Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

I appreciate this may not be an easy question to answer, but can anyone give me an estimate of the total Luftwaffe losses during WWII, please (including Eastern Front, Western Front and Mediterranean/North Africa)?

Thanks
Steve

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

Hi, Steve...

Not an easy question to give an exact answer to, but we have some pointers at least. Beware that I will update this as I get back home and can use some of my reference documents that I haven't had time to scan yet!

The Generalquartiermeister of the Luftwaffe high command was to have all losses for the Luftwaffe reported to his unit , in order to gather data for administration of the Luftwaffe aircraft and personnel, in addition to general statistical reasons (I am sure that a few comments will be posted here, there is always someone that post 'but what about this single aircraft that I haven't found in the lists' comments when these threads emerge...).

The last report date for which I have exact numbers in the unit strength reports are January 10th 1945 - at this date the numbers were:

Aircraft :

Total losses (aircraft damaged reported as more than 50%) in frontline units (numbers in brackets indicating school, training and other aircraft allocated to a frontline unit):

In combat: 40613 (1774)
Non-combat: 10457 (1043)

Damaged (aircraft damaged reported as less than 50%) in frontline units (numbers in brackets indicating school, training and other aircraft allocated to a frontline unit):

In combat: 20492 (820)
Non-combat: 15171 (1614)

Total losses (aircraft damaged reported as more than 50%) in schools and other non-frontline units (numbers in brackets indicating aircraft of frontline standard - thus aircraft of a relevant type and configuration for frontline combat use but utilized by a non-frontline unit):

Both in combat and others (most will be non-combat of course): 12442 (5059)


Damaged (aircraft damaged reported as less than 50%) in schools and other non-frontline units (numbers in brackets indicating aircraft of frontline standard - thus aircraft of a relevant type and configuration for frontline combat use but utilized by a non-frontline unit):

Both in combat and others (most will be non-combat of course): 9931 (5537)


So - summing up the frontline units had reported by this date about 61000 combat related losses and 25600 non-combat losses of all types.

Please remember that it does not implicate that they 'lost' 86600 aircraft - we have examples of the same aircraft being reported at least 5 times - with losses ranging from 10% damage due to a landing accidents - up to a final 100% loss in a training unit several years later.

I have som later data also - but have to access my archive before I can post and update.

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

I know that Andreas usualy disregard my questions on particular losses. But that figures invoke two supplementary questions:

1. If the figure is less than 86600 planes up to January 1945, great part is counted as duplicated, first damaged then total loss, where are the rest of the planes produced in 1939-1945?

2. What was the system of writing the plane off due to weary of glider and other parts? What LW documents this figures can be found in?

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

Hi, Nikita

As I have tried to answer you several times earlier - if the government in modern Russia would allow independent researchers access to documents captured by the truckloads and brought to the Soviet Union shortly after the war we might be able to get better figures covering the last part of the war... at least this is a possibility... but I guess we can safely state by now that the culture for sharing information and openness is somewhat limited on that side of the former iron curtain.

With regards to your remark about my willingness to assist with specific questions I will always try to help, but I will also try to underbuild any answers with documents - if none exist I will only be able to speculate. Also - we have seen that especially eyewitness accounts can be inaccurate both with regards to dates, locations and even nationality of the combattants.


1.
As I also stated in my first reply, I will add further information from the archival material that I do not have at hand in digital form later on - covering the losses reported in the timespan January through March 1945.

And also as you may have seen - there were quite a few aircraft left in different states of derelict at airfields all around the former Third Reich after the war ended! The reports from the Generalquartiermeister available - which would in large parts be those archived in more western parts of Germany before the Soviet Union occupied Berlin - stop at April 1st 1945 - thus ALL losses sustained on the ground and in the air where the units did not report these before this date we do not have information on (or what we have is fragmented pieces from other sources).

I cannot see how this is hard to understand?

Also - I did not say that 'great part is counted as duplicated' - I only stated that we cannot count these numbers as one to one - 86600 aircraft listed in the documents is not 86600 individual aircraft totally destroyed.

In addition to this number we would have to add the more than 1000 frontline type aircraft damagend and/or destroyed while operated by training units - giving an approximate total of 97000.

I do not know what production figures you use - but according to estimates I have we could use 33000 Bf 109 and 20000 FW 190 for fighter production - thus a total of 53000 produced. If we state that all these were damaged or lost and add an overhead for some repeated losses for lets say 20% of them we still are at only about 64000 losses - giving room for other aircraft types of frontline types to account for 33000 additional losses up and until about January 10th 1945 (and the war still went on with at least high ground losses for several more months - as a pointer I have about 4500 losses detailed in my database for this period - covering documents filed from end of January through March - the period from April 1st through VE day is not included).

As you do not give any figures with regards to your thoughts it is very difficult to make a real discussion out of this, and I also think that nitpicking about if it was 81000 or 82000 losses is a waste of time.

My only reason to answer Steve Brew was that he obviously would like some information, and I tried to provide what I had from primary sources.


2.
With regards to aircraft written off due to tear and wear these would not be included in the Generalquertiermeister list - these list contain aircraft and personnel damaged or sustaining personal injury due to operations.

My guess is thus that for example a fair percentage of older Bf 109's were scrapped due to structural problems during the later part of the war - and I have no total overview of what documents they left behind - I haven't found that many in the archives yet at least.

I do know that there were general inspections ordered on specific aircraft models (for example He 59 and Ju 52) at given times, where aircraft were assessed and those found to be in a really bad shape taken out of service, broken up for spares or simply scrapped and the relevant raw materials recycled into the industry. This of course happened also to other aircraft - long lists of aircraft in the repair industry which were wrecked exist, and I have a few of them in my archive.


So to conclude this which I suspect will be the start of a longish thread Nikita.... I would rather that we try to dig up as much real info from the ground and different archives and try to piece these together as best as we can - instead of trying to hit each other over the head with numbers. The fact is that neither me nor you can state with any degree of credibility if one or the other number is 'correct'. We can probably hit the ballpark to a certain extent - but nothing more.

As I have understood from earlier dicussions - no central information were compiled by the Soviet forces - thus one have to dig this up and combine it at a low level with regards to unit hierarchy and only hope to be able to find the complete picture.

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

Andreas,

Thanks for the answer. I think you get some of my points in wrong way. I have no intention to accuse somebody of something and speculate in the lack of documents. My point is to get closer to the real image and figures.
As regards to German trophy documents, I, as the majority of other researchers in Russia have to admission to that staff and all I post here or trying to find via personal messages is found in being dispersed through thousands of copies open documents. The core is hidden from me. This is the matter of politics and it is useless to talk it over here.

That is why i'am asking questions on how German system of registering losses worked, how they dealt with spare parts, damaged planes, exhausted gliders, report losses etc. I have clear image on how the system worked in the VVS during the war and have less info from the opposite side, while oftenly I face questions on were the losses reported correctly without any deliberate amendments, and I can not answer them for sure, having lack of knowledge on the topic.

As regards to Soviet side, central information was compiled and we have general figures, while at the same time we have to check them using lower level loss reports and other documents to be sure they are 100% relevant.

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

OK, Nikita

This is my new 'large' project. I have gathered documents on these issues for about 15 years, and have started an article which will cover it.

Hopefully the article will answer most of your questions.

BTW, by exhausted gliders do you mean glider aircraft like the DFS230 and what they did with them after they had been used in an operation?

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

Sorry, used wrong word, should be airframes instead of gliders...
Well, I hope to see your article as soon as possible!

Re: Total Luftwaffe Losses in WWII?
 

Dear Andreas

Thank you for this excellent information. I knew it was not going to be an easy question to answer, so appreciate the time you have taken to post it for me and explain everything.

Two queries, if I may:

1. Are the numbers in brackets (e.g. "In combat: 40613 (1774)") included in the main number, or in addition?

2. Are you aware of any breakdowns available concerning how many of the frontline losses were fighters, bombers, etc., even if only as a rough percentage?

Thanks and regards
Steve