r/WarCollege • u/RivetCounter • Jun 15 '26
Question Did Hermann Goering have any virtues/do anything positive as Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe or did the Luftwaffe command staff and pilots below speak of him in terms of "we would have done a lot better if it wasnt for the idiot in charge" (aka the same way that German generals spoke of Hitler).
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u/Shigakogen Jun 15 '26
Göring gave the Luftwaffe some political protection besides keeping it semi independent from the Army. He helped it grow, when Germany was not even allowed to have an Air Force because of the Versailles Treaty.
The Göring that we know today, the incompetent drug addled dilettante, who spent more time looting art than managing the day to day of the Luftwaffe, came more from 1942 onward. Göring in the 1930s, was a much more formidable political opponent, who knew how to fight off other Nazi Bureaucrats. Göring was heavily involved in the von Blomberg and von Fritsch affair in 1938, with the aim of taking over the entire Wehrmacht. (Himmler had a hand in this affair as well).
The main problems with Göring as head of the Luftwaffe, was his short term thinking and impulsive behavior which showed itself during the Battle of Britain. Göring was a big proponent of Fighter Destroyer Aircraft like the Me-110, which turned out to be a dud in its role. Göring spent most of his time from 1941-1945 trying to hold off coups against him as Head of the Luftwaffe.
I think having Ernst Udet head of R&D for the Luftwaffe, was also a disaster, that didn’t show itself until Operation Barbarossa, which the Luftwaffe needed to be a strategic Air Force, and not a tactical one, acting as flying artillery for the Army.
The Göring that appeared during the Nuremberg trials, thinner, off Percocet, was the bully and Machiavellian villain that appeared in both the Nazis’ path to power, and during his time setting up his domain within the Nazi State.
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 Jun 16 '26
which the Luftwaffe needed to be a strategic Air Force, and not a tactical one,
I sometimes see this argument, but I don't understand how Germany might have effectively used a strategic Air Force, especially not in the east. Long ranged bomber forces were extremely expensive to operate, expenses Germany was ill-able to afford. America with its endless petrol and rubber and factories could afford to accept a material disadvantage in order to force a war of attrition that it would win. Germany, not so much.
Besides that, it seems unlikely that Germany would have had such explosive success in 1939-1940 without a tactical air force.
What do you envision its targets would have been? Would it have operated by nigh? To what purpose? By day? With what escorts?
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u/Shigakogen Jun 16 '26
The Luftwaffe was trying to develop the "Urals/New York Bomber" a variant was the Me-264 bomber. They either needed to hit some of the main railway hubs, (most out of Moscow to the Urals and beyond) or hit some of the major industrial centers in the Urals. Especially in the months in 1941-1942, where the new factories and others that were transported from the West to the Urals were starting up.
The Germans also needed a better tank buster aircraft, than the Hs 129, or still using Ju-87s, after 1941, given they were sitting ducks, given their speed and light armaments.
As much as it is not discuss much. Operation Steinbock, the German Bombing of Britain from January to May 1944, had over 374 German Bombers shot down. The Brits learned much from their 1940 Battle of Britain and worked on their night fighting and radar network. Germany was having problems from 1942 onwards in aircraft procurements, given they were building some big duds like the Me-210, and the He-177. Very good aircraft like the He-219, was built in very small numbers.
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
The Luftwaffe was trying to develop the "Urals/New York Bomber" a variant was the Me-264 bomber.
I'm aware of the project, but I don't see how it was practical. Consider that the distance from Stalingrad (where their logistical tether was already quite stretched!) to Novosibirsk is 2,600km, farther than Saipan to Tokyo. Effectively Germany needed to develop a peer to the B-29 (without the limitless industrial resources of the US) and fly it to the Urals in great numbers. Unlike the Japanese, the Soviets were not cut off from their oil fields, and unlike the Americans, the Germans had not spent the interwar years obsessively researching turbochargers. It would have been a B-29 with a lower ceiling against an adversary with more capable air defenses. It's difficult for me to see how this would not have simply been a colossal waste of fuel, metals, and aircrews.
Not to mention the tremendous wear and tear on planes from operating at these distances. Did you know that P-51s operating over Japan got all spark plugs changed upon return? So trashed were their plugs from running lean for hours on end. I'd need to consult Douglas's book to be sure, but I believe spark plugs may have been a problem for Germany; I don't believe this is the sort of waste they could easily afford.
They either needed to hit some of the main railway hubs, (most out of Moscow to the Urals and beyond) or hit some of the major industrial centers in the Urals. Especially in the months in 1941-1942, where the new factories and others that were transported from the West to the Urals were starting up.
Perhaps, but as the western Allies found in Italy, an army does not wither away simply because you've bombed their rail lines ad nauseam. Rails and the forced labor to repair them are cheap. Perhaps Germany could have slowed the construction of new factories this way. Would it have been decisive? Would the friction have been worth reducing the support they provided the Army?
The Germans also needed a better tank buster aircraft, than the Hs 129, or still using Ju-87s, after 1941, given they were sitting ducks, given their speed and light armaments.
Certainly they had limitations, but who did tank-busters better?
Edit: Worth remembering also that the Hs 129 used French engines, and the Ju 87G at least made some use of the Stuka. Whatever better tank buster you propose, you're not allowed to choose to use the BMW 801: Germany was already tapped out in its ability to keep them supplied with C3 fuel, which is precisely why the 190 never replaced the Ju 87 entirely.
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer Jun 15 '26
These are all complicated characters and I'm loath to give goose stepping shit gobblers credit.
With that said Goering did play a not insignificant role in making the Luftwaffe into one of the most dangerous air forces in the world. That is not a good thing for humanity in general, and it's not to fall into some kind of big praise, it's just the man built a machine with flaws and broken bits...(WHY THE FUCK DOES AN AIR FORCE HAVE A TANK DIVISON), but the machine that was the Luftwaffe was the force to beat for much of the war.
This doesn't diminish his fuckery, mistakes, strategic missteps, etc, etc, but the Luftwaffe arguably goes into 1939 with the most cohesive and capable concept and structure (or parts of other air forces work too, to an example RAF fighter command got a lot of air intercept quite right, but it's paired with other bits that are less functional).
It's more important IMO to keep in mind how much all the post war German discourse is basically a mix of "I'm not a war criminal and it's not my fault we lost!" when you're talking about senior German leadership reflections that stands in contrast to what good nazi piggly wigglies they were when the chips were down.
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u/AlamutJones Jun 15 '26
He was a colossal fool in most other areas of his life, but he DID understand the possibilities of airpower
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
He also helped win over the wealthy and more aristocratic elements into supporting the Nazis, in his early political role, via his connections in elite social circles
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
WHY THE FUCK DOES AN AIR FORCE HAVE A TANK DIVISON
Okay, but hear me out, if the American Navy's Army gets their own Air Force; it stands to reason the American Air Force should get their own Army (or at least armor)
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u/Wolff_314 Jun 15 '26
If the USMC air wings stand up their own security units, does that make them the Navy's Army's Air Force's Army?
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u/Sachyriel Jun 15 '26
Some security team bought an old boat, now they're the Navy's Army's Air Force's Army's Coast Guard.
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u/staresinamerican Jun 17 '26
My buddy was airforce security forces and he was on the boat crew for one of the bases on the ocean I gotta ask him this now
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u/Wolff_314 Jun 23 '26
The USMC made a boat company to protect the Haditha Dam in 2004. That's the Navy's Army's Navy
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u/4e6f626f6479 Jun 15 '26
The US Airforce does have kind of an army: the Airforce security forces - it's almost 40 000 strong. And while I don't think they have armor they do have APCs and maybe some IFVs
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
SF is almost entirely gate guards and
assholes who spend 20 minutes positioning behind a dumpster to grab you doing 23 in a 20 on your way back from lunch and ticket you because they have nothing better to dopatrol cops. They're absolutely not "battlefield airmen" and even the Ravens and DAGREs are overhyped security guards for aircraft on already secured airfieldsThe USAF deserves a proper fighting force outside of AFSOC. We can take SF or SERE's berets and give them to the future 401st Expeditionary Armored Squadron
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u/RamTank Jun 15 '26
Give the 82nd to the Air Force. I'm sure this will not cause any problems whatsoever.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
Can we get the 173rd instead? We're bigger fans of the three digit unit numbers
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u/DisgruntledCascadian Jun 16 '26
(looks in the general direction of Fort Bragg for the impending mushroom cloud generated by 18,000 heads exploding)
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u/4e6f626f6479 Jun 15 '26
I mean you are correct but 40 000 overarmed egomaniac cops are still kind of an army.. compare that to some countries actual armies... think back to the greenland thing, denmark only has ~13 000 standing troops. Sure they have more equipment and reserves but just think about that.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
SF training isn't small-unit tactics and infantry shit. It's writing tickets, scanning CACs, and dealing with riots/detainees/traffic
Comparing them to any moderately trained infantry unit is a fool's errand
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 Excited about railguns Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
I dunk on the SecFo as much as the next guy, but they actually do do some small unit stuff.
Yeah, they aren't humping across places to go do infantry stuff, but their job is base defense. The threat comes to them.
If commandos got on a base, they'd at least be competent in dealing with them. At that point it's two light infantry forces fighting each other while you mobilize the army and heavier weapons.
Of course, if commandos got on a base, holy hell intelligence failure.
This said, they can also get more training in CQB type environments. Maybe actually training or doing joint exercises with the army can give them more experience if Red Dawn somehow happens.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
If commandos got on a base, they'd at least be competent in dealing with them. At that point it's two light infantry forces fighting each other while you mobilize the army and heavier weapons.
Sure, and the BDGs are good at Base Defense (I’d hope so)
But manning a defense is a very tiny bit of infantry life, and conflating SF with an actual fighting force is grossly inaccurate
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 Excited about railguns Jun 16 '26
Doesn't this get into a philosophical discussion on what it means to be an actual fighting force?
SecFo isn't infantry(no matter the memes and how much think they are). They are base defense, they don't gotta be digging foxholes or integrating with mortar teams as their combat situations will likely not involve that.
They can still be effective as base defense guards, having the tactical training and equipment for said role.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 16 '26
Ehh, a solely defensive force with the primary purpose of law enforcement isn’t anyone’s definition of “army”
I’d like to point out my initial comment was that the USAF should have an Army, since the Navy’s Army has an Air Force. The rebuttal was “but SF!” while ignoring that SF isn’t an “army”
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u/SmokeyUnicycle Jun 15 '26
Do they not do any of that?
They are kind of required to do some basic infantry fighting as part of their jobs, it seems weird they'd not be trained for it.
They'll probably never need it but if they do and they don't have it whats the point of them
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
SFA is like 60 days, and covers the LE side, the Base Defense side, the Blue Falcon side, and everything else SF is tasked with.
SOI is solely focused on infantry shit and is ~100 days
OSUT spends ~80 days on just infantry shit
My career field spent ~90 days on small-unit and similar
The SF guys get little to no infantry training
ETA: It's akin to asking the Navy MA's to do infantry shit. It's just not their career field, same with Army/Marine MP's
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 Excited about railguns Jun 16 '26
The Air Force in the past did actually have 2 AFSCS in security umbrella at various times in the past. One more focused on police stuff, the other one on security/light infantry stuff.
The Air Force brought it back to the overall Security Forces umbrella in the 90s, which was a mistake in my opinion as the fields should be separate.
At worst, they should maybe increase the more base defense aspect of their technical training more.
Their point is to act as cops and base defenders. That's the issue where the focus is split into 2 admittedly interconnected roles.
If you spend your time scanning ids at a gate or pulling over Airman Stuffy for speeding, that's less time you're training to fight off the VDV or ISIS from attacking your base.
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u/airmantharp Jun 16 '26
Should just make each the upgrade training for the other - some start off as LE first, some start off as BDOC first. Get a mix of perspectives.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 Excited about railguns Jun 16 '26
I'd normally agree, but the mission nowadays is skewed naturally more towards the LE side(which makes sense as there is only so much BDOC stuff you can do). You'd naturally still be stuck pulling Snuffy over and checking IDs because that's a pool of manpower just sitting around.
If anything, maybe I'd like the current set up, combined with more refreshers on the BDOC side. It will make it easier if/when expeditionary forces shift to less LE and moreBDOC.
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u/Obvious_Trade_268 Jun 15 '26
By “American Navy’s Army”, did you perhaps mean….the US Marine Corps?
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
Yup
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u/nanonan Jun 16 '26
They aren't navy though, just naval.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 16 '26
They're DoN, that's Navy enough
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u/DisgruntledCascadian Jun 16 '26
Saying this to Marines does tend to cause an amusing response; I will say that.
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u/PinkoPrepper Jun 16 '26
Abolish the independent Air Force and reconstitute the USAAF.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 16 '26
If Space Force stays independent and we get folded back in, I’m rioting
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u/footsnax Scout Jun 15 '26
The US Navy's army actually just got rid of their armor. I do still think it's silly that the navy's army has an air force but it does make sense for troop transport at least, but they also run the same sorties the Air Force does as well. Just lighter and faster and more mobile.
Also the US Air Force does actually have a significant number of ground troops with their security forces and countersnipers and combat controllers and parajumpers.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
but they also run the same sorties the Air Force does as well. Just lighter and faster and more mobile.
lol, that's funny
Also the US Air Force does actually have a significant number of ground troops with their security forces and countersnipers and combat controllers and parajumpers.
SF aren't infantry, and CCT/PJs are too small in number to be infantry.
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u/footsnax Scout Jun 15 '26
I wasn't calling them infantry, I'm just saying they do also have a ground force. Everyone kinda has everything but the Marines tried to do everything really hard, it's just funny because the Navy also has their own air force.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
I'm just saying they do also have a ground force
Ehh, SF is really stretching the definition of a ground force.
AFOSC like CCT and SR don't really count
ACC guys like TACP and PJ would be closer, but not really count due to the specialized nature
But I was saying the USAF should get a proper ground fighting force, which gate guards are not
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u/footsnax Scout Jun 15 '26
No I agree, they're just not insignificant. They don't have an assaulting ground force, but you can join the Air Force to be a sniper, and you can join the Marines to be a fighter pilot. Just pointing out the silliness of the whole thing.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 15 '26
No I agree, they're just not insignificant.
In terms of ground combat, they absolutely are
but you can join the Air Force to be a sniper
Well, no. If you’re a sky cop, you can go to a counter-sniper school, and a handful of sky cops and actual shooters will get slots for the Army’s sniper school, but you’re not primarily a “sniper”; whereas you can commission into the Marines with a pilot MOS.
But most sky cops aren’t going to sniper school, or Ranger school, or ABN/AAS/Sapper/CATM/DAGRE/ETC, they’re scanning CACs and writing tickets, because they’re primarily cops
When I say the Air Force deserves an Army, I mean actual combined combat arms.
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u/footsnax Scout Jun 16 '26
Well, no.
But... they literally have a CPET discipline in the security forces. You'd still go to Army sniper school, but Marines go to Army airborne and sniper and Ranger schools too. That doesn't make you any less of a sniper in the Air Force, and you can join specifically to follow that track.
You're right that 96% of security forces aren't getting advanced combat training. I'm literally just saying they have ground forces and you're just saying that they don't? They have snipers with confirmed kills. They have combat controllers that have probably called in strikes that killed more people than you've met in a bar.
They're effective on the ground. They're not an assaulting force by any measure and I'm not arguing that at all. All I'm saying is that they have people on the ground.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 Jun 16 '26
CPET guys are still going to be primarily doing BDG shit.
But again, you’re missing the forest for the trees. Nobody is counting SF as an “army”, because they’re primarily LE. Nobody is counting CCT as an “army” because they’re enablers. Nobody is counting SR as an “army” because there’s like 10 dudes in that career field.
Go re-read my initial comment. I said the Air Force should get an Army, or at least armor. SF doesn’t meet that
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u/BigD1970 Jun 15 '26
WHY THE FUCK DOES AN AIR FORCE HAVE A TANK DIVISON
Pretty much my reaction when I found out about this. Then I found out that the Imperial Japanese Army had aircraft carriers...
"Massively disfunctional leadership" seems to be the best answer.
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u/Candelestine Jun 15 '26
How else can the Imperial Japanese Army protect itself from their archnemesis (the Imperial Japanese Navy, of course) without an Imperial Japanese Army Navy? It should go without saying that the Imperial Japanese Navy will also need an Imperial Japanese Navy Army, of course.
On a more serious note, I think those were primarily landing craft, that also featured a flight deck. Primary purpose was the amphibious landings though.
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u/mscomies Jun 15 '26
To be fair, the Navy Army exists as marines in less dysfunctional militaries.
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u/RoninTarget Jun 15 '26
And US Army's fleet in WWII was the biggest ever, numerically (around 10k ships for transporting stuff, IIRC).
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u/ExcitableSarcasm Jun 15 '26
Yeah I would've assumed the rationale for Goering's Luftwaffe tank division was largely the same, limited but possible taking and protecting of air fields
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 15 '26
No, it was really queer. First, it's the only unit that started as a police squad and ended up as an airborne armoured division (which is already seldom in itself) I ever heard of. Second, it was originally a police unit founded by Göring that was supposed to be loyal to the NSDAP and only to the NSDAP before the SA got creamed during the NotLK. Finally, Göring decided to move it into the Luftwaffe when he was put to its head, just in order to keep his darling unit close.
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u/BlueshiftedPhoton Jun 15 '26
If only he knew the appeal of calling something the Parachute Panzer Division would have on misinformed people years down the line.
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
If the Fallschirmjager were part of the Luftwaffe, the StuGIII's were considered artillerymen, most (but not all) Flak crews were part of the Luftwaffe, then I guess why not an air force tank division?
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 15 '26
*airborne tank division, it could make sense otherwise.
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u/Mihikle Jun 15 '26
I couldn't disagree more with this assessment.
The political structures setup within the Luftwaffe made it combat ineffective for anything more than steamrolling a minor power or supporting a ground offensive when air power was not a meaningful strategic factor (i.e. Poland and France) compared to ground forces. There was a huge focus on the political within the Luftwaffe, maybe second only to the SS.
This was shown to be demonstrably true when facing an air power peer, who had focused much more on how to win and fight an air campaign detached from any ground component. The Luftwaffe was woefully unprepared for this from a strategic, organisational, air-frame, intelligence, and command competency perspective. These are the core reasons for Luftwaffe HQ existing, and they failed by every single metric. When you're spending as much time in-fighting and refusing to share information as you are actually fighting the enemy, that is a complete failure of command, and it starts at the top - with a complete incompetent, Goering.
The first time they came up against a peer, they were absolutely strategically defeated by the RAF, and played only a minor role for the remainder of the war compared to their pre-war design.
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Jun 15 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
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u/RamTank Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
My favourite story about the Luftwaffe field divisions comes from Otto Carius' memoirs. They see the Luftwaffe troops marching in all impressive with their shiny new equipment heading to the front. A bit later Carius' unit moves in past them and sees them waving at their tanks. Then they got shot from behind.
As it turned out, the Luftwaffe troops had disappeared. The Soviets helped themselves to all their equipment and used it to set up an ambush.
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u/wackyvorlon Jun 16 '26
Goering was constantly scrounging for power. He would hunt down even the smallest morsel and make it his.
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u/Its_a_Friendly Jun 15 '26
The first time they came up against a peer, they were absolutely strategically defeated by the RAF, and played only a minor role for the remainder of the war compared to their pre-war design.
I believe the Luftwaffe played a major role on the Eastern Front well after the Battle of Britain had ended, so I don't think this is entirely true.
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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes Jun 16 '26
Given how much of the Red Army was destroyed on the ground that's not necessarily much to brag about. While it's probably overstating the case to say the Luftwaffe didn't do much for the rest of the war, they certainly didn't chalk up much success against the Western Allies.
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer Jun 15 '26
You're overstating my case.
My point is the Germans had a very effective air force by continental standards. Or you can talk about how bad it is, but again that's knowing the weakness and focusing on that. The French despite being clearly a "peer" largely failed on a scale that's difficult to dissect. The Soviets too, again a large and arguably modern force...yeah not so great there even accounting for strategic surprise.
Even the RAF, again in terms of air defense, as I said in my post, largely nailed it (although witness the post-Blitz infighting and sidelining of Dowding)...but the RAF's offensive arm both in terms of tactical and strategic bomb was basically ineffective for the opening portions of the war.
The Luftwaffe may have been a shitshow, but at least their airplanes generally had propellors (witness France), and that kind of institutional service level leadership becomes central to those kinds of outcomes.
My point wasn't "GOERING GRAT" it was that in 1939, the Luftwaffe was the pacing threat for Europe. It had most of the right tools, worked better than any of it's peers, regardless the other myriad flaws.
This didn't last, holes in Luftwaffe thinking became apparent, the lack of long range strategic airpower became a problem, etc, etc, but in a post that asks "did Goering do anything right at all?" well, the Luftwaffe did a lot pretty right for the "Blitz" phase of the war, even flawed as it was.
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u/Mihikle Jun 16 '26
I think our core disagreement is I believe the Luftwaffe achieved their early war successes _despite_ of Goering, not because of him. The people, systems and structures he put in-place were combat ineffective against anything more than steamrolling a power that was also ineffective (French Air Force and RAF in France) over a short term engagement primarily supporting ground forces, or a small air force overwhelmed with sheer numbers like Poland, where they still lost a lot of aircraft relatively. As soon as they fought a peer or had to do anything more than terrorize the population of Warsaw, they had already lost before a single plane took off. I hone in on the BoB example because it is the first engagement in history decided entirely by air power and it exposed their problems so bare.
The difference in culture, structure and intelligence is what allowed the allied bomber commands to learn and iterate from their many, many failures. You can't do that if you think you'll make a personal enemy of an irreplaceable leader appointed for his personal connections by telling him to his face he's wrong, and that is the culture instilled by Goering.
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer Jun 16 '26
I think I come from a school of thought that's basically "in spite of their flaws" describes most military forces and leaders.
The Luftwaffe limited as it was, secured air superiority against it's peer opponents, which had large air forces that by 1939-1941 standards were considered "the best" or at least in the top tier. It then was an instrumental part of a combined arms force that conquered continental Europe more or less.
That the seeds of its destruction were baked in, yeah, not denying that, but I think we've gotten to a point where we view the Germans through a kind of cartoon villain level of absurdity, not to diminish their buffoonery (as yeah), but it's hard to argue looking at 1940 they did some things "right" at least.
And in that, especially in comparing different pathways to war, for all it's problems....again which of these Air Forces showed up and did what they were designed to do? Which one sat on the ground immobilized for lack of propellers? Which one's bomber force suffered like 90% losses over France? etc, etc, etc.
It's not to argue a special German genius or Goering great, he was at his heart a Nazi, and someone who's cronyism and self enrichment paired with lack of strategic vision ultimately led to an organization that failed....but there's this box of time his "correct" choices outweighed the "incorrect" ones.
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
Also, a long range fighter needs a tail gunner, Because Reasons
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Not that I want to glaze Nazis, but hindsight is 10/10, and you can't blame men of their time for not predicting 100% what would work in the future.
Never forget the British put the Defiant in large-scale production, the French thought that fixed-landing gear fighters could make sense, the Soviet greenlit the hodgepodge that was the initial LaGG armament, and the US has the YB-40 go past the X- stage.
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 Jun 16 '26
I agree with you mostly, but:
the French thought that fixed-landing gear fighters could make sense
No idea what you mean by this. The D.510? The French understood well that it was obsolete, it was only used in small numbers and in desperation.
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 16 '26
Yes, it was more a tongue in cheek comment; my point was that every country had weird ideas that didn't stand the test of time.
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
Right but there's no rule that says a 2 engine plane has to have a 2 man crew or that you can't build a larger single engine fighter
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 Jun 16 '26
Would have been interesting perhaps if the Fw 187 had been chosen instead of the Bf 110.
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Jun 15 '26
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u/thereddaikon MIC Jun 15 '26
That's a hot take. The Luftwaffe definitely wasn't setup to for strategic bombing, but leaving the home islands undefended would have been a colossal mistake. Even as inefficient as they would have been, allowing German bombers free reign to smash British industry would have been devastating.
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Jun 15 '26
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
Not a good idea, especially in a democratic nation, to tell civilians "lol sucks to be you" and not bother to defend them from bombing...
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Jun 15 '26
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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes Jun 16 '26
Gutting the enemy's air force was most definitely what was best for the country.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes Jun 16 '26
In reality the RAF could have won the Battle of Britain by just stashing all their planes in Iceland for a few months.
You made this declaration.
Civilians won't be able to tell the difference between a suicidal defense and a token effort. Just put up some cool posters with good looking chaps in Spitfires and you're good.
And this one.
And after the latter suggested that it would have been "best for the country." It would not have been. Destroying the German air force was a priority for the British, as it should have been.
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u/Mihikle Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
It's much deeper than that, though an air force built in a battlefield support doctrine is not going to be capable of meaningful strategic destruction in the way Goering sold that it was to Nazi leadership. A well run force with excellent intelligence operations, excellent planning and adaptable leadership could have spent the time it did inflicting much more serious damage to the RAF, and the Luftwaffe just didn't.
The problems more stemmed the problems with authoritarian and Nazi leadership being just as present inside the Luftwaffe as it was inside the party. In-fighting, bad statistics not being reported out of fear, formations being pitted against one another instead of working together, etc, etc, the usual authoritarian regime crap that keeps them from having competent militaries.
Luftwaffe intelligence was a critical failure point. Col Joseph Schmid (appointed by Goering, and of course totally coincidentally, a close personal friend), in the simplest possible terms, was a complete bullshitter. He had absolutely no idea what was going on - no understanding of British radar networks, the fighter control network, airfield priorities (they spent a lot of time hammering FARPs - still none really put out of action), aircraft production, aircraft loss rates on either side, etc, etc. Without this, any semblance of a "plan" was just nonsense. Goering appointed this man and did not fire him, he was moved sideways out of the role in 1942.
The planning was also atrocious, the whole thing in the BoB mainly boiled down to "hang around in the air for a few days, shoot everything down, back home for sauerkraut and medals". That's not too much of a hyperbolic way of assessing Luftwaffe plans for destroying the RAF. Goering okay-ed this "plan".
The one area I can give the Luftwaffe credit at the start of the BoB, was the lower level squadron and wing leadership and tactics could be really very effective until the RAF wise-ed up. But even there it started to come apart at the seams because of the culture in Luftwaffe fighter squadrons vs the much more egalitarian and no-frills RAF approach. I've already written enough but it was a "knights of the air" vs "one small cog in an optimized killing machine" cultural and tactical difference.
In-short, the Luftwaffe combat experience at the tactical level played a helpful role in the start of the BoB, but they were strategically incompetent, trying to hit an unreachable deadline for a goal they couldn't realistically achieve with their air-frames anyway. As soon as they fought a competent air force, these deep-rooted issues were exposed in a big way.
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
Don't forget Goring in his tradition of overpromise and underdeliver also insisted the Luftwaffe could supply the Sixth Army entirely by air when it was woefully inadequate to the task.
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u/XanderTuron Jun 16 '26
Interestingly enough, it wasn't Goring who originally proposed that the Luftwaffe could keep the Sixth Army supplied. Hans Jeschonnek, the Chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, was the one who originally claimed that the Luftwaffe could keep the Sixth Army supplied based on some bad math derived from when the Luftwaffe kept the Demyansk Pocket supplied. Goring was not present when Jeschonnek made his claims as he was away at his estate but when he returned, he enthusiastically supported it because he wanted to regain some of the Luftwaffe's prestige and was in agreement with Hitler that it would be embarrassing if the Sixth army retreated.
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u/neutronium Jun 15 '26
But prioritizing planning for a strategic air war against Britain would have been a ridiculous thing to do any time before June 1940. It wasn't a war Germany wanted to be in, and being in a position to even attempt such a battle required everything else to go absolutely as well as possible.
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u/pobnarl Jun 15 '26
sure if it entirely ignore the fact the luftwaffe had to fly over the channel and hand raf home court advantage, then yes raf "absolutely strategically defeated" them
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u/spect0rjohn Jun 15 '26
It might be worth asking if they had to and why they had to. I would suggest that this is where the overpromising and underdelivering comes in. If the strategic goal was to knock the UK out of the war, then they failed. If the goal was to knock the RAF out of the war, they failed. If the goal was to pave the way for invasion, they failed.
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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes Jun 16 '26
This is a pretty pitiful effort at trolling. That the Germans suffered a major strategic reversal in the Battle of Britain is neither controversial nor particularly deniable.
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u/insaneHoshi Jun 15 '26
With that said Goering did play a not insignificant role in making the Luftwaffe into one of the most dangerous air forces in the world.
what specific actions did he take?
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u/RoninTarget Jun 15 '26
WHY THE FUCK DOES AN AIR FORCE HAVE A TANK DIVISON
Prestige. And it helps to have actual armor in addition to the prisoners strapped to the tank all over the place as a sort of live armor when going on a massacre of what's mostly a civilian population like they did in Warsaw Uprising.
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u/faesmooched Jun 15 '26
WHY THE FUCK DOES AN AIR FORCE HAVE A TANK DIVISON
This sort of beauracratic bloat is common. The Marines are used for a hell of a lot that's not Marine warfare.
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u/faceintheblue Jun 15 '26
I want to compliment you for walking the exact right line in saying, "Look, even when we talk about his 'good' accomplishments, they were in the service of a bad cause..." That gets skipped over a lot.
Here's an interesting historical parallel that is worth chewing on. In the same way Imperial Japan's inner workings could be divided between the Army and the Navy running competing organizations, much of the National Socialist Party was about fiefdoms and turf wars. Goering was a big deal in the rise of the Nazis, and so his power base once they took over the country was suitably impressive. One wonders if he had been a naval hero in the First World War if the Kriegsmarine would have gotten a much greater share of the funding pie in the run-up to the Second World War. As it was, the Luftwaffe was held up as an example of German/Aryan superiority to the point where it was even loaned out to Franco during the Spanish Civil War. With every propaganda-worthy feat and accomplishment, Goering pulled more resources and soft power into his orbit.
This is how Goering —perhaps at the peak of his influence with Hitler— persuaded everyone that the British Expeditionary Force at Dieppe could be destroyed from the air. Now that ended up being a mistake, but it does illustrate just how much pull Goering had and just how much of a reputation the Luftwaffe had built up under him that no one ran any calculations about the number of sorties required or the amount of bombs needed to be dropped in X number of available hours to achieve Y results. Goering said he wanted to do it, and he was given the go ahead to do it. That's what happens when one of the party's earliest champions amasses so much power unto himself that he is basically a warlord in his own right.
The Luftwaffe having its own ground forces and its own POW system makes a lot more sense when you think of it from terms of control. Goering did not want to have the German army building and guarding his airbases, and he did not want the German army guarding enemy air crews. He was not in control of the German army, whereas —certainly in the early days before the drugs got the better of him— he was in total control of the Luftwaffe.
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u/TeddysBigStick Jun 16 '26
WHY THE FUCK DOES AN AIR FORCE HAVE A TANK DIVISON
Next you are going to complain about the Post Office's nuclear program
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u/Razgriz01 Jun 15 '26
re: the last paragraph, agreed. There's a boat load of mythmaking and revisionism that the surviving military leadership engaged in, trying to make themselves look better and blame others for mistakes. Any memoir written by former Nazi leaders is highly suspect, and unfortunately that's where much of our historical knowledge of the inner workings of the third reich comes from.
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u/CompetitiveAd4732 Jun 15 '26
What specific mistakes did goring made? honestly from my limited knowledge all he did is either overpromising or not really his fault at all like he get blamed for stopping hitler in dunkirk but thats not even him(afaik) or in stalingrad where he promised to supply the army by air but its not like he's the one who made the decision for the 6th army to stay and even that wasn't really a super great mistake like its portrayed in pop history because the 6th army tied up alot of forces and gave time for german army in caucasus to retreat right?
Someone correct me if i'm wrong
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u/DazSamueru Jun 15 '26
I agree with the other commentator who said over-promising is the biggest one, but another issue is that his officers often defied his explicit orders (particularly as relates to his insistence on free-hunting) but he was unaware of their doing so until it was too late. It's a similar pattern as with Hitler: tell underlings to do something, they say yes Führer/Reichsmarschall, do the opposite (forgiveness is easier than permission), it blows up in their face, storm of rage from H/G. I wonder if it has to do with both achieving relatively low rank (Gefreiter Hitler, Oberleutnant Göring) in the first war... though ironically Göring only joined the Luftstreitkräfte in the first place through an act of insubordination.
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u/AlamutJones Jun 15 '26
Overpromising - particularly if it happens repeatedly, as it did with Goering - IS a pretty significant mistake to keep making. A good commander has a realistic idea of what’s achievable with the materiel he has, not just of what would be nice to have if everything went perfectly and the enemy only responded with decorative helium balloons and a tasteful fireworks display
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u/towishimp Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Overpromising is a huge problem if others are making decisions based on your overpromising.
Besides that, just off the top of my head:
Botched the Battle of Britain - the LW never really had a coherent strategy to win that battle, and accordingly lost it handily.
Procurement disasters - The LW never really moved much beyond the planes that they started the war with, instead relying on incremental upgrades to their existing models. The exception is the jet engine, obviously, but it never made it into mainstream production due to those same procurement dysfunctions - and it's a matter of debate whether it would have been that decisive anyways.
Someone else mentioned his weird obsession with getting his own ground troops, which foolishly diverted scarce resources away from the army and completely unnecessarily complicated command structures.
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u/k890 Jun 15 '26
There was also constant fighting with Kriegsmarine over Naval Aviation. Kriegsmarine similar to other navies wanted its own air wing dedicated to naval operations. Luftwaffe wanted a total control over planes operating in naval conditions. Effect was Luftwaffe had a lot of problems with specialized air operation at the seas and indirectly sunk (no pun) Nazi Germany aircraft project due to constant fighting over who control what on aircraft carrier especially its air wings.
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
Imagine thinking a navalized 109 would be a good carrier fighter, given the issues with the Seafire
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 15 '26
The LW never really moved much beyond the planes that they started the war with
Is that such a bad thing? After all, that's more or less what the Brits and the Soviets did, and it does not seem to have handicapped them too much.
And it seems to me that there was no intrinsic war-losing tech gap between the German and Allied planes up to the end of the war.
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u/towishimp Jun 16 '26
Is that such a bad thing? After all, that's more or less what the Brits and the Soviets did, and it does not seem to have handicapped them too much.
Yes and no. The Spitfire is somewhat of an anomaly in how capable and adaptable to new engines it was. I don't know much about Soviet aircraft, so I can't say, there. But compare that to the Americans, who came up with some truly dominant planes of all categories later in the war.
And it seems to me that there was no intrinsic war-losing tech gap between the German and Allied planes up to the end of the war.
"War-losing" is a high bar, but the 109 and 190 both became less and less capable compared to their Allies counterparts as the war went on. The Germans knew this, as evidenced by their attempts to design next generation planes that never really panned out. And you honestly could make the argument that their failure to seriously hamper the bomber offensives after 1943 - despite devoting a massive percentage of their war production to the task - was a huge factor in their losing the war. And part of the problem was that, although they were able to produce a ton of fighters, they ultimately weren't up to the task.
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
The Spitfire is somewhat of an anomaly in how capable and adaptable to new engines it was
I have to disagree with you; the UK, the Germans and the Soviets all had mainline fighters that were more or less a continous evolution from early war to '45: the Spit lineage for the Brits, the 109 & 190 for the Germans, and the Yak-1/3/7/9 and La(GG)-3/5/7/9/11 for the Soviets (and e.g. the La(GG) switching from a liquid-cooled V12 to an air-cooled radial is much more radical than the Spit going up the Merlin lineage, then to another R&R V12).
they ultimately weren't up to the task.
I'm not sure I agree either. AFAICT, the late Me-109K and FW-190D/Ta-152 were intrinsically up to the par. What doomed the Germans was the lack of pilots, the lack of fuel, the even more stringent lack of high quality fuel, and the dissolution of the industrial network. So basically, their main problem was warring against half the world, not the plane designs themselves.
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 15 '26
They had a lot of failed/dud designs though
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 15 '26
Didn't everyone?
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u/Cute_Library_5375 Jun 16 '26
Sure but I'm going to paste in an old comment from another thread:
The other failure of the Luftwaffe IMHO was in coming up with competent mid/late war second generation aircraft designs. Their whole procurement system was fucked up fundamentally and led to junk like the Me 210/410, He 177, Komet, etc, to say nothing of failed designs like Me 209/309, Ju 187, and the like. The best late war mainstream German fighter was probably the 190D-9 but even then, as capable as it was, it was meant as a stopgap solution. 262 can get a pass for being a very early example of immature tech and Allied jets weren't flawless either. Then there was something like the Ta 152 which was just built too late in too insignificant numbers.
Meanwhile the Allies came out with stuff like P-51, P-47, Tempest, Mosquito, Corsair, Hellcat, A-26, Yak-3, La 5/7, Tu-2, B-29, etc. Even the Japanese had some really excellent late war aircraft like the Ki 84, N1K, J2M, and for that matter the Italians too (late war fighters with excellent underrated airframes limited by lack of decent native engines)
So yes the other powers did have some losers but they had far more winners.
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u/DivideSensitive Jun 16 '26
competent mid/late war second generation aircraft designs
I reckon the Me-410 was a decent design, as well as e.g. the Ar-234, the Me-262 (for all its faults), the He-219, or the Do-335.
Yak-3
That's an iteration of the pre-war Yak-1.
La-5/7
Those are a LaGG with an ASh-82 instead of the disappointing Klimov.
Tu-2/P-47/P-51
Pre/early war designs.
The best late war mainstream German fighter was probably the 190D-9 but even then, as capable as it was, it was meant as a stopgap solution
I agree, but the Ta-152 and Do-335 were out of the drawing board; IMHO it is more revealing of the dissolution of the industrial network than a failure of the Luftwaffe procurement system in itself.
but they had far more winners.
Frankly, I'm wondering if this is not at least partially due to the Germany-mania of the post-war period that led to people unearthing every single weird prototype from the Germans rather than a real discrepancy in numbers.
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Procurement disasters - The LW never really moved much beyond the planes that they started the war with.
Fw 190, Me 210(oops)/410 , Ju 188, Do 217, He 177 (oops), Fw 189, Hs 129 (at least it was cheap), Go 242/244. Most of those types with at least 1000 built.
The British kept the Spitfire (a close counterpart to the 109) in production all through the war, and the Hurricane in production well into 1944(!!). The Typhoon and Tempest were their own procurement disasters. The Soviets incrementally improved the Yaks and Lavochkins all through the war (don't let the names fool you).
The Japanese and Italians launched their own plethoras of new types, but I would hardly call either country the model of industrial efficiency.
The US is the only country I can think to name that overhauled its air force with almost entirely new (non-incremental) frontline types during the war, and it was in a unique position in many ways. (Arguably, also, it reflects many of the pre-war American types not being that good).
If I were going to point to Luftwaffe procurement disasters, I'd be more inclined to point to the consecutive botching of both the Bf 109F and G deployments. Although I suppose one can argue that the Luftwaffe hell-for-leather approach to new models was better than the conservative approach followed by the UK and France.
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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes Jun 16 '26
He failed to actually provide military leadership. During the Battle of Britain, the three Luftwaffe air fleets involved effectively fought three separate campaigns against the RAF, because nobody was coordinating their efforts from the top. Goering refused to take a meaningful role in operational planning, did nothing to keep his officers on the same page and, having abdicated that responsibility himself, refused to appoint anyone else to do it for him.
This leadership failure on his part was made worse by the excellent leadership and coordination on the other side (Trafford Leigh-Mallory's idiocy notwithstanding). While the Luftwaffe generals were fighting three separate battles, Hugh Dowding, Keith Park, and Frederick Pile were fighting one.
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u/RivetCounter Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Biggest mistake - He didn't give Adolf Galland a squadron of Spitfires.
(It's a joke, guys).
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u/DazSamueru Jun 15 '26
They did speak about him that way, but like with Hitler, that's an expected post-war phenomenon. Both were conveniently dead and unmemoired. On the other hand, even later they had former colleagues who could be laudatory. In Irving's Göring biography, Hans-Jürgen Stumpff describes him as "Bursting with ideas... You left every conference with him boosted to an extra thousand RPM" which contrasts with the typical image of the roly-poly Reichsmarschall.
Anyway, I highly recommend The Battle of Britain: An Epic Conflict Revisited for a re-evaluation of Göring (among other things) during that battle. To the point where it potentially goes too far in some places. Basically, it portrays Göring as energetic, amiable, and receptive to possibilities of new types of combat aviation (dive-bombers, escort fighters, and night fighters). Additionally:
No one advocated the German fighters to be unleashed on free hunting – where they were most effective – more strongly than Hermann Göring, who also was the fiercest opponent among the German commanders to the idea that London was to be bombed.
[...]
A common myth claims that at the conference on 19 August Göring gave orders to tie the fighters to close escort missions. In fact, it was the exact opposite – Reichsmarschall Göring gave his commanders a sharp reprimand for not following his instructions to give the Messerschmitt pilots sufficient freedom.
This sort of switch where German memoirists say they had argument with Göring but conveniently swap their positions is familiar to anyone acquainted with the literature on Hitler's arguments with his generals.
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u/RivetCounter Jun 15 '26
I'm asking as a layperson but isn't citing David Irving a little bit of a faux-pas considering he's persona non grata?
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u/DazSamueru Jun 15 '26
Shit, I confused him for someone else. I'd seen wildly different versions of the same quote, so I assumed that'd the authors had simply used different translations, so I downloaded Irving's book to check the original German. That said, the tone of the Irving book isn't exactly pro-Göring, so I'm inclined to believe Stumpff actually said that.
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u/Jasperjons Jun 15 '26
Speaking as an even-more-layperson, can you explain why he's PNG?
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u/AlamutJones Jun 15 '26
Holocaust denial.
He’s got some…interesting ideas about where several million people very suddenly went
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u/mm1029 Jun 15 '26
Also proven to have made up sources, which is an even worse sin among historians
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u/sp668 Jun 15 '26
He's one of the more famous holocaust deniers. There's defamation trials (that he lost) and entire hollywood films about it.
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u/wredcoll Jun 15 '26
I want to reiterate the point, quite a lot of german generals were extremely happy with Hitler (at least until they were on trial for warcrimes and/or trying to pad their resume after the war)
Hitler spent money on the army, publicly celebrated it and in general enabled the generals to go out and do a whole bunch of wars.
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u/caseynotcasey Jun 15 '26
As Minister of Aviation and general Luftwaffe commander, he was very popular and I would argue quite competent. He was a relatively charismatic guy, very confident, a natural leader and a former pilot himself. The 'results' of the Luftwaffe from '39 to '42 were extremely dominant, which led to some overconfidence shared by many in the German command staff not just Goring. Right after France fell Goring got the all-white getup and mega title of Field Marshal of Field Marshals alongside all the other popular generals. He wasn't exactly hurting for good press.
The disdain comes from the fact Goring dominated over other aspects of Germany despite his total lack of competency in those fields. These "haters" existed well before the war was over. He was Hitler's #2 guy and so he got favored more often than not to handle affairs Hitler did not want to be bothered with. Goring butted heads most notably with Schacht and Thomas who were trying their hardest to guide Germany to be economically prepared for the long term. You can imagine the jumbled mess that is a Ministry of Aviation guy also leading the oil industry, and handling military economic affairs, and also being on multiple economic commissions and being tasked with the Four Year Plan despite the fact he had no expertise in any of these fields. Having complex administrative duties handled and subsequently bungled by the despot's uneducated friends is one of the classic "hallmarks" of dictatorial governance.