[Boris Ciglic]

Dear Dan,

"The charge of "historical revisionism" may have been considered appropriate in a meeting of an Eastern block Communist party, but such an attack only invites contempt in the civilised world."

So, I must be a Party bureaucrat coming from a Eastern Block country attacking academic from a civilized world who made public a conclusion which has nothing to do with academical historical research whatsoever. This gives me a hint that you might have been influenced by prejudices even before you started your research.

"You are entitled to strongly disagree with my conclusions, but you are not entitled to adopt the Soviet position, "I have not read it, but I condemn it"."

My position comes from decades of reading and learning. And you are wrong, I read your conclusion (and intro at "The Luftwaffe") and it is "Western air power defeated the Luftwaffe and therefore enabled the USSR to survive". I respect your effort of going to BA and producing a study in the first place, but if this is the supreme result of your work, it speaks for itself.

"I invite you to read my study in order to see the evidence that Western air operations drew critically important Luftwaffe resources away from the Eastern front. This can be seen particularly clearly during both the battle of Moscow and the battle of Stalingrad. German flying units were withdrawn from the Eastern front and redeployed to the Mediterranean before both of these Soviet counter-offensives."

OK, before reading your study, let's see the long list of Luftwaffe fighter units withdrawn from the central section of the Eastern Front and redeployed to Med in the autumn of 1941:
1. Stab JG 3
2. II./JG 3
3. III./JG 3
4. Stab JG 27
5. III./JG 27
6. III./JG 53

And that would be it, 168 Bf 109s at Sollstarke, or in reality some 120 operational machines that could have changed the outcome of the war and of the battle involving millions of armed men! But, even for these, there is a small glitch: each of these units was withdrawn to the Reich for rest and re-equipment but when the weather deteriorated to such an extent in the east, decision was taken to send some to the Med for time being. So the JG 3 returned to the east in 1942.
And another note: from the five Ju 88 groups dispatched against Malta in late 1941, none came from the Moscow front.

For the Unternehmen Taifun HGr. Mitte had 14 Panzer divisions, 8 motorized divisions, 46 infantry divisions, 6 security divisions and single cavalry division, some 500 operational aircraft, altogether cca. 1.5 million combatants on its strength. What impact did the "Western air power" had on these men? How did it save USSR from defeat in its most critical hour? How in the earth could you draw the conclusion which you did?

Shall I go in details about Stalingrad? Just compare the size of DAK at the time of Second El Alamein Battle and Axis forces at Stalingrad.

Hi Remi,

"The thousands of high experimented crews lost over Britain in 1940, a very very great help to the soviets even if the ..event stated place one year before, to say simple Germany against Britain, nd I dont speak of France, no match, Germany against Russland no match, Germany against America, it's worth some bet, no need to go in the détails for all these questions."

Yes, and the gallant resistance of Poland, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Greece... All of them contributed to the victory against the Axis and made the job easier for the Brits, Soviets, and later Americans. But lump assertions won't help us understand the greatest undertaking in mankind history. Otherwise you personally wouldn't have spent thousands of hours in NA, BA and other archives.

Back in school, we in ex-Yugoslavia were taught that the assault on our country in April 1941 postponed Unternehmen Barbarossa for crucial six weeks and this was what enabled Red Army to make it by the arrival of winter. It sounded so nice, our great defeat had a meaning, our sacrifice ultimately saved the world. Of course, now I know that it was as far from truth as the above mentioned sentence involving the Western air power.

Boris