Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) (12 page)

During the conflict, the Condor Legion had registered 386 aerial victories. Only seventy-two of its aircraft had been shot down by enemy fighters or antiaircraft fire. It had sunk fifty-two enemy ships and had dropped 21,046 tons of bombs on enemy targets.
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It lost only 420 men killed, of which an estimated 50 percent died “as a result of careless driving on the torturous winding roads in the mountains of Spain.” Army colonel (later colonel general) Erwin Jaenecke, the chief of staff of Special Staff W, later described the Condor Legion’s casualties as “ridiculously low,” especially in view of the thousands of German aviators reported as killed by the world’s news media.
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The Luftwaffe in general and Baron von Richthofen in particular had learned a great deal during the Spanish Civil War. The German Air Force had gained some two hundred crews and had learned the technological value of the He-111, Do-17, Ju-86, Ju-87, Ju-52, Me-109, Hs-123, and other aircraft. It had acquired valuable experience in formation flying, night action, combat navigation, tactics, and organization. A remarkable number of these men distinguished themselves during World War II. Six of the legion’s pilots shot down more than 100 enemy airplanes: Herbert Ihlefeld (123 kills), Walter Oesau (115 kills), Moelders (115), Gunther Luetzow (103), Adolf Galland (103), and Reinhard Seiler (100).

Ihlefeld, a sergeant in Spain, shot down nine airplanes in the civil war and rose to the rank of colonel, commanding the 52nd Fighter Wing. He survived the war. Oesau also rose to the rank of full colonel and commanded the 1st Fighter Wing. He was killed during an attack on an American bomber formation near Aachen on May 11, 1944. Both Moelders and Galland became generals of fighters. Luetzow became a full colonel and commanded the 4th Air Division in Italy. One of the first jet pilots, he was reported missing in action in 1945. Other former legionnaires also distinguished themselves. Col. Baron Hans-Henning von Beust, who commanded the 2nd Squadron of K/88—the bomber group—became the general of bomber forces in the last month of the war. Lt. Col. Baron Siegmund-Ulrich von Gravenreuth flew bombers in Spain and later sank a number of warships and transports in World War II, before he died in an accident in 1944. Maj. Martin Harlinghausen, the naval air squadron commander (AS/88), personally accounted for twenty-six enemy ships before assuming command of the II Air Corps in February, 1943.
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Other legion pilots had successes almost as noteworthy. Two of the legion’s three commanders became field marshals—and the Luftwaffe only had six in its history.

In Spain, the Condor Legion firmly adopted the fallacious idea that fast, well-armed bombers could protect themselves against enemy fighters in daylight bombing operations, as well as the fateful strategy of emphasizing close air support for ground forces, at the expense of a well-balanced program for strategic aerial warfare. As a result, Germany never developed a long-range bomber or long-range fighter and instead emphasized the manufacturing of medium bombers and dive-bombers, while neglecting fighter production. Wolfram von Richthofen was a leader in the movement for close air support. In Spain, he had instituted a system whereby air controllers were sent into the forward battle zones to direct air strikes from the ground. This system was to result in the Luftwaffe’s greatest victories in the years 1939–42; it also contributed to its neglect of strategic warfare, which was to lead (indirectly) to its greatest defeats.

In 1957, retired general of flyers Karl Drum wrote a monograph on the Spanish campaign for the United States Air Force Historical Division. This work has never been published because of some misconceptions Drum had about the German command structure in the civil war. His conclusions about Richthofen and his impact on German air strategy and doctrine during World War II, however, are worth quoting in full, because of his firsthand knowledge and his depth of insight into Richthofen’s overall influence on the Luftwaffe and the air war against the Allies. He wrote:

Luftwaffe command circles, both before and during the Second World War, were greatly influenced by the strong personality of Frei-herr von Richthofen. The units under his command during World War II . . . were always the ones sent into action at the critical point in the ground operations. In his own method of operation, in the organization of his staffs and their subordinate agencies, and in the command of his units, von Richthofen was a firm adherent of “close-support tactics at all costs.” Without exception he employed all his units in close-support operations on behalf of the Army, regardless of their degree of combat readiness or their suitability and usefulness for this type of operation. This also applied to anti-aircraft artillery. Again and again he employed them in large-scale operations requiring the participation of all available forces. The resultant attrition of forces, the losses, and the consequent need for replacements were all at the expense of other sectors of the front and other areas of operation; in the last analysis, of course, they made deep inroads into the substance of the Luftwaffe as a whole. It cannot be denied that von Richthofen’s methods brought some spectacular results. Though often limited in terms of time and area, these results were undeniably tangible and thus very welcome to the Army, which, after all, benefited most by them. The inevitable consequences of this state of affairs was that close-support tactics were strongly propagated within the Luftwaffe and, during lengthy periods throughout the war, were applied as a general practice, often against the better judgment of the commanders in charge and the leaders of the individual units.

After the Battle of Britain, the first negative aspects of this development began to become apparent on the Eastern Front, during the autumn of 1942. Although they suffered tremendous losses at the front, the Russians were able to make them up and even to reinforce their strength because their industries, their oil refineries, their transport and communications networks, and their supply system in the hinterland had hardly been subjected to air attack, not even at a time when the German bombers would have been fully capable, in terms of range and strength, of delivering destructive blows against these targets.

In 1943, when it was apparent to all concerned that a fundamental error had been committed, it was too late to change the method of employment of the Luftwaffe. While close-support tactics had been employed by choice up to this point, after 1943 they continued to be employed by necessity, since the overall military situation permitted nothing else. This was true not only of the Eastern Front but also of all the other theaters of operations and the home front. From this time on, von Richthofen’s influence began to diminish, and the method of employment he developed in Spain was recognized to be out of date. It would, of course, be unfair to von Richthofen as a personality to evaluate his very real accomplishments in Spain and during World War II and his many contributions to the general field of “coordinated operations of the Luftwaffe and Army” exclusively from the point of view of the negative aspects described above. After all, it was the responsibility of the Luftwaffe’s top-level command to keep the tactical employment of the air units within a reasonable limit without losing sight of the need for strategic air operations as well.

Author Raymond L. Proctor, who interviewed many of the Luftwaffe commanders who survived the war, stated that these men felt the experiences of the Spanish civil war produced both positive and negative results. Many of these men, he said, felt the negative results outweighed the positive.
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This author emphatically agrees with this assessment.

The Richthofen who returned from Spain was described by Suchenwirth as “ruthless” and “as demanding as a prima donna.” His influence vastly exceeded his rank. Certainly the young Col. Hans Jeschonnek, the new chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, was utterly unable to stand up to his dominant personality.
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Richthofen made his views felt in every respect and guided the Luftwaffe down the path of close air support, at the expense of strategic aerial warfare. The Luftwaffe’s failure to strike an appropriate balance between the two spheres was the underlying cause for its defeat in the Battle of Britain and its ultimate demise, as Drum suggested. In other words, the Battle of Britain was effectively lost in Spain, as we shall see.

CHAPTER 4

The Buildup and the Outbreak of the War

W
hile the Condor Legion was helping win the Spanish civil war for the Nationalists, the Luftwaffe High Command was muddling its way through the last days of peace without taking advantage of them.

Hans Jeschonnek was a National Socialist who had blind faith in the Fuehrer. He believed Hitler would be able to secure Germany’s national objectives without a general European war. Trusting Hitler’s genius, he did not plan for a war against Great Britain because Hitler said that he did not want a war against England. Unfortunately for Germany, it did not occur to Jeschonnek that Hitler might not have a choice: Britain might declare war on Germany, as she had done in 1914. Without taking this possibility into account, Jeschonnek “prepared for a lightning war without so much as a side-ward glance,” wrote Suchenwirth.
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He was totally convinced that any war would be of short duration. Lt. Col. Hermann Plocher, now chief of the Organizational Branch of the Luftwaffe General Staff, stressed the need for a buildup in depth for both aircraft and personnel, to ensure a continuous flow of pilots and machines to replace losses in combat. Jeschonnek disagreed with this concept, however. He insisted that if war came everything the Luftwaffe had was to be committed immediately—including much of the training establishment. The Luftwaffe would go into the war ready to fight a tactical conflict, but not a strategic one; it was equipped for breadth, not depth.

Lt. Col. Paul Deichmann, the chief of staff of the Training Office at OKL, was upset when he heard of Jeschonnek’s plans. He was already distressed at the acute shortage of pilot training schools, but Jeschonnek had turned down his requests for additional men and funds. The training schools already had to rely on the National Socialist Flying Corps to give primary flight instruction to their pilots. Even then German pilots were sent to the wings with only 160 hours of flying time—less than half that of their British and American counterparts. They lacked training in night flying, advanced navigation, and other fields.
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Now Jeschonnek was raiding the training establishments of their indispensable instructor pilots as well. Deichmann protested, but Jeschonnek rejected his appeal. Now, if war came, the training program would be crippled from the first day of the conflict.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe organized itself for war. The peaceful annexation of Austria in March, 1938, brought to light the critical weakness of the Luftwaffe system: its territorial nature made it unsuitable to highly mobile air operations. Goering therefore ordered a major reorganization. By July 1, 1938, the old Luftkreise had been reorganized as Luftgaue (Air Administrative Area Commands) or had been upgraded into Luftwaffe Group or Luftwaffe Command Headquarters. The group and command HQs controlled not only the territorial units but also directed combat units, which were now being organized into air divisions. Table
2
shows the territorial organization of the Luftwaffe in 1938.

On April 1, 1939, Luftwaffe Groups 1, 2, and 3 and Luftwaffe Command Austria were redesignated 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Air Fleets, respectively. Their commanders, in order, were Kesselring, Felmy, Sperrle, and Gen. Alexander Loehr, the former commander of the Austrian air force. Luftwaffe Command East Prussia was subordinated to the 1st Air Fleet, as were the recently formed 1st and 2nd Air Divisions. The 3rd and 4th Air Divisions were assigned to 2nd Air Fleet, while the 5th and 6th Air Divisions came under the control of the 3rd Air Fleet. Two special divisions, the Training Division (
Lehrdivision
) and the 7th Air Division (the parachute unit), remained under the direct control of OKL and were not assigned to the air fleets. Fourth Air Fleet controlled the units of the former Austrian air force (which had been small) and had no divisions initially.
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TABLE 2: LUFTWAFFE TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION, JULY 1938
Luftwaffe Group 1	Berlin
Luftgau III	Berlin
Luftgau IV	Dresden
Luftgau VIII	Breslau
Luftwaffe Group 2	Braunschweig
Luftgau VI	Muenster
Luftgau X1	Hanover *
Luftwaffe Group 3	Munich
Luftgau VII	Munich
Luftgau XII	Weisbaden
Luftgau XIII	Nuremberg
Luftwaffe Command Austria	Vienna
Luftgau XVII	Vienna
Luftwaffe Command East Prussia
Luftgau I	Koenigsberg