Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) (28 page)

Sources: Gundenlach: 115; Bekker: 548.

Richthofen apparently did not report his losses in this campaign separately, but they were relatively light. Some 350 German aircraft of the 4th Air Fleet were destroyed during the campaign,
³³
but 271 of these were Ju-52 transports from Student’s corps.
³⁴
The British army lost 15,743 men killed, wounded, and captured (mostly captured),
³⁵
excluding 14,000 Greek soldiers who were left on Crete.
³⁶
The Royal Navy also lost 2,011 men. The big loser in the campaign, however, was the German Parachute corps. It suffered a total of 6,580 casualties, which Hitler considered appalling. Indeed, it did exceed the entire casualties suffered during the whole Balkan campaign (5,650) by almost one thousand men. Hitler resolved never to employ parachute units on a massive scale again and he never did.
³⁷

Richthofen emerged from the Cretan campaign with new laurels. His close air support tactics had proven the difference between victory and defeat at Crete, and he had even administered a serious defeat on the Royal Navy, Germany’s arch-foe. Shortly afterward he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knights Cross by Adolf Hitler himself.
³⁸
He had no time to enjoy his new glory, however. His corps was immediately sent to Poland and only three weeks after the fall of Crete was engaged in the bloodiest and probably most difficult military campaign that the world has ever known.

CHAPTER 8

Russia, 1941: The Last Blitzkrieg

G
ermany’s invasion of Poland (and the start of the war) was made possible by an August 23, 1939, nonaggression treaty between Hitler and Stalin, which had the effect of securing Germany’s rear while Hitler dealt with the West, in exchange for the eastern half of Poland. Stalin was not idle while the Wehrmacht overran Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. With Hitler busy elsewhere and unable to intervene, Stalin incorporated the Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania into the Soviet Union—including a strip of Lithuania that was specifically reserved for Germany under the terms of the treaty. Instead of merely exerting influence over Finland, as the treaty called for, Stalin invaded that country in 1939. When Helsinki sued for peace in May 1940, Stalin annexed large chunks of territory, including Finland’s second-largest city. In June 1940, he took Bessarabia away from Rumania (as was agreed upon in the treaty) and Northern Bukovina as well—a seizure not authorized by the Treaty of Moscow. In less than a year Stalin had added 175,000 square miles of territory and twenty million people to his empire—and he wanted more.
¹
He made territorial demands on Turkey (which were ignored) and was even speaking about guaranteeing Rumania’s security—a euphemism for Soviet annexation. The Soviet dictator was not at all happy when France surrendered to Germany on June 21, 1940.

Adolf Hitler was thoroughly alarmed, for he depended on Rumanian oil to fuel his war machine. The Rumanians were also frightened, because they had already lost 17 percent of their territory (19,300 square miles) and three million five hundred thousand people. On July 2, Rumania announced a “new orientation,” and on July 4 King Carol appointed a pro-Nazi government in Bucharest. Five days later Rumania was declared to be under the military protection of Germany, and Hitler sent troops to that country,
²
effectively blocking further Soviet expansion to the west.

The developments of 1939–40 confirmed Hitler’s belief that Russia intended to stab Germany in the back as soon as a favorable opportunity presented itself. He had already gone on record as early as 1924 as favoring “the acquisition and penetration of the territory east of the Elbe” at the expense of the Soviet Union.
³
After unsuccessful negotiations with Soviet Foreign Secretary Vyacheslav Molotov in Berlin on November 12 and 13 (during which the tactless Russian demanded that Hitler recognize that Finland, the Balkans, and the Dardanelles all lay within the Soviet sphere of interest),
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Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union in 1941. On December 18 he signed and issued Directive Number 21, in which he ordered the German armed forces to make preparations to “crush Soviet Russia in a lightning campaign, even before the termination of hostilities with Great Britain [“Operation Barbarossa”].”
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The Luftwaffe High Command was divided on the issue of invading the Soviet Union. When Jeschonnek heard of the plan, General Schmid said later, he exclaimed: “At last a proper war!”
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On the other hand Maj. Gen. Otto Hoffmann von Waldau, the chief of operations of the General Staff, opposed the invasion as a dangerous and irresponsible dissipation of strength.
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Kesselring, the incurable optimist, was also in favor of invasion. Even after the war he wrote that “Hitler’s contention that Russia would seize the first favorable moment to attack us seemed to me indisputably right.”
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Beppo Schmid, the chief of the 5th (Military Intelligence) Branch of the Luftwaffe General Staff, was also opposed to the invasion, but then, as usual, submitted intelligence reports underestimating the strength of the enemy. When Erhard Milch returned from leave in February, 1941, he was told of the new campaign by Gen. Otto Ruedel, the chief of Air Defense. The state secretary, a veteran of the eastern front in World War I, was momentarily overcome with surprise and then told Ruedel that the campaign could not be finished before winter, as Hitler claimed. He predicted that it would take four winters. When the plans for the campaign went ahead despite his objections, Milch and Lt. Gen. Hans-Georg von Seidel, the chief of supply and administration for the Luftwaffe, saw to it that extra woollen underwear, big fur boots, and other winter clothing were manufactured for all 800,000 Luftwaffe personnel on the eastern front. Unlike the army, the airmen would be provided for during the first Russian winter.
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The most vocal opponent of the invasion of the Soviet Union, however, was Hermann Goering, who strongly opposed it from the very beginning. He felt that Germany should adopt a Mediterranean policy, and the specter of a two-front war was so terrifying to him that, for one of the few times in his life, he stood up in plain-spoken opposition to the Fuehrer’s plans. He told Hitler: “ . . . the Luftwaffe is the only Wehrmacht branch which has not had a breathing space since the war began. I told you when we first went to war that I was going into battle with my training squadrons, and now they’re all gone. I’m not at all sure that you can beat Russia in six weeks. There’s nothing I’d like better than to have you proven right, but, frankly, I doubt that you will be.”
¹⁰

The Reichsmarschall tried on several other occasions to sway Hitler from his course. Finally the Fuehrer had enough. “Goering!” he snapped, “why don’t you stop trying to persuade me to drop my plans for Russia? I’ve made up my mind!”
¹¹
Thus rebuffed, Goering washed his hands of the whole affair and went on another month’s leave, this time to his tenth-century castle near Nuremberg. He did not return to duty until less than three weeks before the panzers crossed the Soviet border.
¹²

Goering had compelling reasons for not wanting to go to war with Russia in 1941. First, the Luftwaffe was deeply committed in the Mediterranean, in the Balkans, and against England. Second, there were serious problems in the air armaments industry, and the appearance of the newest models of aircraft was far behind schedule (see below). In fact, the Luftwaffe had only about 100 more airplanes in June 1941, than when it invaded France a year before (see Table
10
). Finally, if Hitler’s calculations were wrong and Russia could not be defeated in six to eight weeks, Germany would be enmeshed in a war she could not win. The invasion, initially scheduled to begin in May, was postponed four to six weeks due to the Balkans campaign—a fatal delay. On April 30, 1941, Hitler set the new D-Day as June 22.
¹³

For the fateful invasion of the Soviet Union, the Luftwaffe concentrated most of its combat aircraft, its veteran pilots, and its best commanders. As in Poland, France, Scandinavia, and the Balkans, it had two primary missions: 1) destroy the enemy air force, and 2) give direct and indirect support to the army. There were no provisions for strategic air warfare, because the plan called for a rapid and decisive victory; besides, without a four-engine bomber, the Luftwaffe was not equipped for a long-range strategic bombing campaign. In fact, the entire Luftwaffe in Russia was little more than flying, long-range artillery for the army.

TABLE 10: THE STRENGTH OF THE LUFTWAFFE BY AIRCRAFT TYPE, MAY 10, 1940, AND JUNE 21, 1941
Aircraft Type	10 May 40	21 Jun 41
Short-Range Recon	335	440
Long-Range Recon	322	393
Single-Engine Fighter	1,356	1,440
Night-Fighters	—	263
Twin-Engine Fighters	354	188
Bombers	1,711	1,511
Dive-Bombers	414	424
Ground-Attack	50
Coastal	240	223
Total	4,782	4,882

Source: Murray, Strategy for Defeat, p. 80.

For the invasion of Russia, the army was divided into three major commands: Army Groups North, Center, and South. The Luftwaffe committed three full air fleets to the campaign: 1st Air Fleet to support Army Group North, 2nd Air Fleet to support Army Group Center, and 4th Air Fleet to support Army Group South. In the far north, the army sent the Army of Norway (later replaced by HQ, twentieth Mountain Army) to seize the Russian arctic ports. The Luftwaffe committed Luftwaffe Command Kirkenes to support it. Table
11
shows the Army’s Order of Battle for Operation “Barbarossa.”