Incidentally (well not really) I’d recommend James Holland’s book on the Battle of Britain It gives a lot of context to Goering’s actions around that period.
It is also an excellent and unbiased view of the run up to the summer of 1940 with a wealth of first hand accounts from both sides of the Channel.
Don’t forget that Goering had one asset that no potential rival had - influence. And that was a vital asset in the Reich. The German government was a model of inefficiency. Everything had to go through Hitler so everyone had to compete for his favor.
Goering was one of Hitler’s favorites (at least through the thirties). That meant that he could get things done that no other Lufwaffe head could have.
As for the questionable decisions he made about what was needed, Goering was not alone. Air power advocates in every country had spent the years between the world wars arguing that airplanes would single-handedly win the next war. They all oversold air power.
Yes, that was the one I was thinking of.
Everybody was kind of under the influence of Douhet, about the supremacy of bombers (“Bombers will always get through !”, right :rolleyes:) and real-life examples like Guernica tended to prove them right, until they faced an opponent that wasn’t wiped out of the sky.
Can you substantiate that? I hadn’t heard it before now. I knew he eventually earned a place on Hitler’s lengthy list of hated people, but I thought that was pretty late in the war, his failure to defend against strategic bombing being more or less the last straw.
Here’s why I put him in the Worst Military Leader Elimination Game.
But as a Nasi, he was never boring.
Q
Not only that, but Goering pushed tactical air supremacy, such ac as the Stuka. Now yes, in a long range strategic air battle, like vs GB, 4 engined bombers and long range fighter escorts would have been better. But the Stuka (+ the various medium 2 engined bombers and the Messerschmit) managed to win the ealrier land battles and made Blitzkreig work. If Goering had gone for strategic airpower early, then the Nazis never would have won vs France.
In terms of air doctrine, I think that Germany, being in the middle of the continent, seemingly surrounded by enemies, felt compelled to build it’s military strategy and doctrine(s) based on Army centric ones.
In this role (tactical ground support and scouting), the Luftwaffe was at it’s best, because that is what it was conceived to be: aerial artillery.
With hindsight, it’s clear that more consideration to Strategic doctrines (air defense of the homeland, long range strategic bombing, Sea Lane denial) and designs that support those roles should have been made.
But I don’t know how much of that is Goering’s fault.
I think this is unfair. The German leaders were not stupid. They would have crushed the pocket if they could have and taken many prisoners. They didn’t, I would guess, because they couldn’t…or at least without great risk.
The German army was not invincible even in 1940. Many people don’t realize that POLAND actually put the hurt on the wermacht…they lost a not insignificant of men, material and planes taking on the Polish.
Even with the stunning successes in France, the German army/airforce were straining. They needed time to resupply and refit. The German leaders thought they had a few days to do this because the Allies weren’t going anywhere at Dunkirk (so they thought). So…why not refit and resupply and let the Luftwaffe harass them for a few days?
Not an unreasonable decision. Heck, I probably would have done the same. It turned out to be the wrong one as they probably should have just thrown their army against the pocket.
You say this as if the Poles were some gutless cowards fighting with longbows or something. The Polish Army was quite large and hardly lacking in bravery. IIRC it was their lack of mechanization that really did them in. They had mechanized units, just not nearly enough of them. But they were very good soldiers.
Actually, I read that the other way- that the Polish were great fighters and did hurt the German Military
I’m not sure if I agree that they hurt them a great deal but they sure tried their best. And I agree that they did not have sufficient mechanized units.
Thanks for the thoughts folks.
I guess it was just the way he capitalized POLAND, as if it’s some shocker that they could fight. But perhaps I read too much into it.
As commander of the Luftwaffe, Goering was a complete disaster. First, he failed in the bombing campaign against England. Instead of bombing the English cities, he should have concentrated on detroying the Royal AF bases-this would have defeated the British. Second, his mismanagement of the aircraft procurment was legendary-Germany had too many different types of planes-which made spare parts/mainatinence difficult. They also failed to develop a 4-engined heavy bomber-which made offensive operations against Russian cities impossible.
When the first jet fighters appeared, he failed completely to stop piston engine fighter-had the concentrated on jets, they might have stopped the Allied bombings.
Goering spent too much time stealing art and paintings, and inventing bizarre uniforms for himself-and not enough time running the airforce.
The idea that the RAF was near to collapse is rather overstated.It would have needed the redeployment of other units, but they were available.
What had happened was that certain groups had borne the brunt of the air defence role, the reality is that the RAF had plenty of other coverage across the rest of England, as the Luftwaffe found to their cost when they tried attacks across the North Sea instead of the Channel, and found them up in plenty of numbers and as well prepared. Its this as much as anything that probably convinced the Germans that the RAF was far from near to collapse, has the RAF been on its last legs, it could not have defended across the North Sea.
Do you mean that raid ?. It was the ONLY raid attempted by Luftflotte 5 out of Norway.
Right or wrong, many people think Germany lost 4 guys and a horse taking out Poland. In reality, Germany took some losses in Poland. What amazes me is the amount of damage the Luftwaffe took over Poland…I can’t remember the % but it was not insignificant.
People seem to greatly overestimate Germany’s capability early in the war. They did great with what they had but were not invincible (or at least didn’t have to be). The Dunkirk pocket not being crushed falls into this.
Poland suffered three other gigantic disadvantages in addition to its level of mechanization.
[ul][li]The German methods were new and a surprise to everyone, especially massed tank attacks closely coordinated with tactical airpower. This pretty much handed every army a defeat on initial encounter. Even the Americans suffered (at Kasserine Pass).[/li][li]After the Germans absorbed Czechoslovakia, the frontier wrapped completely around the western half of Poland, allowing the Germans to come from a huge variety of directions, rendering defense very difficult.[/li][li]The eastern half of Poland, which was not surrounded by Nazis, was overrun by the Soviet Union shortly after the Germans invaded.[/ul][/li]
There’s no conceivable way the Poles could have won that conflict. They did a heroic job of resistance and they did bloody the Wermacht’s nose.
A book I got for Christmas has a little about this- it doesn’t say much about the German losses during the campaign. However it does state that Germany came extremely close to running out of ammunition in the Poland conflict and did learn a considerable amount from it.
I think though that it should be taken into account that the “real” war in France started about 8 months after the Polish conflict and the Germans had plenty of time to make good the losses.
There is no doubting that Germany was seriously at a disadvantage compared to France and Great Britain in numbers of just about everything- the break through from the Ardennes was a huge gamble.
This book also says Goering was a far better organiser of industry with his charm and power than he was a military leader. Seems he only ever wanted to hear good news about the number of aircraft he had- not number available (haven’t finished the bbok so can’t say much more).
True, but it’s not the Poles’ fault the Anglo-French failed to act while Germany’s back was turned. The physical damage and logistical exhaustion the Poles inflicted should have helped the Anglo-French war effort, had there been one.
Actually he was neither rich nor morphine addicted until he met Hitler. He grew up in a series of castles and expensive boarding schools courtesy of his wealthy godfather, Ritter Hermann von Epenstein. Von Epenstein was a self made wealthy businessman who purchased his titles and several castles and other aristocratic trappings and converted to Catholicism- he was born of secular Jewish parents. He became friends with Heinrich Göring- Hermann’s elderly father and a career foreign service bureaucrat- and invited the family to live as his guests after Heinrich’s retirement. It’s believed by some if not most biographers that von Epenstein, a notorious womanizer, had a long term affair with Heinrich’s much younger second wife, Franziska, and in his own lifetime he was rumored to be the father of Göring’s younger brother Albert (here’s a pic of von Epenstein for comparison). The Görings and von Epenstein eventually had a falling out and he essentially evicted them from the castle where they were living and afterwards their standard of living sank significantly, but Hermann remained close to his godfather until von Epenstein’s death.
So he grew up surrounded by castles and upscale schools and aristocracy, but also nouveau riche and with the knowledge that none of the money was his. (In fact he did eventually inherit von Epenstein’s castles, but from v.E.'s much younger widow rather than the man himself and at least in part from his protection of her during the anti-semitic legislations- even though she was not Jewish and her husband had converted she was still in danger.)
The morphine addiction began of course due to injuries he sustained during the Beer Hall Putsch, specifically splinters to his groin. Because he and his first wife, his beloved Carin (a former Swedish countess who had left her first husband and her son and a life of luxury to live in near poverty with Göring) had to go on the run he was never able to have the wound properly treated and became addicted to morphine and heroin and other painkillers. He went through several rehabs and his drug of choice changed over the years (by the end of WW2 he was no longer using needle drugs but he was gobbling paracodeine tablets like they were Tic-Tacs) but he had only isolated periods of being drug free until Nuremberg, when they weaned him off of drugs cold turkey and realized just how sharp a mind was still there. He gave such a well worded and unrepentant defense of Hitler and Nazism that prosecutors were stunned to learn he, his wife and their 7 year old daughter (Hitler’s godchild) were all under house arrest with a death warrant hanging over them when Hitler died.
IIRC the switch to bombing cities was as much a failure of untelligence as a failure of command. The Luftwaffe’s intelligence arm had no idea of the actual effect of their attacks on the RAF, just as they had no idea of the effect of the earlier attacks on the radar system. Nazi Germany’s strategic intelligence gathering ability, and the use they made of what info they did get, was crappy.
Like most aspects of Nazi Germany, aircraft procurement decisions, especially in the pre-war and early war periods, were heavily influenced by how much political influence the manufacturers had with the Nazi hierarchy. In addition, multiple designs are a hedge against unexpected problems with the manufacture or use of any one design, as well as providing more operational flexibility with designs with different strengths and weaknesses. (Why did the US “mismanage” bomber production by building B-17s AND B-24s? B-25s AND B-26s AND A-20s?)
Switching to all-jet production would have disrupted production just when they needed more aircraft than ever before. Note as well that the first jet engines were very unreliable with a theoretical life of ~50 hours for the Jumo 004 and an actual life of about 15-25 hours, depending on the skill of the pilot and maintenance crew. Jet engines also required more of scarce alloys and used more of the limited available fuel (although of lower grade) then piston engines. (And again, any decision on this would have been heavily influenced by Nazi internal politics.)