Arming the Luftwaffe

[edwest]

The publisher was remiss in not providing even a projected page count. I do hope that the nuts and bolts as it were, are covered in sufficient detail along with a proportioned view of the slave labor component.

Scheduled for 2012.


http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.p...-0-7864-6521-7



Usual disclaimer,
Ed

[Dénes Bernád]

I checked in other places and indeed, the no. of pages is not given anywhere.
Nevertheless, I placed an order for the book.

[Doug Stankey]

Gentlemen!

My eyebrows were raised a couple of notches when I realized that the "Arming the Luftwaffe" being referred to in the thread was NOT the book that I have had in my posssession since 1978, but a completely different book!

The book I have a copy of is:

Homze, Edward. L. Arming the Luftwaffe (Lincoln, Nebraska:University of Nebraska Press, 1976). ISBN 0-8032-0872-3. - 296 pages - few illustrations

The title is misleading as this is actually about the program management and financial aspects during the build-up years. (A more accurate title might have been "Program Management of the Luftwaffe" but I suspect that this might not leap off the shelves, unless to escape.) Thus far, this is the only book I have seen on this aspect of our favorite subject. I recommend it highly. Mr. Homze is described in the dust jacket as:

A professor of history at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Edward L. Homze is the author of Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (1967) and with Alma Homze, of: Germany: The Divided Nation (1970) and Willy Brandt (1974).

Not mentioned, because it came later, was:

Homze, Edward L. German Military Aviation - A Guide to the Literature (New York: Garland Publishing, 1984). ISBN: 0-8240-9059-4. - 234 pages, no illustrations.

This is a general bibliography of various publications pertaining to the Luftwaffe with commentary from an academic perspective. Interesting, but conspicuously dismissive of technical topics. It is also now terribly dated, as a flood of excellent books has since gushed from the pens of many knowledgeable authors.


Anyway, I thought that the readership should be apprised of this.

DGS

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

Arming the Luftwaffe: The German Aviation Industry in World War II, by Daniel Uziel, is described at McFarland's website at:

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.p...-0-7864-6521-7

This soft cover book runs 312 pages and contains 59 photos. I have known Daniel since 2003. He and I met up at NARA II in 2004 while he had a 1-year fellowship at the NASM. His fellowship topic was the German aircraft industry during the last year of the war, a subject not very well covered and certainly of great interest to me and many others. This book is the culmination of this research as well as research conducted worldwide.

As for the book's title, Daniel wrote to me:

'The title photo is OK now, but the publisher chose the title for the sake of publicity. It does not really reflect the focus of the book and I am afraid that this is the first thing reviewers are going to “kill”.'

So, he's already had his first kill here.

I have helped a bit here and there as I could toward the book, but the vast majority of the research effort credit goes to Daniel. I haven't received my author's copy yet, but I can assure you that the book is well worth your consideration. Anyone who would spend the amount of time Daniel spent in front of the microfilm readers as he did for a year has my empathy and respect.

Regards,
Richard

PS. Corrected the link. Sorry.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Richard T. Eger

'The title photo is OK now, but the publisher chose the title for the sake of publicity. It does not really reflect the focus of the book...

If not German aircraft production then what is the actual focus of the book? I have pre-ordered it, thinking that I will have a general overview of German aviation industry, with lots of 'juicy' details (precise production figures, including sub-types, W.Nr. blocks, etc.)..

P.S. The bookseller (www.thebookdepository.co.uk) just informed me that the book is on its way to me.

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Dénes,

The book is out, so it shouldn't be all that long before you have it. My copy will be coming from Israel, so it is going to take a while before I see it.

While it would be nice to have specific production figures and Werk-Nr. lists by aircraft type, my guess is that that isn't what the focus of the book is about. Rather, I expect the book to take us through the history of the evolution of how aircraft got from the initial proposals to actual production, which varied during the war. Uziel had focused very heavily in his research on the He 162, as he considered this essentially the final refinement of this process. The fact that, like the U.S. P-80, it was turned out in an amazingly short time speaks toward the refinement of the process. Add to this that its development and set up for production came at the very end of the war when resources were severely taxed/limited by the crushing Allied efforts and its quick evolution is really remarkable. Now, this is not to say that the design/concept, itself, wasn't flawed, which it certainly was, but just speaks to the manufacturing process, itself.

Regards,
Richard

[Jukka Juutinen]

Richard, the link seems not to work. Anyway, even if the book concentrates on the last year of the war, it will interest me...

Edit: Ed's link works, but not Richard's...

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Jukka,

I had hand copied the link and failed to include part of it. It is now fixed.

Regards,
Richard

[Jukka Juutinen]

Why applaud a historian due to a referral to The Simpsons?

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

I have now read Daniel Uziel's book and can highly recommend it to those interested in the German aviation industry. The chapter numbers are the ones provided by McFarland. Daniel's list to me is moved up one number for some unknown reason.

Chapter 1 provides the buildup of the German aircraft industry in the 30's. In perspective, Germany was in the throes of the great depression and, to add to its misery, still owed reparations to the Allies for WW I. Life, to say the least, was not easy. Hitler came into power in 1933 and virtually immediately ramped up the aviation industry. The period was the golden age for Germans working in the industry, with housing and other needs provided by the manufacturers. The improvement in worker's living standards was significant.

Chapter 2 basically gives an overview of the air war up until "Big Week". It hits the high points of key bombing raids affecting the industry. It ends with very short descriptions of the key aircraft. This chapter could have been expanded significantly and I was left with a feeling of wanting more.

Chapter 3, to me, is the heart of the book. Entitled "Reorganization of Aircraft Production", Uziel covers in detail the changes in the power structures during the last year and a half of the war as the general situation deteriorated. This is covered in the greatest detail that I have seen and yet, because of my interest, I wanted more. The last year is an especially difficult period to write about because of the difficulty of finding records. Having spent a year teasing out records at the NARA II and the NASM archives, not to lessen input from other sources, Uziel provides us with 426 references, the vast majority of them being primary material.

Chapter 4, "From Technological Expertise to Slave Labor", I began with great trepidation. One key point that Uziel makes is that Germany, even without the bombing, was short the required manpower to produce the aircraft it needed. With the war initiated, the meatgrinder of manpower became a fact of life. The war with Russia required repeated raiding of the country's manpower pools, including the aviation industry. Replacements for this lost manpower were brought in from other countries with 1-year contracts being provided. Also, efforts were made to utilize aviation companies in the conquered countries, but the results weren't all that successful. Heinkel was the first to consider the use of slave labor but, to do that, the SS had to be brought into the picture, as it was the last bastion of available labor. Himmler was only too happy to agree. And thus, the concentration camps became the source of replacement labor. As you might expect, treatment of this source of labor was pretty abominable, with long hours, little food, poor housing, and harsh treatment. With the SS guards, there was simply beastiality, beatings and ill-treatment for the slightest supposed rule infraction or failure to perform as expected. Uziel cites that treatment varied from deploable to passable. In general, treatment was better in auxiliary camps set up near the factories, while the worst generally occurred at the base camps.

Chapter 5, covering daily life in the factories, appears to be primarily from survivors' accounts. It does not cover production details, per se.

In both chapters 4 and 5, Uziel covers the treatment of concentration camp inmates with remarkable restraint. He provides the facts without doing what I would call "Nazi-bashing", just letting the situations speak for themselves without any particular color commentary.

Uziel concludes his book with a case study of the He 162. I know personally that the He 162 was particularly fascinating to him and thus he chose it, rather than the Me 262, as his case study. I have chided him in this, but he has argued that the Me 262 has been so heavily covered in other books that he wanted to put the focus rather on the He 162. As a matter of fact, this being my favorite topic, I was a bit chagrined that the Me 262 did not receive more attention. That isn't to say he has not covered it, but that the coverage is fragmented and rather incomplete. He also has taken an interest in the He 177 and goes into great detail on its long and difficult history.

It's an excellent book and will provide the reader with much background on the German aviation industry not found elsewhere.

Regards,
Richard