Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) (29 page)

Although outnumbered and without strategic equipment or tactical depth, the Luftwaffe faced into Russia with a capable roster of commanders. These men, in fact, were much better than most of the men they opposed and, indeed, were generally superior to those in their own High Command. Because of them and their pilots, Germany did not lose control of the air over the eastern front until 1944.

TABLE 11: GERMAN ARMY ORDER OF BATTLE, JUNE 22, 1941 (NORTH TO SOUTH) *
Army Group North	Field Marshal Ritter Wilhelm von Leeb
Eighteen Army	Col. Gen. Georg von Kuechler
4th Panzer Group	Col. Gen. Erich Hoepner
Sixteenth Army	Col. Gen. Ernst Busch
Army Group Center	Field Marshal Fedor von Bock
3rd Panzer Group	Col. Gen. Hermann Hoth
Ninth Army	Col. Gen. Adolf Strauss
Fourth Army	Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge
2nd Panzer Group	Col. Gen. Heinz Guderian
Army Group South	Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt
Sixth Army	Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau
1st Panzer Group	Col. Gen. Ewald von Kleist
Seventeenth Army	Col. Gen. Heinrich von Stuelpnagel
Third Rumanian Army	General Dumitrescu
Fourth Rumanian Army	General Ciuperca
Eleventh Army	Col. Gen. Ritter Eugen von Schobert

*
Excluding the Far North sector

First Air Fleet, the weakest of the three, was commanded by Col. Gen. Alfred Keller, who was also the poorest of the air fleet commanders. A bomber specialist and an ardent Nazi, he was a member of the “Little General Staff” and largely owed his promotion to his influence with Goering. Born in 1882, he was considered an “old eagle,” having joined the Flying Corps before World War I. During the Great War, he commanded the 1st Bomber Wing, where he won the highest decorations and earned the nickname “Bomben-Keller.” After the war he worked in civil aviation and became head of training at the Transport Aviation School at Braunschweig, before returning to the service as a major in the army. He transferred to the Luftwaffe and held several administrative commands (including Luftkreis IV) before being promoted to general of flyers and commander of the 4th Air Division (later IV Air Corps) on March 1, 1939. He served on the western front in 1939 and 1940, and at the advanced age of fifty-eight personally led his squadrons into action against the R.A.F. at Dunkirk. (Keller’s ability may be open to question, but not his courage.) He had taken over 1st Air Fleet in the summer of 1940, after Stumpff went to Norway, but had spent the entire time since then on occupational duty in Poland. He would command 1st Air Fleet until July 28, 1943, when he retired from the service and became leader of the National Socialist Flying Corps (NSFK), which was responsible for giving primary flight instruction to future Luftwaffe pilots. He survived the war.
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Both of Keller’s principal subordinates—General of Flyers Helmuth Foerster (CG, I Air Corps) and Col. Wolfgang von Wild (air commander Baltic)—were also new to their posts. Foerster was not originally slated to command I Air Corps at all. Its commander in France and the Battle of Britain was the highly competent Col. Gen. Ulrich Grauert, a World War I flyer who had directed the 1st Air Division in Poland with considerable success.
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Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, Grauert had been shot down and killed over the Channel coast by the R.A.F. in May, 1941. His successor, Foerster, was a highly decorated World War I aviator. Returning to the service in 1934 as a lieutenant colonel in the Luftwaffe, Foerster was promoted to colonel in March, 1936, and assumed command of the 4th Bomber Wing “General Wever.” He had commanded the Lehr-division in the Polish campaign with great success, as we have seen. Thereafter he had been chief of staff of the 5th Air Fleet (April 15–June 22, 1940) and a member of the German-French Peace Commission and Wehrmacht commander in Serbia. He would lead I Air Corps until October 1, 1942, when he became chief of administration at RLM, a post he held until the end of the war. Foerster was pensioned by the West German government as a lieutenant colonel in 1952.
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Wolfgang von Wild had served as a naval cadet in World War I and fought with irregular units in the Baltic States and with the right-wing Ehrhardt Naval Brigade in Upper Silesia and Berlin during the civil unrest of 1919 and 1920. He received his commission in the Reichsmarine in 1923 and transferred to the secret air force in the mid-1920s. A major when the war broke out, he served in coastal air units in Poland. He was named air commander Baltic on April 21, 1941. Later he served under the air commander Atlantic (October 30, 1941, to November 1, 1942) and then became air transport commander I (Southeast), headquartered in Athens. Finally promoted to major general on March 1, 1945, he ended his career as air attaché to Tokyo.
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The principal commanders in the 2d Air Fleet, the strongest of the three, had greater experience at their posts. Kesselring, the former chief of the General Staff, had been an air fleet commander since before the war. Richthofen, the leader of VIII Air Corps, had more experience at modern aerial warfare than any other combat commander in the Luftwaffe; and Bruno Loerzer, CG of II Air Corps, was a World War I ace and a veteran corps commander.

Col. Gen. Alexander Loehr, a native of Croatia, had seen extensive service as a pilot and as a member of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff during World War I. The commander-in-chief of the Austrian air force at the time of the Anschluss, he had led 4th Air Fleet since 1938. Loehr was not promoted to field marshal only because of Hitler’s prejudice against Austrians, although he held high command throughout the war.

Loehr’s two corps commanders were Gen. Ritter Robert von Greim (V Air) and Gen. Kurt Pflugbeil. Greim, who we shall meet later, had considerable experience as an air division and corps commander. Kurt Pflugbeil, a World War I flyer, had fought the Poles as a member of the border police in 1919. He returned to the army in 1920 and underwent secret aerial bombing training in Russia in 1928. Joining the Luftwaffe in 1935, he became a major general and commander of the VIII Air Corps in 1939. After directing air administrative commands (support units) in Belgium and France, he was named commanding general of IV Air Corps. Extremely capable, he led his corps until September 4, 1943, when he assumed command of 1st Air Fleet, which he led on the northern sector of the Russian front until the end of the war.
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The leader of the squadrons in the Far North, Col. Andreas Nielsen, was simultaneously chief of staff of the 5th Air Fleet. Born in Flensburg on December 23, 1899, he joined the army and served in the last days of World War I. An early Nazi, he took part in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. Nielsen served in the Reichswehr between the wars and underwent flight training in Russia in 1928. He attended the army’s prestigious War Academy from 1933 to 1935, joined the air force in 1935, and served under Stumpff in the Personnel Office from then until 1937. He commanded a bomber group in the Condor Legion in the last five months of the Spanish civil war, led III Group, 27th Bomber Wing, in the Polish campaign, and was chief of staff of Loerzer’s II Air Corps in France. After serving briefly as chief of staff of the 4th Air Fleet, Nielsen was chief of staff of Stumpff’s 5th Air Fleet from October 20, 1940, to December 31, 1943, when he became Luftwaffe commander Denmark (January–May, 1944). From May 12, 1944, until the end of the war, he again worked for Stumpff as chief of staff of Air Fleet Reich. A lieutenant general at the time of the surrender, this highly capable staff officer authored a study on the Luftwaffe General Staff for the United States Air Force (see bibliography). He died in April 1957.
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All in all, the Luftwaffe forces opposing the Soviet Union included 2,840 aircraft, of which about 1,910 were combat aircraft. This amounted to 59 percent of all combat aircraft in the Luftwaffe. Table
12
shows the dispositions by air fleet and aircraft type. The other 1,340 combat aircraft were divided among the 3rd Air Fleet in the West (660), 5th Air Fleet in Norway (120), X Air Corps and Air Command Afrika in the Mediterranean sector (370 airplanes), and in various air defense units in Germany (only 190 aircraft). Clearly the Luftwaffe, like the army, was gambling on a quick and decisive victory over the Soviet Union.

TABLE 12: DISPOSITIONS BY AIRCRAFT TYPE BY AIR FLEET, JUNE 22, 1941
Aircraft Type	1st Air Fleet	2nd Air Fleet	4th Air Fleet	5th Air Fleet
Bombers	270	240	360	10
Dive-Bombers	—	250	—	30
Single-Engine Fighters	110	270	210	10
Twin-Engine Fighters	—	60	—	—
Liaison Aircraft	20 (30)	30 (30)	30 (50)	—
Long-Range Recon	50 (40)	30 (40)	30 (50)	10
Short-Range Recon	—(110)	—(110)	—(140)	—(10)
Transport	30	60	60	—
Ground Attack	—	60	—	—
Total: *	660	1,180	930	70
Grand Total:	2,840 (610 attached to the army).