Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) (53 page)

Galland’s expedient measures could not prevent the demise of the fighter arm. By the end of May, 1944, the Jagdwaffe had fewer than 250 single-engine fighters left for the defense of Germany. By that time, the Allies had 1,000 long-range fighters and thousands of bombers and short-range fighters to send against them.
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Goering’s reaction to the American air offensive was typical. Right in the middle of the Big Week, he left for his castle at Veldenstein to begin a three-week leave. Of the Reichsmarschall at this time, Mosley wrote: “In the months that followed, Hermann Goering played little part in the darkening destiny of the German Reich. Like a suddenly ignited rocket, he would fizz unexpectedly through the sky, scattering sparks and making loud noises, and then he would be seen no more for weeks at a time.”
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While Goering was vacationing at his family castle, the Americans bombed Berlin five times, on March 4, 6, 8, 9, and 22. The R.A.F. was also active, dropping more than 3,000 tons of bombs on Frankfurt on the night of the ninth alone.
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Augsburg, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg were also heavily bombed, and thousands of tons of bombs were dropped on the V-weapons sites, then under construction in France and Belgium, as well as the U-boat bases in France. By the end of March, only 20,000 people remained in Cologne. Its prewar population had been 800,000.
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The advent of the Mustang was a turning point in the air war. It forced Galland and the other fighter commanders to engage the Allied bomber formations earlier in their approach routes. This, in turn, allowed the Allies to meet them with not only their Mustangs but with short-range Spitfires, Thunderbolts, and P-38 Lightnings as well. The attrition rate was soon beginning to tell, especially among the pilots. It was the loss of veteran aviators, more than any other single factor, that caused the demise of the Luftwaffe. Twenty-three-year-old Maj. Walter Nowotny, holder of the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds, was shot down over Germany in one of the first Me-262 jets, with a host of Mustangs on his tail like “a pack of hounds” and was reported as killed in action on November 11, 1944. At the time of his death, Nowotny had 258 confirmed and 23 unconfirmed victories. Maj. Horst Ademeit, winner of 166 aerial combats, went down over Russia on August 8, 1944, killed by infantry fire; Col. Helmut Lent, one of the leading night fighters, had 110 kills when he died in action on October 7, 1944. The list goes on: Lt. Hans Beisswenger, 152 kills, died March 6, 1943; Maj. Kurt Braendle, 180 kills, died November 3, 1943; Lt. Anton Hafner, 204 victories, killed in action October 17, 1944, when he hit a tree during a low-level battle against the Russians; Capt. Joachim Kirschner, 188 kills, shot down over Croatia and captured by Communist partisans, who murdered him on December 17, 1943; Lt. Franz Schwaiger, 67 victories, killed by a Mustang pilot on April 24, 1944; Capt. Emil Lang, CO of II/JG 26, who once shot down seventy-two opponents in three weeks (including eighteen in one day—a record that still stands), 173 aerial victories, killed over France by U.S. Thunderbolts on June 29, 1944; Lt. Hans-Joachim Birkner, 117 kills, died when his engine failed during a takeoff from Krakow airfield in Poland, December 14, 1944; Col. Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke, commander of 3d Fighter Wing “Udet,” 162 victories, shot down and killed by Mustangs on March 23, 1944; Col. Walter Oesau, commander of JG 1, 123 victories, killed by Lightnings over the Rhineland, May 11, 1944; Lt. Col. Hans Philip, 206 kills, shot down by Thunderbolts on October 8, 1943; Capt. Max Stotz, 189 kills, died on the eastern front, August 19, 1943; Albin Wolf, 144 kills, downed by anti-aircraft fire on the eastern front, 1944; Kurt Ueben, 110 victories, shot down by Thunderbolts, 1944; Maj. Joseph Wurmheller, 102 kills, died on the western front, June 22, 1944; Leopold Muenster, 95 kills, died in 1944 when he deliberately rammed a B-17; Capt. Heinrich Sturm, 158 aerial victories, killed on the eastern front, December 22, 1944.
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And there were others: Stuka pilots with hundreds of destroyed armored vehicles to their credit, night fighters with dozens of victories, transport pilots who had braved the flak at Kholm, Demyansk, and Stalingrad, and bomber pilots with hundreds of sorties in their logbooks. The Luftwaffe, with its training system sacrificed to former expediencies, simply could not replace these men.

The Battle of Berlin ended with a British raid on Nuremberg. It was a Luftwaffe victory. Of the 795 Allied planes involved, 95 were shot down and 71 badly damaged. After that, Germany’s cities were given a four-month respite while most of the allied air units turned their attention to the tasks of destroying the French transportation system, isolating and then sealing off the Normandy beachhead, supporting the D-Day invasion, and destroying the Nazi synthetic oil industry. There was no respite for the battered Luftwaffe, however. On Goering’s orders, and at Hitler’s insistence, it launched the so-called “Baby Blitz” on London from January 21 to May 29, 1944. The British capital was struck by twenty-nine separate raids with an average strength of 200 aircraft per raid. When it began, the Attack Command England (Angriffs fuehrer England) had 462 operational aircraft. It had only 107 when the offensive ended, with nothing of substance accomplished.
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There was, however, one major personal victory for Hermann Goering: he finally managed to rid himself of his deputy and would-be successor, Erhard Milch.

“When Milch pisses,” Paul Koerner said, “ice comes out.”
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In early 1943 Milch was at the peak of his influence at Fuehrer Headquarters and near the peak of his powers. He was state secretary of the Air Ministry, deputy commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, inspector general of the Luftwaffe, director of air armament, and chairman of the Board of Directors of Lufthansa. Now, he decided, was his chance to depose the Reichsmarschall and seize control of the Luftwaffe himself. The field marshal overestimated his new prestige, however, and overplayed his hand politically. On March 5 he dined with Hitler and recommended that Goering be forced to resign as C-in-C of the Luftwaffe. Whom he had in mind to replace the Reichsmarschall is not too difficult for us to guess.
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Hitler, however, made no changes, and Goering’s long-held suspicions were confirmed: Milch was out to replace him.

Not long after Stalingrad, Hitler revoked the Luftwaffe’s industrial priority. A much greater percentage of Germany’s available raw materials now flowed to the army, which used them to produce panzers, artillery, assault guns, shells, and other weapons. Many of Milch’s formerly protected workers ended up in the ranks of the army, which was already undergoing severe manpower shortages at the front. By year’s end, 90 percent of the aircraft industry was not able to work a second shift, due to a shortage of labor in the factories.
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Like many of the other field marshals, Milch no longer had the resources to accomplish his mission. He tried to compensate for his shortages in workers and material by speeding up the production of the V-1 rocket, whose development he had finally authorized in 1942.
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Army Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch had called for its development long before. The V-weapons were successful but would come off the production lines too late to save Germany—or Milch, whose career began its inevitable decline.

After not seeing him for weeks, Goering summoned Milch to Rominten, his East Prussian hunting lodge, on July 2, 1943. In the presence of other generals and field marshals, the C-in-C and his deputy had an angry clash. At one point, Goering asked Milch if he actually thought that he (Goering) read Milch’s reports, which he called “rags.” Milch coldly replied that if that were the case, it would be useless for him to make further trips as inspector general of the Luftwaffe. The Reichsmarschall replied that he need not bother, as far as he was concerned. Milch, furious and clearly out of favor, returned to Berlin.
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His influence continued to diminish.

In July 1943, the R.A.F. levelled Hamburg. On August 2, after inspecting the damage, Milch bluntly cried to Dr. Goebbels: “We have lost the war!”
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In vain did Milch try to convince Goering and Hitler to concentrate their fighter strength for the defense of the Reich, instead of at the front. He was also unable to prevent further manpower raids on the Luftwaffe’s reserved workers. He had another terrible row with Goering at the latter’s mansion, Karinhall, in October. Goering was becoming more and more jealous and suspicious of Milch, as Hitler began to criticize both the Reichsmarschall and the Luftwaffe more and more severely.

Goering, of course, realized that Milch was again angling to replace him. In 1943 he told General Kreipe: “First he wanted to play the part of my crown prince. Now he wants to be my usurper.”
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In late 1943, he began to curb Milch’s power again by creating the Office of the Chief of Personnel Armament, which consolidated all Luftwaffe personnel matters under one bureau. Goering’s old comrade from the Great War, Col. Gen. Bruno Loerzer, was named to fill the post. The new chief was directly subordinate to Goering. Worse than this for Milch, a new star was rising in the Nazi heirarchy. Albert Speer, the former architect, had been named minister of armaments and war production after Dr. Fritz Todt was killed in an air crash on February 8, 1942.
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Speer was showing true genius in this post, and he was gradually eclipsing Milch. Karl-Otto Saur, Speer’s chief assistant, was taking over Luftwaffe plants and diverting air force resources to other uses.

Milch’s ambitious aircraft production program also went aground in late 1943, when the worst drought in ninety years hit occupied Europe. Hydroelectric power losses caused serious declines in the output of nitrogen, high-grade steel, synthetic fuel, and aluminum. Oil importation also dropped parallel with the level of the Danube River. Germany’s oil came from Rumania by barge. The low water level forced the barges to reduce their loads from 700 tons per trip to 300. The 144,000 tons of petroleum Germany received in October 1943, declined to 80,000 tons the following month.
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Without this supply of energy, Milch was unable to meet his goals, at a time when his prestige badly needed the boost—for Milch sensed that his days in power were numbered.

In desperation, like Udet before him, Milch gambled. In November, he ordered Volkswagen to begin mass production of the Fi-103 flying bomb, despite severe technological problems in the prototypes. This was the same type of gamble Udet had taken with the Ju-88 and Me-210 in the winter of 1940–41, and with the same result. Two thousand of the flying bombs were partially finished when it was discovered that their structure was too weak.
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Precious man-hours and resources had been wasted—again.

Milch now began to give ground, hoping to retain at least part of his power. On February 23, 1944, he agreed to the creation of the Fighter Staff. Its objective was to disperse and reorganize fighter aircraft production in tunnels, caves, and bomb-proof factories. Karl-Otto Saur would be in charge of the new organization. This step represented a major concession and loss of power for Milch, but at least now, with Saur in charge, he would no longer be able to raid aircraft factories for workers.
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On November 26, 1943, a demonstration of the Me-262—one of the first jets—was held at Insterburg Airfield. Hitler, in the presence of Goering and Milch, asked if the Me-262 could carry bombs. Before anyone could stop him, Professor Willy Messerschmitt answered that they could carry one 1,000- or two 500-kilo bombs without any trouble (i.e., without design modification). Neither Goering nor Milch said anything. Goering may not have known that this projection was wrong, but Milch certainly did; nevertheless he remained silent, for he did not wish to incur the Fuehrer’s disfavor. As a result of the new requirement, jet aircraft production had to be set back several months.
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The Me-262 fighter-bomber would not be ready when the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Milch attended a Fuehrer conference on January 4, 1944. It was the first one he had been invited to in months—a sure indication of disfavor in Nazi Germany. Hitler discussed his plans for repelling the Allied invasion, and the use of the Me-262 as a fighter-bomber figured prominently in those plans. No doubt fearing for his increasingly deteriorating position, Milch again kept his mouth shut, letting Hitler think the Me-262 would be available as a fighter-bomber, when he knew it would not be.
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