Luftwaffe's decline

[Rolf Steiner]

The received wisdom from most history books seems to be that by '44 or so, the LW was pretty much a depleted force, eg: allies land at normandy, german air response seems to be a couple of fighters buzzing the beach. How did it come to that, in a nutshell? Mismanagement? A high rate of attrition? Too many heavy dinners at Karinhalle?

[phylo_roadking]

The best analysis to date is E.R. Hooton's Eagle in Flames. Definitely worth a read.

[David N]

A book on the German daylight air defense was published last year. It is "The Luftwaffe Over Germany," by Donald Caldwell and Richard Muller. This is the only comprehensive one volume work on the subject. I highly recommend it.

[Rolf Steiner]

Thanks chaps... can I afford another trip to Amazon? (Might as well go UP the Amazon at this stage...)

[jerijerod]

I think the collapse of the Luftwaffe can be put down to a couple of things, both internal and external. The failure to come up with replacement aircraft for their original planes (no replacement for the 109 was really planned for after the failure of the 209 to appear and the Fw190 was originally held back and there were no real innovative designs to replace the two engine bombers, which is why the long outdated He111 was still serving up until the end), the fuel crisis that gripped Germany which limited training flights and operational sorties, the ability for the allies to outproduce Germany early on helped gain airsuperiority by late 1943 over western europe and leaving the Germans to play catch up. Yeah the Germans outproduced the allies in 1944 but most of the seasonned and expierianced pilots were dead so inexpierianced pilots were launching in numbers to be hacked down.
Finally poor planning at the top. Goring allowed the Luftwaffe to be sent on vengeance attacks on England as late as 1944 which was a waste of time, pilots, fuel and materiel!

I guess thats a quick summing up

[Helmut]

Servus,
I think jerijerod hit the nail on the head on all counts. It was a multitude of factors and not only one. I especially agree with his point about the lack of training and experienced pilots. The most modern weapons in the world will not help you if you don't have the trained men to use them.

I asked my father once what they thought about the so called wonder weapons. He said they used to laugh and say "AWunder waffen fuer alte Affen." Roughly translated - wonder weapons for old monkeys.

Regards,

Helmut

[Mike36]

Ive just ordered,"From Bagration to Berlin.The final air battles in the east." By Christopher Bergstrom.has anyone read it yet?

Mike

[Christoph K]

Joel S.A. Hayward wrote a wonderful book on Stalingrad and the defeat of the Luftwaffe in 1942/43. Although the Luftwaffe was far from gone (which he admits) he does devote a lot of discussion to the great loss of skilled airmen in the theatre and the problems of leadership from the top. Where the decline actually started could be argued for centuries to come...

[redcoat]

This might be of use

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... murray.htm

[Benoit Douville]

I would say not until the last major Luftwaffe Operation in the beginning of january 1945. Operation Bodenplatte was a very short-term success but a long-term failure, for while Allied losses were soon made up, lost Luftwaffe planes and Airmen were irreplaceable, leaving the Luftwaffe weaker than ever and incapable of mounting any major attack again after that.

Regards

[jerijerod]

Galland viewed Bodenplate with a lot of disgust as he'd been secretly stockpiling officers and planes for a single knockout blow against an American bomber box with the theory that if he could do enough damage on one raid the US would hold off on air offensives.
Instead OKW wasted his reserve for a one off quick fix...

[Benoit Douville]

If Galland would been in charge of the Luftwaffe instead of Göring, a lot of tactic and strategy would have been different for the better for Germany.

Regards

[jerijerod]

Maybe... but Galland wasn't an administrator, he was an airman and a damn fine one too. He would have been so out of his depth with the internal politics and backstabbing that he would have gone the same way as Udet.