GENERAL PELTZ, the young Angriffsfuehrer England, watched the last German offensive against England by piloted aircraft go into action from Chateaudun on the evening of 21st January, 1944. He saw a force of 447 bombers take off in two waves in this first attack of the so-called “Baby Blitz”—Hitler’s last desperate attempt to relieve the unceasing pressure of the Anglo-American air offensive. Far away in Germany, the nightly Battle of Berlin was at its height, and the Luftwaffe fighter arm was battling with the U.S. 8th Air Force for command of the air. The losses were staggering; over a thousand German fighters destroyed in a single month. Somehow, a blow had to be struck in return, and Peltz was unfortunate enough to be saddled with the thankless, almost impossible task.
If Hitler’s latest assault leader hoped that his bomber crews would return flushed with the excitement of success, he was doomed to disappointment from the first night. The seasoned veterans of the Battle of Britain days knew from bitter experience what to expect over London, but they were unpleasantly surprised at the great improvements that had been made in the British air defence organisation since 1940. Nevertheless, the German bomber waves managed to reach London. Using similar tactics to the R.A.F., they attempted to bomb on the target markers released by pathfinder aircraft, dropping mixed high explosive and incendiaries. Here the similarity ended, for the results, compared to the widespread devastation wrought by Air Marshal Harris in Germany, were so ineffective as to appear futile. The heavy defensive fire caused wildly inaccurate bombing over a wide area, and twenty-five Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down. As Peltz had feared, the offensive was off to a bad start, but he lacked the resources to bring about an improvement.
On 29th January, Peltz mounted a second attack on London, this time with a force of 285 twin-engined bombers, mostly Ju 188s and the older Ju 88s. Again, the raid caused only scattered residential damage in the London area, for the loss of eighteen aircraft. During February, Peltz tried again and again to prove that the Luftwaffe still possessed a bomber force worth the name, sending over 1,300 sorties against London, without success. The R.A.F. Fighter Command reigned supreme over England; so much so that it became impossible for German reconnaissance aircraft to venture into the lion’s mouth for photographic evidence of the bombing results. In the dark as to the effect of his attacks, Peltz could only hope for the best and continue with his shoe-string air offensive to the bitter end. Before another month had passed, he was left with only 300 aircraft.
By the end of April, 1944, when the German bomber losses became prohibitive, Peltz had launched twelve attacks on London and the southern counties, and about 2,000 tons of bombs had been dropped during the whole offensive—a fraction of the tonnage dropped by the R.A.F. on Hamburg in a single week. Some damage and casualties had been caused and a few large fires started, but nothing of any significance achieved; whereas the defences had destroyed nearly two hundred bombers, a third of Peltz’s force. This small defeat—the complete failure of Hitler’s “Baby Blitz”—was important in only one respect. It marked the end of the Luftwaffe bomber arm as an air weapon, dispelled the Fuehrer’s pipe dream that he still possessed an offensive air force, and awakened him to the fact that Germany needed more fighters.
Between 20th and 26th February, 1944, the Allied air offensive devastated seventy-five per cent of the German aircraft industry, and from that time the first tentative steps were taken to change the Luftwaffe into a defensive air force. As a beginning, the ponderous, hidebound Reichsluftfahrtministerium way of life was abruptly interrupted by the influence of a civilian—the brilliant young Minister for Armaments, Albert Speer. A technical genius who allowed neither red tape nor personal ambition to interfere with his work, Speer was an excellent driving force for his chosen fighter production leader, Saur, who was an ardent party man, lacking in personality but not in common sense. Speer was the dynamo and Saur the bulldozer; between them they hoped to breathe fresh life into the dying Luftwaffe.
Thrusting Erhard Milch unceremoniously into the background, Speer swept through the German aircraft industry like a whirlwind. In a short time, he drew up a new and realistic production programme, calling for the increased production of fighters and a drastic reduction in the numbers of new bombers. Existing fighter types such as the Bf 109 and Fw 190 were to be still produced in quantity, as under Milch, but new types were to be developed more quickly and given priority for materials if they proved to be worth it. Development of certain over-worked bomber types such as the Ju 88 was to be curtailed, and development of the troublesome, already outdated tandem-engined He 177 abandoned unless it could be quickly modified as a normal four-engined heavy bomber.
Speer’s emergency aircraft construction programme was placed before Goering at a conference on the Obersalzburg in April, 1944. The Reichsmarschall immediately objected to any curtailment in bomber production, and stated that he wanted a minimum output of 400 He 177s and 500 Ju 88s per month. “The heavy bomber remains the kernel of the armament in the air,” he insisted, disregarding every argument that Speer and Adolf Galland put forward. Goering was, of course, merely voicing Hitler’s orders. The Fuehrer wanted to have his cake and eat it; more fighters and also more bombers. And this with an aircraft industry virtually crippled! Finally, Speer allowed his production programme to be altered as Goering had directed; but he confided to Galland afterwards that he would not accept the Reichsmarschall’s decision as final.
Albert Speer kept his word. Within three months, the Ju 188, Ju 288, Ju 352, Me 110 and even the four-engined version of the He 177 had all been quietly removed from the production lines. On the other hand, development of the unconventional tandem-engined Do 335 fighter was proceeding with renewed vigour, and production of the He 219 night fighter, terminated by Much, had been reinstated, though only in small numbers. With Speer watching over the special Jagerstab, or Fighter Staff, he had created with Otto Saur at the helm, fighters had top priority in Germany for the first time. By June, 1944, the Luftwaffe had a day fighter reserve of some 600 machines. It remained to be seen if production could keep pace with the increasing losses; and the Allied invasion of Europe was at hand.
From the night of 5th June, 1944, when 5,000 tons of bombs fell on Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall and the first British and American paratroops began to land in Normandy, the Luftwaffe was overwhelmed. As the largest invasion fleet in history moved across the blustery Channel, it was preceded and escorted by nearly 13,000 aircraft of all types, including 5,400 fighters, thundering in over the French coast, hurtling across German airfields with guns blazing, attacking German vehicles, shooting at everything that moved. Emplacements, bunkers and huge concrete blockhouses, erupted in smoke and flame, and the Normandy beaches became a great, seething volcano, vomiting fire, debris and fragments of men. “The Luftwaffe! Where is the Luftwaffe!” screamed the shocked infantrymen cowering in their slit trenches, but over their heads flashed only the fast Spitfires and Mustangs and the big Thunderbolts and Typhoons, followed in slow majesty by the massive formations of Fortresses and Liberators. Far out at sea, vague in the early morning mist, appeared the ships of the invasion fleet, outlined by the gouting flame from thousands of guns.
On this fateful day for Germany, von Sperrle, the commander of Luftflotte 3 in France, possessed only 300 operational aircraft, of which less than a hundred were fighters. In the event of invasion this small force—useless against anything more formidable than fighter-bomber attacks or similar sharp raids—was to be reinforced by the transfer of a further 600 aircraft from the Reich to prepared forward bases. Unfortunately, the order to move could only be given by Oberkommando der Luftwaffe headquarters; and the order came far too late. “According to statements by its commanding general, Fliegerkorps II learned of the start of the invasion only on 6th June at about eight o’clock in the morning,” writes Adolf Galland. “Communications had been greatly disrupted and disorganised by the preceding air raids.”
In the grey dawn the ramps of the assault craft began to crash down on the five invasion beaches: three British, code-named Gold, Juno and Sword, and two American, Utah and Omaha. Ahead of the men who stumbled out into the shallows on the British beaches, smoke drifted over the shattered defences and the sand was littered with wreckage and broken obstacles. Miraculously, a few gun emplacements had survived the terrible preliminary bombardment, and here and there British troops began to fall as machine-gun fire cut them down. As the shocked defenders came to their senses, accurate shell and mortar fire blew great gaps in the masses of men streaming ashore, but still they came, wave after wave, until the beaches were choked with landing craft. By the afternoon of 6th June—D-Day—the German forward defences had been overcome and the invaders were fighting their way inland.
On Utah Beach the Americans, tanks and infantry together, were landing against wildly scattered fire that failed to stop them pouring across the cratered wilderness of tangled wire, overturned pillboxes and dead and wounded men. Soon, German 88 mm. guns—the deadly, superb dual-purpose 88s—were wreaking havoc and the intermittent flame of Spandaus was stabbing death through the smoke, but the American infantry continued to swarm through the inferno and press inland. More and more of the packed landing craft struck the beaches, sending wave after wave of men into the reeking shambles of the Normandy battlefield. The noise was indescribable; the shouts of command mingled with the screams of the wounded and the appalling racket of the guns. In an endless flood, tanks, trucks and men surged into France. It was a great and amazingly successful invasion—except on Omaha Beach.
Omaha Beach was a disaster. Over three hundred bombers had been sent to pound the defences there into rubble, but thick cloud obscured the Omaha area that morning and 13,000 bombs were dropped blindly up to three miles inland. Shaken by the naval bombardment but otherwise unscathed, the German guns remained silent until the first assault craft were almost ashore, then opened up with a murderous, raking fire. The ramps fell, and the heavily laden American troops plunged forward to be mown down like corn before the scythe. “They came ashore on Omaha Beach, the slogging, unglamorous men that no one envied,” writes one D-Day historian. “No battle ensigns flew for them, no horns or bugles sounded. But they had history on their side….” They fell in dozens and then in hundreds, until the first wave was decimated and Omaha Beach a scene of frightful carnage, with landing craft burning all along the water’s edge and the shallows a jumble of bodies and wreckage. The second wave landed, trickled a few yards up the beach, and remained there in death; the third and fourth waves arrived and were at once pinned down by the devastating German fire. Time passed without any respite in the hail of steel from hundreds of guns, until Omaha Beach was strewn with American dead and the smoking, gutted hulks of destroyed landing craft were surrounded by drifting bodies.
Not until afternoon did the men thrown into the bloody desolation of Omaha Beach begin to fight their way inland, harried relentlessly by those among them who emerged as leaders. “Two kinds of people are staying on this beach,” shouted Colonel George A. Taylor, as he strode up and down with bullets flying around him, “the dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here!” Slowly, the men of Omaha turned defeat into victory and finally reached the heights beyond the beaches, leaving behind them 2,500 dead, wounded and missing. Below, the sea was dotted with countless landing craft, still moving in under cover of the protecting warships; overhead, the sky trembled to the thunder of many aircraft engines. It was a splended, unforgettable and yet strangely awful sight, a great achievement made possible by untold wealth in material and the sacrifice of those who had almost, but not quite, lived to fight in Normandy.
Two Luftwaffe fighter pilots, Joseph Priller and Heinz Wodarcsyk, were probably the only German airmen to see action during the morning and afternoon of D-Day. While confused messages hummed along the wires from the forward areas and confusion reigned at Luftwaffe headquarters, Priller and Wodarczyk raced their Fw 190s into the air and set out to discover the truth about the invasion. Flying very fast and skilfully taking cover in the clouds, they arrived over Le Havre, turned along the coast—and abruptly found the vast Allied invasion fleet spread out below them. Priller was astounded, but he reacted with the speed of the trained fighter-pilot. At his signal the two Fw 190s fell away towards the mass of ships and levelled out over the British beaches, hurtling across Sword at less than fifty feet with cannon and machine-guns stabbing flame. Under the knife-edged wings, men hurled themselves to the sand or blazed away with automatic weapons. Then, as swiftly as they had arrived, Priller and Wodarczyk were gone, climbing furiously for the clouds with every ship in the Allied fleet hurling anti-aircraft fire after them.
After the daring hit-and-run raid by Priller and his companion, the Luftwaffe took no further part in the fight for the beaches until the night of 6th–7th June, when a few Ju 88s dropped a number of scattered bombs. The invasion had been expected for weeks—particularly during the perfect May weather—yet the Luftwaffe had been taken by surprise. Indeed, on the German side there was little else but disbelief and confusion for many hours. At Berchtesgaden, Hitler slept peacefully until the middle of the morning, blissfully unaware that his Atlantic Wall was crumbling, and even when awakened he decided to sit tight and await developments. According to the omniscient Fuehrer, the Normandy landings were a feint, and the main invasion was still to come. He, and he alone, could release the two key armoured divisions scheduled to go into action immediately Allied forces attempted to invade France, but despite urgent requests from von Runstedt’s headquarters he refused to do so.
Even Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, commander of Army Group B in the west and more directly responsible than his superior, von Runstedt, for repulsing an Allied assault, had been tricked by the foul weather on 4th June into snatching at the chance of a few days leave in Germany. When D-Day came—also his wife’s birthday—Rommel was many miles away at his Herrlingen home, his thoughts often returning to the coast he had worked so hard to fortify against invasion. Unlike von Runstedt, he believed that it was essential to hurl the Allies back into the sea before they could gain the slightest foothold. “Believe me, Lang, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive…” he had confided to his aide on one occasion, and added, “… for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day….” On the fateful 6th June, it was 10.15 a.m. before he was informed of the landings, and he would spend the afternoon and most of the night driving back at top speed to his headquarters at La Roche-Guyon.
Too late, always too late. Within five days the German defences had been broken, sixteen Allied divisions were ashore and the armoured spearheads were thrusting inland. On 12th June, Rommel reported: “The strength of the enemy on land is increasing more quickly than our reserves can reach the front…. Our operations in Normandy will be rendered exceptionally difficult and even partially impossible by the extraordinarily strong and in some respects overwhelming superiority of the Allied Air Force and by the effect of heavy naval artillery … the enemy has complete control over the battle area and up to sixty miles behind the front Almost all transport on roads and in open country is prevented by day by strong fighter-bomber and bomber formations…. Artillery taking up positions, ranks deploying, etc., are immediately bombarded with annihilating effect…. Neither our flak nor the Luftwaffe seems to be in a position to check this crippling and destructive operation of the enemy Air Force…. The material equipment of the Anglo-Americans, with numerous new weapons and war material, is far superior to the equipment of our divisions…” The acute situation brought Hitler from his lofty eyrie on the Obersalzburg five days later to attend a conference at Margival, near Soissons. Rommel, supported by von Runstedt, stated frankly that the Allies were on the verge of breaking out across France, and requested a strategic withdrawal to form a defensive line behind the Orne. Hitler refused; except for biting sarcasm and his automatic “no retreat” he had nothing to offer his commanders.
“Where is the Luftwaffe?” became the despairing cry of every German soldier in the west, from Rommel down to the merest private. Until 8th June, Luftflotte 3 possessed only eighty serviceable fighters; and on that date, when the transfer of some 600 aircraft from Germany commenced, many pilots arrived in Normandy to find their advanced airfields under attack by Allied bombers. So many landing grounds were unusable that large numbers of aircraft had to be diverted at the last minute, often by individual commanders acting on their own initiative. The few intact airfields quickly became overcrowded, and the confusion of mixed squadrons resulted in chaos. Allied fighters thronged the skies, and most of the transferred German aircraft were involved in dog-fights before they could make a landing. Even on this first day losses were very heavy, due to enemy action, crashes and the general disorganisation.
The Allied air superiority was overwhelming. “They bomb and shoot at anything which moves, even single vehicles and persons,” reported one German armoured corps commander. “Our territory is under constant observation….” And also under constant air bombardment; as a prelude to the crossing of the Orne, 2,200 aircraft dropped 8,000 tons of bombs. Against such mighty demonstrations of Anglo-American air power, the achievements of the Luftwaffe forces in the west were like drops in the ocean. Lacking heavy bombers, and with only a sprinkling of twin-engined medium bombers, the Luftwaffe could only throw “penny packets” of fighters and fighter-bombers into the inferno of the invasion bridgehead again and again. By the end of June 1,000 German aircraft had been lost, but thanks to Albert Speer and his emergency fighter programme a reserve of 998 machines had been rushed to the front a week later—more fuel for the hungry furnace. Adolf Galland sent Oberst Trautloft, a famous fighter ace, to the invasion area as Inspector of the Fighter Arm, but he could do little except bolster up the declining morale of the decimated squadrons. Galland himself, also in France at the time, was shattered by the wholesale disintegration of his forces.
On 17th July Rommel fell victim to Allied air power. After visiting the forward headquarters of the 2nd S.S. Armoured Corps, he was motoring back to La Roche-Guyon when his big open staff car was spotted by a roving squadron of Spitfires. Two of the fighters dived to within a few feet of the road, then flew along it, opening fire on the car from behind. A burst of 20 mm. cannon shells exploded into the left side of the vehicle. The driver collapsed and the car swerved to the right, struck the stump of a tree, skidded and overturned. Of the five occupants, three were seriously wounded, including Rommel, who had been thrown out of the car. The brilliant Desert Fox, the hero of the Afrika Korps, would never have the opportunity to win a German victory in Normandy; he had sustained a fractured skull, severe facial injuries and concussion.
Generalfeldmarschall Hans von Kluge—the so-called “clever Hans”—personally assumed command of Army Group B in the west. But Kluge, too, was not fated to save the situation in Normandy. A month later, he had been relieved of his command and ordered back to Germany, another victim of Hitler’s terrible retribution on the conspirators who came to be known as “the men of 20th July”—the only active resistance group to strike a blow into the heart of the Third Reich and attempt to end the war. On the aircraft taking him to Berlin, Kluge thwarted his executioners by swallowing cyanide.
At last, the German officer corps had turned on the megalomaniac who straddled the military machine like a colossus, and with the bending of the stiff-necked Prussian Junker class the many and varied opponents of Hitler were drawn together for the first time. Since 1938 there had been at least five attempts on the Fuehrer’s life, all hurriedly organised by men who were not lacking in courage but found it almost impossible to penetrate the hard shell of Hitler’s immediate circle. Not until 1944, when such opponents of the Nazi Party as the retired Field Marshal von Witzleben, Generals Fromme and Beck, Admiral Canaris of the Abwehr and General von Stulpnagel, the Military Governor of France, became active members of the resistance movement, did the simmering antagonism against Hitler flame into a determined conspiracy to kill him. Apart from the actual assassination of the Fuehrer—beyond which all earlier plots had never ventured—the 20th July conspirators hoped to seize all military and government offices in Berlin and Paris, and an excellent staff plan, code-named Valkyrie, had been prepared for this purpose. Unfortunately in the light of later events, the release of the Valkyrie operational forces was made dependent on the assassination of Hitler; while he lived, the officer clique feared his twisted hatred.
And Hitler, the “Bohemian corporal” of the old aristocrat von Runstedt, had an astonishing capacity for surviving his enemies.
July 20th, 1944….
Near the long wooden hutment, or Gastbaracke, temporarily in use as a conference room at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia stood the bulky figure of Field Marshal Keitel, watching the high-ranking Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe officers strolling past him towards the building. From time to time Keitel glanced with a frown at his wristwatch, his gaze always returning for a moment to the closed door of the ante-room some little distance away.
Alone in the tiny ante-room, a certain Oberst Count Claus von Stauffenberg worked quickly but efficiently on the package which nestled amid the papers inside his open brief-case. Using small pliers—for a British mine in the desert had cost him his right arm, two fingers of his left hand and his left eye—Stauffenberg deftly gripped a tiny capsule inside the package and broke it. Then he carefully closed the brief-case, and as carefully slid it beneath his good arm. A moment later, he heard Keitel’s brusque voice shouting: “Hurry, Stauffenberg!” The voice was irritable; Keitel, the Fuehrer’s willing lackey, liked to throw his weight about when dealing with subordinates.
Stauffenberg unlocked the door of the ante-room, saw Keitel awaiting him, and walked out into the sunlight. Inside the briefcase, unseen acid ate away at the wire holding a detonator tightly in place; within ten minutes the firing pin would be released. Outwardly composed as he talked casually with Keitel, Stauffenberg’s nerves must have been tuned to shrieking pitch, his brain almost bursting with the awful secret he carried with him. As they entered the conference room, he knew without glancing at his watch that three minutes had already passed, and no man can have been more aware of the vital seconds ticking inevitably away.
Around the heavy wooden table in the long room, uniformed men raised their heads as Stauffenberg and Keitel came through the entrance hall. Almost at once, Stauffenberg saw Hitler; he was leaning over the table, a large magnifying glass in his hand. On the Fuehrer’s right, General Heusinger, the Chief of Operations, was speaking, his forefinger moving across the large map spread over the table. Keitel interrupted the gloomy report on the deteriorating situation in Russia to announce: “Oberst von Stauffenberg, my Fuehrer. He will report on the new Volksgrenadier divisions.” Momentarily, Stauffenberg looked into the brilliant eyes of the foremost man in Germany. Then Hitler said, “Good. But first I will hear the rest of Heusinger’s report.” He nodded curtly and sprawled forward across the table again.
Stauffenberg took his place at the table. As Heusinger’s voice droned on in the sultry air, Stauffenberg casually placed the brief-case under the table, leaning it against the inside of the oaken support, near Hitler’s chair. Then he glanced quickly around him. The official stenographer, Beiger, was intent on his notes; otherwise all eyes were on Heusinger. The Fuehrer was intently examining the map, Keitel on his left, Heusinger reaching over the table towards him. Unhurriedly, Stauffenberg faded into the background. He retreated to the door, reached it, and passed through the entrance hall into the open air. Behind him, the acid ate steadily through the wire.
As Heusinger’s report drew to an end, Keitel glanced down the table, seeking to catch the eye of the next speaker, Stauffenberg. A moment later, frowning with annoyance, he was in the entrance hall. The soldier on duty there told him that Stauffenberg had left the building. “The Russian,” Heusinger was saying in the background, “is driving with strong forces west of the Duna towards the north …” Perplexed, Keitel hesitated then turned back to the conference room.
At that moment—12.42 p.m.—the bomb in Stauffenberg’s brief-case exploded. A great sheet of flame erupted from the floor of the Gastebaracke, bodies hurtled out of the windows, glass shattered, men screamed in agony and jagged splinters of wood flew in all directions. Stauffenberg, who was standing a couple of hundred yards away, said afterwards that the explosion was “like a direct hit from a 155 mm. shell”. He was certain that all in the room must have been blown to pieces. Jumping into his car, he used his rank to pass through the check points and left Hitler’s headquarters; within minutes he was racing to Rastenburg airfield, where a Heinkel He 111 bomber awaited him for the flight to Berlin.
Meanwhile, out of the wrecked and burning conference room staggered the coughing, blackened figure of a man, leaning heavily on Keitel’s arm. His trousers in shreds, his hair awry, the Man of Destiny, the Fuehrer of the Third Reich reeled out into the dust-filled, choking air. Temporarily paralysed, injured by falling beams, deafened and scorched, by some strange trick of fate he had nevertheless survived. In this respect he was more fortunate than most of the others who had been standing in the immediate vicinity of the explosion. The stenographer, Berger, was dead; Colonel Brandt, Heusinger’s chief of staff, and General Schmundt, Hitler’s adjutant, were dying; and General Korten, Jeschonnek’s successor as Luftwaffe chief of staff, later died of his wounds. Generals Jodl and Heusinger and Karl Bodenschatz, Goering’s adjutant, were seriously injured, and no single person in the room escaped unharmed.
Because Adolf Hitler still lived, the Berlin rebellion ended in failure. Three precious hours were wasted while the conspirators hesitated to set Valkyrie in action, and by the time Stauffenberg arrived on the scene it was too late. Goebbels spoke to Hitler on the direct line to Rastenburg, and once alerted soon had an S.S. cordon thrown around the offices where the conspirators were dithering and talking without doing anything. Before midnight the plot was shattered and some of the ring-leaders, including Stauffenberg, shot without trial by a firing squad. Old General Beck, after trying twice to shoot himself, was finally despatched by an S.S. bullet in the throat.
In France, there had been the same fatal hesitation. A worried von Kluge refused to throw in his hand with the conspirators at La Roche-Guyon—Generals Blumentritt, Speidel and Stulpnagel—until confirmation of Hitler’s death was received, and the delay ruined all hope of success. When Kluge learned that Hitler was still alive, he refused to support the conspirators and the plot collapsed within a few hours. Stulpnagel, summoned at once to Berlin, attempted to shoot himself near Verdun. Despite blindness and a serious head wound, in due course he was dragged before the notorious People’s Court in Berlin and sentenced to death.
Upon regaining consciousness in hospital, Stulpnagel had mentioned the name of Rommel, and the Field Marshal, by that time convalescent at his home near Ulm, was drawn into the net of Hitler’s vengeance. Rommel, still a very sick man, was given the chance to die “honourably” by taking poison. For the sake of his family he agreed, and on 14th October, 1944, ended a glorious career huddled in the back seat of his car, a mile or so away from his Herrlingen home. Hitler ordered a state funeral for the hero of North Africa who had “unexpectedly died of his wounds” and von Runstedt delivered the oration in the city hall at Ulm. “His heart,” said Runstedt, who now looked a broken and bewildered old man, “belonged to the Fuehrer.”
For many months the slaughter of the 20th July conspirators continued. “It is my wish that they be hanged like cattle,” stated Hitler. The actual death roll will probably never be known, but at least 4,000 people were executed and many more sent to the concentration camps. The Luftwaffe would appear to have largely escaped Hitler’s lust for blood, and perhaps this was just as well; the Fuehrer had long ago wearied of his air arm and its many failures. Like Goering, he continued to accuse the German pilots of cowardice—at a time when the Luftwaffe was losing 500 aircraft every week over France. On at least one occasion Hitler threatened to dissolve the fighter arm and strengthen the anti-aircraft units, but was restrained from doing so by Speer. After General Korten had been killed by the 20th July bomb at Rastenburg, General-Leutnant Werner Kreipe was appointed Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, but he could do nothing to relieve the desperate situation. By the end of the year Goering was looking around for a successor to Kreipe; the disorganisation and confusion was mounting to a climax of disaster.
Without the Luftwaffe, Hitler still tried to gasp defiance against Britain; the V weapons were his last chance to strike back. The first V.1 flying bombs had been launched against London on 13th June, 1944—D-Day plus 7—and during the next three months over 9,000 of the little jet-propelled missiles catapulted into the air. At least 2,000 proved to be faulty and crashed soon after launching or strayed off course and fell into the sea; forty per cent of those which crossed the English coast were shot down by the defences; and the remaining V.1s exploded somewhere in the London area. By the autumn of 1944 many of the launching sites in Northern France and Holland had been abandoned, and subsequent V.1s were launched from Heinkel He 111 bombers over the North Sea. About 1,200 flying bombs were launched from aircraft, but of these only 205 reached the target. The effect on London was that of another unwelcome but endurable “baby blitz”; the “buzz bombs” or “doodlebugs”, as they were soon called, were treated with respect but normal life in the capital remained uninterrupted, though some 5,000 people were killed and 16,000 wounded in Britain by V.1 missiles.
So much for Vergeltungswaffen Ein, the weapon supposed to bring a German victory at the eleventh hour. The V.2 (A.4) rocket was a far more terrifying proposition; it could not be seen, heard or intercepted in flight. The first V.2s were launched against London on 8th September, 1944, and were used almost without interruption until 27th March, 1945. More than 1,000 V.2s were launched on London during this period, and a further 2,100 rockets fell on the supply port of Antwerp and the Allied bases of Liège and Brussels. In Great Britain, 2,700 people were killed and about 6,000 injured by V.2s, the cost in human life of a bombardment against which no defence existed. London was finally reprieved by Hitler’s old spectre of too little and too late; with the Allied capture of most of the V.2 launching ramps the hail of rockets dwindled to a trickle until Germany collapsed.
What remained of the Luftwaffe? It is an astonishing fact—and an indication of the scope of Allied air power—that in September, 1944, German fighter production reached a total of 3,013 aircraft, the highest figure attained; yet there was a desperate shortage of fighters. Numerically, the Luftwaffe fighter arm should have been stronger than ever before, but the losses were so staggering that it was impossible to build up any reserves. Germany needed new types of aircraft, and again it is astonishing to find that at last the revolutionary fighters and bombers promised to Ernst Udet in 1940 were belatedly making an appearance. But only in pitifully small numbers; a Gruppe here, a Gruppe there, struggling to prop up the disintegrating structure. After having to soldier on for year after year with the same types of aircraft, often adapted to suit a dozen different roles, the Luftwaffe was presented with some truly remarkable machines when the war was already lost; the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter and Me 163 rocket fighter; the Junkers Ju 488 and Ju 287 bombers; the Arado Ar 234 turbo-jet bomber and Ar 232 transport; and the Dornier Do 335 and 635 fighters.
Of all these aircraft types, the Messerschmitt Me 262 is perhaps the only one that could have saved the Luftwaffe from defeat in 1945. Delays in production, the disinterest of Goering and Milch and the intervention of Hitler contrived to kill the Me 262 programme. The history of the world’s first operational jet fighter is therefore worth examining in some detail; for the tragedy of the Me 262 was the tragedy of the Luftwaffe.