Raúl Colon
Rió Piedras
Puerto Rico 00929
The end came swiftly to the once powerful
German Air Force. After nearly two years of continuing fighting in two
major fronts, the Luftwaffe, once the most feared air force in the
world, was reduced to a token force. The force that once dominated the
skies above continental Europe was now in no position to slow down the
onslaught of Allied formations pounding the Fatherland. But although the
writing could be clearly seen from the outside, it took a long time for
the Luftwaffe leaders to realize their dire situation. In fact, it was
not until the beginning of April 1945 that the “end of the war” was
clearly seen. By this time, allied ground forces were rapidly
approaching the German capital, Berlin, from the West. This quick
advance by the powerful armies of the Western democracies, taking huge
chunks of German territory, had also overrun most of Germany’s aircraft
factories. For example, the Focke Wulf factory at Cottbus, which have
just began to mass produce the Ta-152 high altitude fighter, was overran
by the Red Army.
Full production of the Ta-152, along with
its “wonder weapons” counterparts, the Ba-349, He-162 and Do-335; came
to a crashing halt by mid March 1945. By April 1st, Gruppen
Jagdheshwader Number 1 had received nearly all of its He-162 complement.
The pilots of the outfit found the new fighter to be extremely fast and
manoeuvrable although very unforgiving. Almost two hundred of these jet
fighters were delivered to the Luftwaffe before hostilities ceased in
May. The Bachem Ba-349 Natter vertical take off interceptor was another
of the Luftwaffe’s wonder weapons. The platform passed the manned test
flight phase without many glitches and by April 1945, units of these
small planes were already deployed. The first fully operational Ba-349
site was located at Kircheim near Stuttgart. The aircraft never attacked
the dreaded US 8th Air Force bomber formations they were
designed to do from Kircheim. The Germans, fearful that their new weapon
would slide into American hands, the American Army was closing the
Stuttgart gap quickly, demolished the aircrafts’ take off ramps. As for
the other wonder weapons, the much heralded Dornier Do-335, the aircraft
ran into many technical hurdles during its design phase, and although
they were resolved, this twin engine fighter never entered operational
service.
At the same time the Germans were
abandoning air force bases, the much maligned Luftwaffe was launching
their last great offensive. Operation “Wehrwolf”, the planned, ramming
operation against the American heavy bomber formations, took place on
April 7th. A force of 120 Bf-109 and 59 Me-262s were thrown
against an American air fleet of nearly 1,300 B-17 and B-24, supported
by a massive fighter complement. Utilizing fewer aircraft that the
operational plans called for, “Wehrwolf” was a failure. Only eight heavy
bombers were lost due to the new German ramming technique, fifteen were
damaged but were able to return to their bases. In all, the American
shot down 59 German planes. There was widespread recrimination inside
the Luftwaffe for the apparent failure. Evidence collected pointed to
icing conditions preventing most German fighters to reach their diving
positions and the fact that the Germans mounted an operation this
complex without the required complement of aircraft. Whatever was the
reason for the failure, the fact remains that after “Wehrwolf”, the
Luftwaffe ceased to plan any other large scale operation due to its
shortness in assets and now, time.
By the second week of April, the German
forces, fighting on two fronts; only controlled two separate enclaves in
the country, the Bavaria sector in the south and the area around
Schleswig-Holstein in the north. In recognition of this development, the
Luftwaffe command was restructured once more. The still operational
units in the north of Germany, East Prussia, Denmark, Norway and
Courland were placed under the command of Luftflotte Reich under General
Stumpff. The units on the south of Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
northern Italy were placed under Luftflotte 6 under the overall command
of General von Greim. On the ground, by April 16th, Soviet
spearheads were crossing the Rivers Oder and Neisse and began to
establish beachheads on the other side. The German formations on the
rivers’ banks, outnumbered two to one in manpower and four to one in
equipment, fought valiantly and initially they hold them back. That
afternoon, every Luftwaffe unit available for combat operation was
thrown into the desperate battle.
The attack action that took place by the
gallant Luftwaffe pilots can only be described as desperation. In a
classic kamikaze-style attack, scores of Bf-109’s pilots rammed their
aircraft against Soviet tanks pouring into the new established
beachhead. This was the first and only occasion that the Luftwaffe would
employ this barbaric tactic in combat. No one knows the extent of the
damage caused by the Luftwaffe’s kamikaze pilots. If it was significant,
Soviet engineers were quickly able to replace the damaged pontoon
bridges. In fact, the flow of Soviet troops and equipment continued
almost un-molested by the air attack. By the late 17th,
scores of Soviet bombers augmented by a massive artillery bombardment
stunned the outmanned defenders. By the early hours of the 18th,
the mass of the Soviet Army was preparing to cross the rivers. German
defence positions along the rivers banks crumbled in the face of
superior numbers and firepower.
At the same time, inside Adolf Hitler’s
Berlin bunker, the situation was approaching a climax. Hitler began to
issue orders to many depleted Luftwaffe combat units to attack the
Soviet formations at once. One order in particular stunned General Karl
Koller, the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff who had been by the side of the
German leader in his bunker. Hitler proposed giving command of all jet
fighters and bombers to Hans Ulrich Rudel, a ground attack expert who
knew little about the new jet planes. Koller and other Luftwaffe
officials tried to talk Hitler out of the idea. The situation
deteriorated further when on the morning of April 21st Berlin
was shelled by Soviet long range artillery. Hitler was furious. He
demanded from Koller an explanation regarding the Luftwaffe’s absence
from the fight during that morning’s barrage. Koller tried once again to
tell Hitler the fact that most Luftwaffe units were depleted and the
ones that remained semi operational lacked sufficient fuel and
ammunition to mount an effective campaign. The Fuhrer criticized the
fact that the Me-262s did not take off from their field in Prague to
support the beleaguered Berlin garrison on April 22nd. Koller
responded that in spite of the continually narrowing and changing the
combat area, the Luftwaffe was encircled in an ever smaller pockets,
surrounded on all sides by a much stronger foe; all that was humanly
possible to relive Berlin was being done.
By the late hours of the 22nd,
Hitler began to see the writing on the wall. He now came to the
conclusion that the war had been lost. Many of Hitler’s inner circle
tried to convince the Fuhrer to leave the capital but he refused.
Instead, Hitler had his secretaries bring his personal papers up to the
bunker’s courtyard and burn them. The Wehrmacht wanted to take all of
the troops fighting on the West and throw them at the East. Meanwhile,
Reichmarschall Hermann Goering, who was first in Germany’s line of
succession, began to carve out a plan to take command of the Third
Reich. He seized the opportunity and, before all communication was lost
with the Berlin bunker, on April 23rd he sent a cable
directly to Hitler. In the now infamous telegram, Goering stated his
reason for taking command of the Reich. He cited the Fuhrer’s decision
to remain in Berlin despite all odds and courted Hitler’s June 29th,
1941 decree stating that if the Fuhrer is incapacitated in any form, the
Reichmarschall would take over the German government as its official
head.
Goering even demanded that Hitler respond
to the cable before 10:00PM of that day. He sent the same message to
Keitel and Ribbentrop. Before Goering’s telegram arrived, the Fuhrer had
recovered his sense of purpose and began planning the capital’s defence.
When he received the cable, Hitler went on one of his now famous
tirades. He lambasted Goering calling him a traitor. Enraged by what he
saw as a stab in the back from a trusted old friend, the German leader
sent Goering a strongly worded cablegram forbidding the Luftwaffe leader
from taking over the government. The Fuhrer sent out orders to arrest
Goering at once, together with Koller and many top Luftwaffe officials.
Thus, at the time of its greatest peril, the Luftwaffe was left without
its top officials. After the arrest of all of the officials, Hitler
released Koller the same day, the Fuhrer appointed General Robert von
Greim, previously commander of the Luftflotte 6, to the post of
Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe replacing Goring. As all this was
happening, the disintegration of the Third Reich continued at a rapid
pace. On the afternoon of the 25th, the two arms of the Red
Army met west of the German capital. On the same date, Soviet and
American spearheads linked up on the River Elbe at Torgau. With this,
the only way available for the German Army to move its forces and
equipment was by air. Night flights became the sole mean of
transportation for the once feared German Army.
Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe continued its
desperate attacks against the Soviet columns crossing the River Oder. On
the afternoon of the 27th a force of seven Mistel and three
Ju-188s, joined by a force of Fw-190 fighters; attacked the Soviet
Oder’s beachhead. As they approached the target area, a massive
anti-aircraft barrage greeted them. It was a slaughter. In the end, only
one of the seven Mistels returned along with a sole Fw-190. As these
sorties were taking place there were a frantic effort to supply the
beleaguered Berlin garrison. A flight of six Fieseler Storch, escorted
by 30 fighters assembled at Rechlin to fly to the German capital at
dusk. The operation failed miserably. Terrible weather was blamed for
the failure. On the 28th, four Ju-52s left Rechlin bound for
the centre of Berlin. Only one Ju-52 made it through the flak-heavy
encirclement.
On the 29th, von Greim flew to
Rechlin to plan the air aspect of the Fuhrer “massive attack” on the
Soviet army in the Berlin area of operation. Unfortunately for the
Fuhrer by this time the Luftwaffe had just a trickle of combat ready
units available for the operation. Having changed bases so often in the
past year meant that the units allocated to those bases had retreated
from them without its full fuel compliment as well as its ammunition
allocation, thus when Hitler ordered the “massive counter attack” there
were no full combat ready Luftwaffe units available for combat. There
was also a major shortness in manpower as well. As the German Army began
to crumble, many Luftwaffe units were disbanded. These displaced
Luftwaffe personnel went on to join the Army’s ever depleted ranks. The
Army was also in peril. Its units decimated by four years of brutal
combat. When the attack commenced in April 29th, it smashed
itself uselessly against the powerful Soviet force ringing the capital.
In Berlin itself, conditions were rapidly deteriorating. Fuel and
ammunition had almost run out and the only way to re-supply the small
pockets of defenders that now fought for every corner of the city was
with airdrops. A mission that now the once most powerful air force in
the world could not even attempt to perform at this time. On April 30th,
Hitler named Grossadmiral Karl Donitz his successor as Fuhrer of the
Third Reich; he committed suicide.
From the moment Donitz assumed command of
the German state, he worked to end the war as soon as possible. He
understood the need to at least slow the Soviet advance so that the
German civilian population could make it to areas controlled by the
Western Allies. As soon as he commenced surrender negotiations with the
American and British, masses of German ground, naval and air formations
began to surrender completely. Almost all of the Luftwaffe forces who
were able to surrender to the Western Allies were content to do so. But
in the east the situation was different. Several units continued to
resist the Soviets with ferocity. The units that were closer to the
Allies’ lines began to journey into them with as many civilians as they
could take. The end came swiftly for the Luftwaffe. An inevitable end
considering the planning of Hitler.
Six
Months to Oblivion, Werner Girbig,
Shepperton 1975
The
Flying Bomb, Richard Young, Shepperton
1978
The
Luftwaffe War Diaries, Cajus Bekker,
London 1966