I don’t mean as a combat pilot as I doubt that his bravery and skill earlier on could be doubted.
Also I understand that he bought to the Nazis a lot of popular appeal as a war hero.
However, eventually it seems that the Luftwaffe suffered by not having the correct aircraft, or possibly not having the vision to get the correct aircraft (in particular heavy bombers and long range aircraft to support the U Boats). There also seems to be plenty of evidence that Goring didn’t support Doenitz with the Condors that were available.
I’m not sure who would have been better- both Manfred and Lothar von Richtofen were dead= perhaps their cousin Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen.
To my mind one of Göring’s biggest issues was he did not have a proper view as to the use of air power. At Dunkirk it has always been more or less understood that the German infantry arrayed against the surrounded Allied forces had more than enough advantage in manpower and equipment to essentially destroy the pocket and captured hundreds of thousands of men. The British themselves only expected to be able to do evacuations for two days.
I’ve read different arguments in history about why the Germans didn’t move in earlier with infantry. The most common version of the story is that Göring wanted to display the might of the Luftwaffe and he sold to Hitler the idea that there was no reason to send in the infantry who would sustain significant casualties in the fighting. Other sources seem to indicate that Hitler was not actually part of the decision, but just agreed to it after it had been made.
Either way, Göring was convinced he could destroy a force of infantry numbering something like 300,000+ with solely aerial bombardment. In the end, while such a move was hectic on ground forces, it’s akin to trying to kill a bunch of ants with a sledgehammer. Sure, you’ll get some of them, but you’ll miss a lot of them too. Even today with better weapons in the air, purely air power cannot alone defeat huge forces of infantry. Men can hunker down, find cover, etc. If you want to take out 300,000+ soldiers you need to use other soldiers (at least for now, although infantry drones are of course coming into widespread use.)
This decision by the Germans was a fairly large blunder, and it was entirely because Göring felt air power could be an end in and of itself. In truth, especially during WWII, the primary function of air power was as part of combined arms operations with land and sea forces. Göring’s failure to see that, at least at Dunkirk, suggests he wasn’t the most qualified person for his position.
He was pretty much a fat, perverted idiot who never understood the real strengths or, more importantly the limitations of air power…especially German air power. Consider his assertions that he could supply the besieged army at Stalingrad. Pure fantasy. I don’t believe that the Luftwaffe ever even achieved half of the target supplies necessary to keep the army up to snuff, and Goring’s assertions that he could and the thought train that lead to the decision to hold there was a disaster.
Hitler get’s some of the ‘credit’ for being an idiot as well and keeping his hand in on key decisions for the Luftwaffe’s future development of air frames, tactics and the use of new air craft (like their insistence of using the ME262 as an attack air craft, as well as their foot dragging on getting a jet into the production pipeline as fast as possible), but I’d say the lions share of that falls squarely on Gornin’s copious lap.
Arrowdreams, an anthology of alternate-history stories involving Canada, includes one that touches on this: what if Roy Brown had merely wounded instead of killed Manfred von Richthofen during WW1? The author speculates that Richthofen would be forcibly grounded after his near-death, would survive the war (which would end pretty much as expected) and eventually hold Göring’s position in the years leading up to WW2, where his better training methods and professionalism would lead the Luftwaffe to unqualified victory in the Battle of Britain.
Goring is being simultaneously misunderstood and underestimated here. Misunderestimated!
Goring was not a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination. He was cynical and opportunistic; it’s not even clear that he was all that devoted to the philosophy of Nazism, but he was happy to go along with it if it meant he got powerful and rich. Himmler killed people because he hated them. Goring killed people because it meant he could get bigger houses.
Goring was openly doubtful about every escalation of the war, and his promises to Hitler were, as much as anything, a reflection of the fact that Hitler didn’t want to hear anything but the most positive predictions anyway. And it’s not like the Luftwaffe under Goring was a band of fuckups; they achieved some of the greatest aeiral campaign victories of the war. Actually, they acheived ALL their successes under Goring and none under the people who led it afterwards. You can’t blame Goring for Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain without also giving him credit for the Luftwaffe’s incredible successes against France, Poland, and the Soviets in 1941. The invasion of Crete was also a Goring campaign.
I also don’t think it’s being sufficiently noted that** by late 1942, Goring was no longer really calling most of the shots for the Luftwaffe, and after Stalingrad he was calling no shots at all.** Things like how the Me-262 were deployed - which would not have made a damned bit of difference anyway - weren’t his call.
As to whether the Luftwaffe was appropriately equipped and whatnot, I’d suggest that it was in fact the greatest air force on the planet for quite some time and fanwanking over whether they’d have done better by building more FW-190s and fewer Me-109s, or whatever, is really missing the point entirely. There is no realistic change in strategy that would have resulted in German victory; they were outnumbered by an absolutely ridiculous degree by enemies who could build planes every bit as good as anything Germany was building. Changing production from this plane to that does not change the fact that in 1943 alone, the United States built almost as many planes as Germany built in the entire war.
Germany was not going to win the Battle of Britain. There simply wasn’t any way they were going to shoot down enough RAF planes to completely take Britain out of the skies. They were not going to win the war against the Soviets with strategic bombing, and they sure as hell weren’t going to beat the USA. No amount of tabletop wargaming guesses are going to change the outcome of World War II.
Goering was a smart, rich, charismatic war hero. These were the things that endeared him to Hitler. He was also a lazy, vainglorious, morphine-addicted hedonist. This hurt his administrative abilities.
It also didn’t help that Goering wore so many hats. He wasn’t just head of the Luftwaffe. He was also President/Reichsstatthalter of Prussia, Minister of Forestry, Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, head of the Forschungsamt, and for about a year, Minister of Economics.
In WWI, military aviation was only a sideshow to the action on the ground. Dogfights happened when different sides’ spotter planes encountered each other. Planes were little threat to ground targets. The Germans tried bombing London from Zeppelins but did little damage. Bear in mind that Goring was tasked with creating something entirely new in the world – an air force with aggressive capacity. Of course he made mistakes.
The Allied record is hardly any better in this regard. Sir Arthur Harris did his damnest to deny Coastal Command any 4 engined bombers and later on airborne radar sets, calling Coastal Command “an obstacle to victory,” despite Coastal Commands vital role against the U-boats. He also threw fits whenever the heavies were called upon to attack tactical targets in Normandy after the landings, and had protested against being ordered to target the French rail system in the lead up to D-Day, which was of vital importance in isolating the battlefield and slowing the German ability to respond to the landings. Any use of heavy bombers that wasn’t “dehousing” the Germans he considered a waste.
Goering seems a classic example of the “Peter Principle” in action.
He did an outstanding job as an individual pilot. But as the head of the German Air Force, he had little understanding of the use of air power overall in a strategic sense. And even less understanding of the logistics of maintaining a functional air force, and the process of developing & mass producing planes & spare parts.
Wouldn’t that apply to most of the Nazi hierarchy ? The only ones to whom it shouldn’t (possibly) apply that I can think of from the top of my head are Speer and the finance minister (whose name escape me at the moment).
I’d have to disagree with a lot of this post. Fair enough in WW 1 it started out as a sideshow to the army and number wise always was. However, the importance of reconnaissance and even more importantly spotting for the artillery was recognized.
It was clearly realized that fighter pilots going up and shooting each other down was going to achieve nothing- there was a reason that they were there and that was to destroy or defend the enemies capability for spotting and scouting.
In addition, planes were recognised as threats to ground targets (I’m not sure of your connect between planes and Zeppelins). The Gothas and especially Giants did cause a number of deaths and panic to the civilian population which caused diversion of fighter squadrons from the Western Front - something which Trenchard and Haig tried to avoid. The aggression was there. (A side note- not one Giant was lost to enemy fighter action). There was also bombing of Paris which is less reported.
A book which has a lot of detail on this is “The First Blitz”.
So Goring already had a model he could follow about the aggression of heavy bombers.
Exactly, Even during the height of the Battle of Britain we were out-manufacturing and out-repairing the Germans. Curiously, given the stereotype of German efficiency post-war, their failure was one of organisation not equipment.
There were pockets of brilliance out in the field of course but Goering wasn’t able to, or wouldn’t make use of them. But then Hitler encouraged arse-covering and in-fighting. That didn’t really lend itself to the “best” rising to the top and Goering was not alone in his mistakes and deficiencies.
Had they listened to their better generals and given them greater scope…who knows? Had they smashed us at Dunkirk we may well have looked at a deal.
