB, Translation No . VII/107, "Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability
Tables, August 1938-April 1945 ."
110 . Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe, p . 123 .
111 . Webster and Frankland, SAOAG, Vol . IV, Annexes and Appendices, p . 205 .
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THE EASY WAR: GERMANY TRIUMPHANT
112 . Dennis Richards, Portal (London, 1979), p . 146 . The similarity between Portal's comment and Knauss' argumentation is indeed striking . See Chapter I of this book, p . 10 .
113 . Haywood S . Hansell, Jr., The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler (Atlanta, 1972), pp . 53-54 .
114 . Craven and Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War 11, Vol . I, p . 149 .
115 . Ibid ., p . 604 .


General Walther Wever, First Chief of Staff
(Photo Credit : AFSHRC)
62


Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring and Ceneraloberst Hans Jeschonnek (Photo Credit: AFSHRC)


Ernst Udet and Willi Messerschmitt (Photo Credit : AFSHRC)


Mainstay of the fighter force : the Bf 109G (Photo Credit : Official USAF Photo)
The flawed fighter : the Bf 110 (Photo Credit : Official USAF Photo)
The "fast" bomber: the Ju 88 (Photo Credit: Official USAF Photo)
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The interim bomber : the He 111 (Photo Credit : Official USAF Photo)
The cancelled "strategic" bomber : the Do 19 (Photo Credit : AFSHRC)
The flawed "strategic" bomber : the He 177 (Photo Credit: Official USAF Photo)
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Russian Air Force Base at Kovno after German attack, 22 June 1941 (Photo Credit : AFSHRC)
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring (Photo Credit: AFSHRC)
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THE STRATEGIC PROBLEM
CHAPTER III
The Turn to Russia
Ifearly summer 1940 brought Hitler an unimagined, easy triumph over France, it also brought unanticipated strategic problems . Hitler had expected the British to recognize their hopeless situation and sue for peace. He seems, however, to have given almost no thought to what options Germany possessed should Britain reject his offer' . The unrealistic optimism that characterized the air offensive against the British Isles marked the German approach towards their strategic problems throughout the 1940-41 period . As Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano noted after a visit to Munich in June 1940, Hitler resembled a successful gambler who "has made a big scoop and would like to get up from the table, risking nothing
more . "2 Ciano's description was most apt, for Hitler did, indeed, wish to escape a war against Britain. He calculated, quite correctly, that those who stood most to gain from a British defeat were the Japanese and the Americans and not the Germans .' Thus, the road that policymaking within Germany travelled up to the beginning of "Barbarossa" led (1) from a direct air offensive on Britain to persuade the British of their hopeless position and to allow an unhindered move against Russia ; (2) to a search for an indirect strategy to defeat the British; (3) to increasing interest in attacking the Soviet Union to remove a major buttress in Churchill's strategic policy ; and, finally, (4) to the decision to invade Russia as the basis for realizing Hitler's long-term ideological goals .4 What the Germans misread, however, was the real significance of the victory over France in 1940 . Their success did not mean that Germany had won the war, as Jodl's memorandum of June 30, 1940, suggested .s Rather, it meant that Germany
had acquired the economic and raw material resources to fight a long war. The
nature and direction that a protracted war might take would depend on the strategic
choices that the Germans were now to make ; nevertheless, no matter what strategy
Hitler and his advisers chose, the Reich was in for an extended and difficult
struggle . The refusal of Germany's political and military leaders to recognize that
fact destroyed whatever small chance Germany had to realize her inordinate goals
and contributed directly to the catastrophe of 1945 . Above all, this failure in grand
strategy reflected the unwillingness of the German military to comprehend the
nature of warfare between the great powers in the modern age . This led to the
unrealistic belief that victory over France represented a return to the era of the short
war. With Britain's rejection of peace, Hitler sensed the strategic basis for Churchill's
decision . As he suggested to Halder, the British hoped that both the Soviet Union
and the United States would intervene in the war against Germany'b In this Hitler
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STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
was correct, for Churchill had indeed based his hard line on the belief that Russia and America could not, in their own self-interest, allow Germany to dominate Europe .7 With that strange mixture of intuition and ignorance that characterized Hitler's makeup, the Fuhrer urged on his military advisers the possibility of a quick, late summer campaign against the Soviet Union to remove that prop from British policy . His military advisers eventually were able to persuade him that such a campaign, late in the year, made no sense .8 Yet, Hitler's interest in a possible strike against Russia in the summer of 1940
does not indicate that he had firmly set Germany's course for the following summer.9 Rather as it became clear by mid-September that the RAF would hold its own and that "Sea Lion" was no longer a viable option, Hitler turned to the peripheral strategy which Jodl had urged in June . In the early fall of 1940, Hitler approached Spain and Vichy France about helping Fascist Italy attack British
interests in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East. Such an approach might have worked in the early summer of 1940 when the Wehrmacht's reputation was at its highest . But having suffered defeat in the skies over Britain, it was not so easy to forge an alliance among powers whose interests and appetites were mutually exclusive . Hitler fully recognized the diplomatic difficulties when he commented before meeting with Franco and Pdtain that the need of the hour was a gigantic fraud. 10 Conversations with the French and particularly the Spanish led nowhere, and upon return to Berlin Hitler remarked that he would sooner have "three or four" teeth pulled than face another conversation with Franco. Hitler had missed the bus ." In the early summer in the full flush of victory, he might well have persuaded Spain to participate . After Mers-el-Kebir, had he granted substantial concessions to France in terms of the eventual peace treaty, he might also have enlisted Vichy support . However, with the Wehrmacht's overwhelming success, he felt no need to cut Spain in on the loot or to mitigate the onerous terms he wished to impose on
France . Now in the fall of 1940, it was too late ; the Spanish and the French recognized that the war was not over. The former made impossibly high demands concerning the price for Spain's entrance into the war; the latter decided to wait on further events despite bitterness against the British for Mers-el-Kebir . There remained only the Russians as a means of pressuring the British . Since
Hitler had hoped to end the war in the west so that he could solve the eastern question, one can wonder how seriously the Fuhrer ever considered the possibility
of a closer alliance with Russia . Nevertheless, in November 1940, the Soviet
Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, arrived in Berlin to explore further cooperation between the dictatorships . The Russians overplayed their hand . Stalin seems to have believed his diplomatic position was stronger than, in fact, it was . Thus, Molotov was at his most truculent, brushing aside German suggestions that the Soviets interest themselves in the Persian Gulf, Iran, and India. While such goals were not entirely out of the range of Soviet expectations, Molotov emphasized more concrete and immediate aims in Europe . Among other items, he suggested
that Finland, the Balkans, and the Dardanelles all lay within the Soviet sphere of
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THE TURN TO RUSSIA
interest. What undoubtedly made the Germans choke was Molotov's proposal that a two-nation commission control the Skagerrak, entrance and exit to the Baltic-the proposed nations being the Soviet Union and Denmark . Adding further to the German discomfort were Molotov's tactless contradictions of the Fuhrer and his justly famous rejoinder to Joachim von Ribbentrop's (the German Foreign Minister) comment that Britain was finished ; why then, he asked, were they in an air raid shelter?' 2 Molotov's behavior, typical of Soviet diplomatic practices that have subsequently worked so well in dealings with the West, made a disastrous impression on his hosts and undoubtedly contributed to the German decision to settle matters with the Soviets that coming summer . There had been, moreover, a general deterioration in relations between the two powers since the summer of 1940.'3 Stalin had taken advantage of German preoccupation in the west to incorporate Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia into the Soviet Union . More threatening to German interests was the Russian move against Rumania in July 1940, when the Soviets forced their neighbor to surrender not only the province of Bessarabia (covered by the Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact) but the province of Bukovina as well (not covered by the agreement) . Hitler's reply to what he regarded as a threat to German interests in the Balkans, particularly Rumanian oil, was direct and forceful . Complicating the diplomatic situation was the fact that Hungary and Rumania were on the brink of war over the province of Transylvania . 14 To the Germans, such a disruption of Balkan relations was unacceptable . Under pressure from both Ribbentrop and Ciano, the Rumanians surrendered substantial territory to Hungary . '5 With that difficulty cleared up, the
Germans turned to bolster a Rumanian regime badly shaken by a serious diplomatic defeat . The Germans moved with their usual speed . In early September, they supported the establishment of a pro-German military regime under General Ion Antonescu . At the end of the month, they sent a military "mission" consisting of a motorized infantry division, supported by flak and air units, to protect the oil region and to demonstrate German support for the new regime . One of the "mission's" major tasks was: "In case a war with Soviet Russia is forced upon us, to prepare for the commitment of German and Rumanian forces from the direction of
Rumania. "'6 These German moves, all without consultation, elicited a vigorous response from
the Russians . They protested strongly against the Vienna Accords that had settled
the difficulty between Rumania and Hungary, and the movement of German motorized troops into Rumania could not have contributed to a Soviet sense of well-being ." Equally disturbing, in view of Soviet interests in the Baltic, was a Finnish-German agreement that allowed the Germans to transport substantial forces through Finland to northern Norway . Of the 4,800 troops involved in the move, 1,800 remained in Finland for a considerable period . Under these circumstances, the Russians had every right to be suspicious . '8 Given these
frictions, the rapacious nature of the two dictators' appetites, as well as Hitler's
belief that only in the east could Germany achieve the living space she needed, the
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STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT
conflict between Russia and Germany was indeed inevitable. Had Molotov been
more tactful and tractable, it is still unlikely that the Russians could have delayed
the coming confrontation for long .
Nevertheless, Molotov's visit did precipitate a quick decision by Hitler . Within a little over a month, Hitler issued Directive No. 21, "Operation Barbarossa," to the
armed forces . It stated: "The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign even before the conclusion of the war against
England . "'9 The directive itself reflected a culmination of the planning process that
had begun during the preceding summer . 2° Before examining the outlines of German military and strategic planning, one need only note that Hitler had set the final direction to German grand strategy . From this point forward, the Germans began serious preparations to destroy the Soviet Union in a swift, fast-moving campaign in which the Wehrmacht would drive into the heart of the Eurasian continent .
DISTRACTIONS
Unfortunately for the Germans, difficulties now arose in the south . In June 1940, believing that the war was over and the time propitious to loot the British and French empires, the Italians joined the war. Most Italians, particularly those in the upper classes-the military and Royalist circles, as well as the Fascists-wildly applauded Mussolini's war declaration, a declaration that Franklin Roosevelt so aptly described : "On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger has
stuck it into the back of its neighbor. "2' The Italian armed forces, however, were woefully unprepared for any military commitments. The army possessed obsolete equipment, a faulty doctrine, and a thoroughly inadequate table of organization . The navy was acquiring an up-to-date battle fleet but had no desire to use its ships in combat . The Italian air force, supposedly heirs of Douhet, could not provide an accurate count of the aircraft at its disposal . 22 These deficiencies, which became so
glaringly obvious in coming months, had nothing to do with the bravery of the
Italian people ; rather, they had to do with military organizations that did not exist to
fight. As General Ubaldo Soddu described his military career: " . . . when you
have a fine plate of pasta guaranteed for life, and a little music, you don't need
anything more . 1123 The Germans soon paid for their belief that Mussolini had reformed the
capabilities of the Italian military . The Reich assigned the Italians the task of
pinning down British forces in the Mediterranean . Hence, the Italian
characterization of their Mediterranean effort as a "parallel war." That was an apt description for, in fact, there was little military cooperation between the Axis powers until the following winter when the Germans had to take over because of Italian military ineptitude. Disaster came soon enough . Despite an explicit German warning in late
September not to stir up trouble in the Balkans, the Italians blithely went their own way .24 In October 1940, in an effort to parallel the German move into Rumania,
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THE TURN TO RUSSIA
they attacked Greece . With little preparation, no strategic planning, and at the onset of bad weather, Mussolini launched his forces into the highlands of northern Greece . The result was a military defeat with serious strategic implications . Italian incompetence had upset the Balkans and had provided an entree into the region for
the British . Worse news soon followed. In November, "Swordfish" torpedo bombers, flying off the carrier Illustrious, attacked the Italian fleet in the harbor of Taranto . By the time two strike forces of 12 and 9 aircraft had completed their mission, they had sunk 2 new and 2 older Italian battleships and had altered permanently the
Mediterranean naval balance in the Royal Navy's favor . 21
The collapse of Italian ground forces in North Africa in December 1940 completed the catalogue of disasters . Beginning on December 9, British mechanized units within the space of two months destroyed an Italian army that had invaded Egypt and moved forward into Libya to capture Bardia, Tobruk, and Benghazi, and by the beginning of February the British threatened to drive the Italians entirely from North Africa . With the fall of Tobruk on January 12, 1941, the British had captured well over 100,000 Italian troops and destroyed nearly the entire Italian army in North Africa . 26 The Italians, with their "parallel war," had
wrecked the Axis' strategic position not only in the Balkans but also in the
Mediterranean . The Germans now had no choice but to restore stability to the southern flank before "Barbarossa ." As early as August 1940, they had considered sending a panzer corps to Libya to aid in the drive to Suez, but the Italians had rebuffed the offer.21 The destruction of much of the Italian battle fleet at Taranto and the military disaster in Greece forced Hitler to stronger action . On November 20, after pointed recriminations at the lack of diplomatic discipline and military incompetency of Italy, the Fuhrer proposed that Germany send strong air units to Sicily to make
long-range attacks on the British fleet in the eastern Mediterranean .28 The Italians, in no position to refuse any offer of help, speedily acquiesced. By the beginning of January 1941, Fliegerkorps X, mostly drawn from units operating in Norway, had arrived at bases in Sicily . By mid-January, nearly 200 German bombers and longrange fighters were operating against the Royal Navy and its lines of communications in the central and eastern basins of the Mediterranean . The impact of the Luftwaffe on naval and air operations in the Mediterranean theater was immediate and direct . 29 The disasters that overtook Italian ground forces in Libya forced Hitler to increase the level of aid. By the end of December, the military situation looked so bleak that the German Embassy in Rome suggested that only a joint Mediterranean
command, dominated by German officers, could save the situation . 10 For political
reasons, Hitler rejected the proposal to take over directly the Italian war effort . Nevertheless, he could not escape the need to bolster Italy in North Africa with
significant ground forces. On January 11, he ordered the army to prepare a blocking
force for service in Libya . At the same time, he allowed Fliegerkorps X to move to
North Africa to support Axis ground forces." By mid-February, Hitler had added a
73