NSFK Losses ?
 

Does anyone know the mechanism by which the NSFK reported its glider and aircraft losses ? Is there any surviving documentation ?

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Hi Steve,

In all my years of trawling through the surviving Luftwaffe records, I have never seen any NSFK material or loss lists. This is no surprise as the NSFK was a Party formation. Accordingly, what documents exist may be part of the Party records which, I think, are in the Bundesarchiv repository at Koblenz.

L.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Thanks. Pretty much what I suspected. There seem to be a few bits and pieces amongst the NS Record Group which I understand is held at the BA Berlin-Lichterfelde.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

You are probably right about B-Lichterfelde. BA has been moving stuff around since 1991 and I haven't kept up with it.

Do you happen to know if the large collection of TR records captured by the Russians and held in the Moscow Special Archive was ever returned to Berlin, or whether permission was ever granted for BA to microfilm it? Both options were still under negotiation in 2003 or so when I lost track of it so I am in the dark regarding the ultimate outcome.

L.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Larry - I've not heard anything. I caught up with Andrew Arthy on Saturday as he nears the end of his UK vacation and he mentioned that a number of captured WW1 KTBs had been made available online. I can't give you a link though but it might be a glimmer for us.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Thanks, Steve. Yes, I heard about the big Pub party you, Andrew, Martin P. and Paul Thompson were at this past weekend. They say the London breweries had to lay on a night shift to try and build back inventory after you 4 drank 'em dry. :D

L.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Not at my age with my bladder !

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Hello Steve,

Saw your posting and as vintage gliders are one of my interests (I have too many interests as you know), I made enquiries about registers of German glider pilot licenses and pre-war registrations.

During these searches I came across losses as recorded in the Flugzeugunfälle bei den Schulen und sonstige Verbände (RL 2 III/769-780). But... given the amount of gliders in wartime Germany these references IMHO are only a fragment of the accidents and losses among NSFK gliders: 301 accidents/losses for the time span between 12 September 1940 and 15 September 1944 can't be the whole story I guess.

Most rewarding in these records, were a few occasions where a bombed hangar was packed with gliders. One such disaster: on 13 March 1944 a hangar collapsed at Fl.Pl.Hornberg which destroyed 14 gliders (11 Grunau Baby's and 3 SG.38's) of the NSFK Gruppe 15.

All the best, Marcel

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Hi Marcel,

I went through all of the Schulen losses on BA-MA microfiche about 24 years ago and don't recall the NSFK reports. But then it was a long time ago and perhaps I just didn't pay attention to them because they were not what I was looking for. However, I still wonder about these because the A/B Schulen also had gliders. With the exception of the Mar 44 NSFK Gruppe 15 incident that you mentioned, did the reports clearly identify the losses with specific NSFK formations?

Larry

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Marcel - Thanks for your response. I'd be interested in your answer to Larry's query as well as it's a long time since I worked through the Schulen Losses and I only did so with a narrow frame of reference. If there are some in there, then that is interesting but it's hard to believe this is all of them.

My query was one of those odd off the top of the head moments which occur from time to time. I am aware that NSFK aircraft are reported in the Flugzeugbestand listing but whereas there seem to be quite a number of fixed wing aircraft, there seem to be precious few gilders.

I'm still a long way from understanding this fully and hoped someone out there had a far better grasp.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Steve,

in the two known GQM listings only aircraft belonging to the Luftwaffe are included.

The NSFK was a para military organisation, all their aircraft have had civil registrations. These were not included in the GQM listings. The same applies for example to Lufthansa aircraft.

Until mid of 1939 registrations removed from the civil register were published in the monthly publication "Nachrichten für Luftfahrer". But this is only a list of registrations without any details for the reason. I've found no gliders in these lists.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Hello Steve, Larry and Merlin,

Enclosed all references to NSFK losses/accidents, taken from the RL 2 III 769-780 GQM listings. Whether these reports do obey the assumed rule that NSFK losses were not recorded in the GQM listings, is beyond my knowledge: I just present the data taken from the GQM listings 'Verluste bei den Schulen und sonstige Verbände'.

Have fun! Best regards, Marcel

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

This is interesting because this represents misreporting as well as misrecording. It's clearly nothing like the totality of the losses as there's not a single fixed wing aircraft amongst this lot.

As I mentioned in my earlier posting, the 1944 Flugzeugbestand listing contain information on numbers of fixed wing aircraft operated by the NSFK as well as detailing numbers of flights and hours of air time so activity was still quite high but absolutely bugger all for gliders. I don't know that we'll get to the bottom of this but it's certainly got me intrigued.

Re: NSFK Losses ?
 

Hello Larry and Steve

Thank you for the comments. We don't disagree about that these 38 can't be the total of NSFK losses over such al long time and indeed, misreporting/misrecording could be an explanation for this.

To be more specific: those 38 were the NSFK related accidents/losses among about 300 glider accidents/losses in total, taken from the GQM lists. Even those 300 is a very low figure, compared to the fleet of German gliders in the Third Reich.

Unfortunately, lack of time prevents me to put more effort in this subject, I am very busy with other projects.

All the best, Marcel