[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Ed,

"Slave Labor and the Luftwaffe" would be a very inappropriate title for this book. Much of the book does not deal with the use of slave labor. The book does, however, focus heavily on the lack of available manpower and the various efforts to fill the gap, with slave labor being the last resort.

As for choosing the He 162 for his case study, Uziel's choice can be understood from the standpoint that it represented the final refinement in aircraft development and production management. Now, the use of the word "refinement" is somewhat misleading. If, for instance, this was not a wartime situation and Germany had the luxury to constantly improve the efficiency of its manufacturing methods, which is really what is going on in the world today, then his choice would be fitting. However, the whole cycle for the He 162 began about Sept. 1944 and the compression of the cycle was more a result of Germany's desperate situation. Planning for its mass production began long before the first test aircraft flew, meaning that modifications were constantly taking place in the production process, including retrofitting. It was a good example of how things were set up with limited resources in time, people, materiel, and transportation, although it appears that this and the entire production industry suffered from the collapsing transportation network.

The Me 262 might have been a better choice for illustration, although, while its gestation was rather long, it, too, entered service with much yet to be worked out.

As an aside, the work reported here reminds me of the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." In the movie, one of the Pythons in battle loses one limb after another, but continues to fight on, done so from a humorous standpoint. It was not so humorous for Germany, but the parallel is dead on. Germany's situation also parallels another movie from the early 1950's, "This Island Earth". Here, visitors from another planet try to enlist the aid of earth scientists to help them prevent the loss of their planet to an opponent. After establishing the premise and setting up a base here on earth, and urgent message comes from their home planet to come quickly, as the situation has become critical. The ship with the earth scientists arrives, but it is too late, as the visitor's planet is at the same stage of its war as Germany was in early May 1945. The crew of the ship does the honorable thing and returns the scientists to earth, their cause lost. The scenes of the losing war parallel what we have seen in newsreel footage of the last days of the Reich. The book intimately gives you the feel of the decline and desperate efforts to ward off the inevitable.

I would suggest that you buy the book, read it, then come back with your assessment. I've done my best to try to give everyone a decent idea as to what the book is about.

Regards,
Richard