Arming the Luftwaffe

[edwest]

Dear Richard,


I did not mean to imply Nazi bashing. My parents were taken from their villages in 1939 and were transferred to Germany as "forced laborers." Though they were not involved in the production of war materiel, they were there partly to replace those in uniform, and helped keep the infrastructure in Germany running. After the attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944, he began to distrust the Army leadership and began transferring some functions to the SS, and by the end of the war, giving plenipotentiary powers to SS General Dr. Ing. Hans Kammler who was involved with forced labor.


Regards,
Ed

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Ed,

My view on Kammler's assignment represented a total frustration by Hitler that what he wanted to get accomplished simply wasn't happening fast enough for him with the existing structure. To some extent, this frustration was justified. Take, for instance, the Organization Todt (OT). The OT was so heavily burdened with bureaucratic red tape that simply getting lumber supplied to finish off the Me 262 Waldwerk at Schwäbisch Hall took months.

I regret to hear of your own family's involvement. Some of my own relatives perished in the camps or were hunted down and killed. It was a pretty dark side to the Third Reich.

Two other worthy books on the subject are:

The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps, by Michael Thad Allen.

Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen: Düsenflugzeuge und Flugabwehrrakaten in der Rüstungspolitik des Dritten Reiches, by Ralf Schabel

I think it is Allen's book in which the schizophrenia of the Third Reich on this topic is clearly laid out. On the one hand, as you say, Germany needed laborers to replace those siphoned off by the war, while on the other hand, extermination of the Jews, the Final Solution, was in direct conflict with production needs. Even Göring was pretty powerless to stop the bleeding off of men to the fronts, as conscriptions would take place in the middle of the night before any legal actions could be put into place to prevent them. And, arguments to prevent the killing of the needed manpower likely were only partially successful. I believe, too, that there was a distinction between slave laborers and forced laborers.

Dénes, the German aviation effort wasn't just about aircraft types, subtypes, numbers built, Werknummern, and the like. Real people were involved in very difficult situations. Their story is as much an important part of the history of the Luftwaffe as the aircraft. The politics involved makes for very fascinating reading.

Regards,
Richard

[edwest]

Dear Richard,


Thank you for your comments. I think then, this book should have a subtitle with words like politics in it. If this is mainly about bureaucratic rivalries, red tape, incompetence, interservice rivalries (for men and materiel), and the exploitation of human beings, it should have a subtitle like: Arming the Luftwaffe: Politics, Bureaucracy and the Human Cost. Look at the V-2: the Army considered it a piece of artillery, the Luftwaffe wanted control since it flew through the air and was not shot from a cannon, and then the SS gained final control.

Hitler made it clear in Mein Kampf that 'living room' was required, so killing the üntermensch and other undesirables made sense. Eugenics was all the rage in the United States and made its way to Europe. I recall watching a newsreel where German 'scientists' were using calipers to measure the size of the head and position of the features of a genetically inferior person.



Regards,
Ed

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Ed,

I think the book is more than that. As I said, I haven't seen it yet and can only go by earlier papers I have seen.

Regards,
Richard

[Dénes Bernád]

Richard, you're absolutely right. Aircraft were assembled by workers, production was organized by specialised institutions, and so on. Not to mention politics.
The same way, aircraft were flown by real men, who after exiting the cockpit (if returned from combat) had a full life, with many turns and tweaks worth of telling.

Yet, one must draw the line if he/she wants to focus on a specific detail, if he/she (hopes) to achieve something lasting. That's why I was primarily looking for the production figures side of the story and ordered the book solely based on its title and sub-title.

OT. With the risk of starting a flame war - as the very topic is sensitive and any attempt to touch it a different way usually causes heated debates and accusations of anti-this, anti-that - I must mention that the slave labour in the Soviet Union is not covered, by far, as detailed as the one in the IIIrd Reich (not to mention the Holocaust). This, in spite of the fact that slave labour was more common and work camps, with conditions as harsh as under the Nazi regime, were much more numerous in the USSR than in Hitler's Germany. And they lasted much longer, too. This generates a feeling of unbalanced/biased view of history.

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Dénes,

I have to admit my view of the Soviet camps was of postwar and frankly I am ignorant of their wartime camps. Maybe a history of these, too, is out there or needs to be written.

I alerted Daniel to our thread here and he has offered a more complete view of the contents of his book:

Introduction

2. The Aviation Industry at War

2.1 Organization of the Industry
2.2 The Aviation Industry and the German Society
2.3 From Work Benches to Production Lines – Production Methods
2.4 Outsourcing – Aviation Production in Occupied and Allied Countries

3. The Aviation Industry and the Air War
3.1 Towards the Abyss – The War of the Luftwaffe
3.2 From the Battle of Britain to "Big Week" – Allied Attacks on the Luftwaffe and the Aviation Industry
3.3 New and Old Technologies

4. Reorganization of Aircraft Production
4.1 New Bosses
4.2 Type Reduction
4.3 Flight of Fantasy – Late War Research and Development
4.4 Dispersal
4.5 Moving Underground

5. From Technological Expertise to Slave Labor
5.1 Germany's Manpower Crisis
5.2 Foreign Workers and Slave Labor in the Aviation Industry
5.2.1 Early Enterprises
5.2.2 Turning Forced Labor into an Industry Standard

6. On the Production Lines – Daily Life in the Factories
6.1 General Working Conditions
6.2 German Workers
6.3 Foreign and Slave Workers

7. The “People’s Fighter” Production as a Case Study of a Late War Program

8. Conclusions

Yes, I know the chapter numbers don't line up with what is on McFarland's site, but that is what he supplied to me. Daniel does note, in regard to specific aircraft programs, that he did highlight the Ta 154, He 343, outsourcing, etc.

Regards,
Richard

[DavidIsby]

Just received this. Looks good.

Smaller than Budrass' study that still dominates the field, it appears to be the best thing in English. Unlike Budrass, gives attention to the late-war situation. THis books' case study, of the He 162, makes a good book-end to Budrass' use of the Ju 88 as his case study.

Labor issues (including slave labor) are central to his story, but this is not a book about survival on the production line (I recommend Livia Bitton-Jackson's account of her time at Augsburg for that).

Drew heavily from sources at the US National Archives, Freiburg, and NASM. Alas, did not seem to have used the Messerschmitt and Milch FD microfilm documents at the IWM (now at Duxford). There is stuff there that does not appear elsewhere (and reminds one to use Irving's biography of Milch with care). Plus you've got to applaud a historian who includes an episode of The Simpsons in his footnotes.