Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) (9 page)

Sperrle’s career as a ground officer continued to make steady if unspectacular progress. He served on the General Staff in the Reichswehr Ministry (1925–29), was promoted to major (1926) and lieutenant colonel (1931), and spent four years as commander of III Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment (1929–33). From October 1, 1933, until the unofficial end of his army career, the bear-like Sperrle was commander of the 8th Infantry Regiment.
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Sperrle resumed his aviation career on April 1, 1934, when, as a full colonel, he was placed in charge of the 1st Air Division of the still-secret German air force. He also held the office of commander of army aviation. His territorial responsibilities included the city of Berlin.
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Sperrle was thus well placed to assume a prominent role in the emergence of the Luftwaffe when Hitler decided it was time to openly defy the Allies and denounce that section of the Treaty of Versailles which prohibited Germany from having an air force.

In March, 1935, Hitler announced the existence of the Luftwaffe to the world, and Sperrle was officially transferred to the Luftwaffe. Initially in charge of II Air District (Luftkreis II), his previous aviation experience gave him a tremendous advantage over most of his peers. On October 1, 1935, he was promoted to major general and named commander of Luftkreis V, headquartered at Munich.
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He was already one of the leading figures of the air force when the Spanish civil war broke out.

Sperrle organized the Condor Legion into three air squadrons: one bomber, one fighter, and one naval air squadron, as well as two antiaircraft batteries (one heavy and one light). In January, 1937, an experimental bomber squadron was established to try out new aircraft. It was integrated into the legion in April, 1937. The Condor Legion grew to the size of a reinforced wing during the campaign, but it never exceeded 5,500 men.
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Table
1
shows its composition and unit designations at the height of its strength.

Although assigned to support Republican ground units, Sperrle was responsible only to General Franco and thus held rank equivalent to an air theater commander. Both by necessity and design he did considerable experimenting with aircraft, formation organization, and combat tactics while commander of the legion. Most of the Luftwaffe tactics used in the Second World War were developed in Spain.

Despite the fact that Germany took elaborate measures to keep the existence of the legion secret, the strong-willed Sperrle flouted its presence in Spain. Of peasant stock, Sperrle nevertheless had a taste for luxury which would finally prove to be his undoing in 1944. He set up his headquarters at Seville, confiscated the best hotel in the city for his own use, and flew the swastika flag over it. He repeated this procedure later, when he moved his HQ to Burgos. He also reserved the best brothels for his troops, who marched to them—much to the amusement of the Spanish prostitutes. The legionnaires’ recreation time was very short, however, because the war heated up in October. The Soviet Union had shipped the Republicans forty-two Ilyushin 15 (Il-15) biplane fighters and thirty-one modern Il-16 mono-plane fighters,
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which were superior to anything the legion had. Sperrle, however, developed superior tactics, and the quality of his volunteer pilots was higher than that of the Republican pilots. Fairly typical was 1st Lieutenant Kalderak, who flew a He-46 reconnaissance plane. Quite without permission, he trained himself as a fighter pilot in his spare time. One day he took up a He-51 biplane fighter and shot down three French Brequet bombers in one minute. Bureaucrats in RLM tried to contest his victories on the grounds that he had no fighter license, but to no avail. Kalderak was killed in action shortly thereafter.
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TABLE 1: ORGANIZATION OF THE CONDOR LEGION, 1938
Designation	Function/Composition
S/88	Operations Staff
K/88	Bomber Group (4 squadrons), plus a flight of dive-bombers
J/88	Fighter Group (4 squadrons)
A/88	Air Reconnaissance Squadron
AS/88	Naval Air Squadron
F/88	AntiAircraft Battalion
1st Battery: 88mm AA guns
2d Battery: 88mm AA guns
3d Battery: 88mm AA guns
4th Battery: 20mm AA guns *
5th Battery: 20mm AA guns *
6th Battery: 88mm AA guns **
7th Battery: Ammo columns
8th Battery: 88mm AA guns
9th Battery: Training unit (for Spanish troops)
Ln/88	Luftwaffe Signal Communications Battalion
1 telephone company
1 radio company
1 flight security company
1 aircraft reporting company
P/88	Air Armaments Group (inc. an aircraft park)
San/88	Medical Battalion
W/88	One meteorological service battalion

*
Included three 20mm AA gun platoons and a 37mm AA gun platoon

**
Originally a searchlight battery

Source: Drum MS.

The first major action of the Condor Legion took place at Toledo. Here, Nationalist General Varela had been surrounded since July 20, and by September his men had eaten their last mule and their perimeter was very small. Captains Henke and Baron Rudolf von Moreau of the legion nevertheless dropped critical supplies to the beleaguered garrison, despite heavy enemy fire. They repeated the performance six times and enabled the garrison to hold out until Franco could rescue it on September 27.
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Next, the legion turned its attention to the coastal ports, in an effort to stop the flow of arms to the Republicans. On November 15, Sperrle personally led a thirty-four-aircraft attack on the Red naval fleet at Cartagena. The fleet quickly put to sea to escape destruction, although two vessels were sunk by German bombs. The port city and harbor were engulfed in flames and were unusable for some time. No German casualties were suffered in this operation. The next evening, Sperrle attacked Madrid.
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Franco reached the suburbs of Madrid on November 7. The Republican government fled to Valencia, but their troops—reinforced by Soviet tanks, artillery, and the now famous International Brigades—rallied. Out-numbered 37,000 to 12,000,
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Franco was checked, but he refused to give up the battle. Casualties were heavy on both sides as the Fascists tried to slug their way into the capital city. By December, 1936, the Nationalists were pinned down in extremely heavy fighting in the university quarter and other sections of Madrid. Sperrle was also having his problems. The Heinkel 51s—his main fighters—were proving inferior to the Communist aircraft, which were gradually establishing air superiority over the Spanish capital. Sperrle offset this dangerous situation with superior tactics. He ordered three German fighters to engage the enemy fighters until the Reds were low in fuel. As the Loyalist aircraft landed at their bases to refuel, Sperrle’s bombers—which had been circling the battle at a higher altitude—dived on the Red bases. Several Republican squadrons were destroyed in this manner.
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Nevertheless, superior tactics could not make up for inferior machines indefinitely. The Condor Legion did not succeed in overcoming the Red air forces until the Me-109 fighters arrived in Spain in 1937, and in December 1936, Sperrle had to tell Franco that the Condor Legion would only support his forces in the Madrid area during the hours of darkness.
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Sperrle meanwhile determined that the Ju-52 was unsuitable as a bomber. One problem was its bombsight, which proved entirely unsatisfactory. In fact, the Luftwaffe never did develop a bombsight comparable to the American models and thus was never able to develop the pinpoint bombing accuracy the United States Air Force obtained during the Second World War.
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The Ju-52 was eventually replaced as a bomber by the Ju-87 “Stuka” dive-bomber and the twin-engine He-111 bomber. The He-46 and He-70 “Blitz” were also scrapped as reconnaissance aircraft and replaced with the Dornier 17 (Do-17), which doubled as a long-range bomber. Sperrle was also disappointed with the performance of this airplane, which lacked protective armament and required too much maintenance time per hour of operation. It was replaced by the He-111 in early 1937.
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The He-59 and He-60 sea-planes both proved too slow and vulnerable, so Sperrle used them mainly in night missions.
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The first chief of staff of the Condor Legion was Lt. Col. Alexander Holle, who later rose to the rank of colonel general and commanded the 4th Air Fleet on the eastern front in 1944. He apparently did not work well with the opinionated Sperrle, however, and was replaced in January, 1937, with an officer of great intelligence, courage, and arrogance. An extremely dominant personality, this officer was destined to play an extremely important role in the development of the strategic and tactical doctrines of the Luftwaffe. He won some of its greatest victories and, to a large degree, his influence was a major factor in its disastrous strategic defeat. His name was Baron Wolfram von Richthofen.

The younger cousin of the famous Red Baron of World War I, Wolfram was born in Barzdorf, Silesia, on October 10, 1895. After attending cadet school at Gross-Lichterfelde, he entered the Imperial Army on March 3, 1913, as an officer-cadet in the 4th Hussar Regiment. Richthofen was commissioned second lieutenant on June 19, 1914, and served with the cavalry until September 6, 1917, when he transferred to the flying corps. Richthofen’s service up until this point was exclusively on the eastern front.

The younger Baron von Richthofen did his pilot’s training with the 14th and 11th Reserve Air Detachments and was assigned to combat duty with the 1st Fighter Wing on March 27, 1918. His first commander was his famous cousin, who was killed less than a month after Wolfram arrived at the unit. His last commander was Hermann Goering.

During his short tour as a fighter pilot, Wolfram was credited with eight victories in aerial combat.
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Although nowhere near the totals of his cousins Manfred (eighty kills) and Lothar (forty victories),
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it was still a respectable showing.

Defeat had less effect on Wolfram than it did on many of his contemporaries. He left the army on February 29, 1920, with the honorary (
charakteristik
) rank of first lieutenant and enrolled in the Hanover Technical School as an engineering student. He received his engineering diploma in 1924 and continued to do post-graduate work after reentering the service. He received his advanced degree in engineering from Hanover in 1929.
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