Materiale Verlusten

[Peter Kassak]

Hi All,

I have a question. Can someone point me to the right direction and correct signature(s) where one can research or obtain Materiale Verlusten of Luftwaffe units? Are they sorted by unit or by time period? I am looking for some data about damaged planes that had no casualty on board.
THANKS

[Nick Beale]

Department of Documents, Imperial war Museum, London has them on microfilm.

They way they are "organised" appears to be by the day the reports were received in the Air Ministry. So, the reports for 15 February 1945 (or whatever) would mostly cover losses over the previous few days. But some units only filed after a delay, or waited and filed a whole bunch at one time, covering a long period. Between sections there are often lists of corrections (typos etc.), addition of missing details and updates, e.g. a missing person has been found, or a wounded one has since died.

[Peter Kassak]

Thanks Nick.
Any idea where they are at BAMA Freiburg? And are teh MATERIALE VERLUSTEN also with personal entries of lost/wounded airmen?

Thanks

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Peter

Where to begin... the documents that are stated to be Materialverluste are the same documents that we all know as the Generalquartiermeister reports.

As Nick correctly states, for the first period of the war these documents carried the title "Flugzeugunfälle und Verluste bei den Verbänden am 10.4.1940" for the document filed on April 12th 1940.

Later on the RLM and Generalquartiermeister saw that there was no sense in using these titles, as even if the regime was to file the loss reports the same day, this was often not the case in practice, and the subsequent reports were filled with so-called "Nachträge" - addendums. The name of the document was then changed to "Flugzeugunfälle und Verluste bei den Verbänden" only.

I do not know what you are looking for specifically, but the RL signatures for the above mentioned documents are mentioned on my site which still exist on www.stormbirds.com/eagles

I would however advise you, given that you are looking for information in the timespan 21.6.1941 to 31.1.1945 to contact me, as I have a better finding tool for losses from this period

Regards,
Andreas B

[Peter Kassak]

thanks, for clearing this out. I thought it may be the GeQue6 source...but was not sure.
regards

[Nick Beale]

Just to add that I ran across a patch in mid-1943 where the lists included battle casualties in parachute and Flak units as well.

[C.Moeller]

Hello Peter,

most probably you mean the summarised loss-lists?
These are stored in BA-MA RL 2 III 813ff.

There are files for personnel losses in 813 to 842 and files for material (plane) losses in 843 to 872. The files are sorted by units, e.g.:
821: personnel losses of Störkampfgruppen
844: material losses of Nahaufklärungsgruppen 1 to 102
858: material losses of Nachtschlachtgruppen 1 to 20

You can find the signatures of the material losses here:
http://www.gyges.dk/files_in_das_bundesarchiv.htm
-> click on Fragments from many RL, pdf, 54kb

The lists rarely mention the plane type and look like this:
27 January 1943: one plane missing during combat mission, reported on 31 January 1943.
The according personnel loss list would be:
27 January 1943: two missing during combat mission...


Hope that helps.

Best regards,

Christian


Dr. Christian Möller
www.nachtschlacht.com
www.nachtschlacht.de

[Peter Kassak]

Thanks a LOT!

[C.Moeller]

You are welcome!

But please note my post on the closed BA-MA files.
These include the summarised losses, I´m afraid.
Except microfilm/microfiche: BA-MA RL 2 III-852, summ. material loss list of JG 1 to 11.

Christian