research - Lw. quarter master lists

[Stijn David]

Hello,


Is it correct that the Lw. Quartermaster lists (Return iof Aircraft losses) for the year 1944 are no longer in existence? I asked the IWM and received the lists for the year 1943 and 1945. 1944 is missing.

Are there besides these lists also listings about the losses of the ground losses known?

Cordial greetings and thanks in advance,

[John Beaman]

We do not know if the 1944 material loss records are no longer in existence or not. They have never been found. So, the odds of them being in an obscure or unkown depository somewhere are pretty small.

The personnel records for 1944 do exist although they are not complete. So, some aircraft losses can be gleaned from these, but of course include only aircraft that were involved where the pilot was wounded, killed or bailed out, not just damaged where the pilots were not a result of the previous conditions.

I am not familiar with where the Luftwaffe ground losses are, or access to them, but I think someone here on the Board does.

[Jim P.]

Check Nick Beale's "Ghostbombers" site (pegged at the top of this board). He's got some neat 1944 documentation that he's gleaned from Allied Intel reports, including some JG 26/JG 27 ground losses.

[edNorth]

Yes, some losses can be found in HW 5/xxxx (Ultra) series at TNA.
Mostly France, possibly relayed by radio as landlines were severed.
But hundreds of volumes in all (1940/1945), thusands of pages just for 1944.

[Larry deZeng]

What about the sogennant summarische Verlustmeldungen? These are reputedly extant for 1944, although they do not provide the level of detail the Gen.Qu.(6.Abt.)/Genst.d.Lw. Verlustmeldungen do. Nevertheless, I believe one or two of our Norwegian members led by Andreas Brekken are transcribing these digitally because they are handwritten. These give the unit, the date of the loss, the aircraft type, the loss category (shot down, crashed, destroyed on the ground, etc. - 21 categories in all), but no locations.

L.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, all

The Summary loss records are indeed existing for 1944. The so-called Strichlisten are also in existance for the period up and until November 1944.

I will reply to your PM during the weekend, David.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andreas Brekken]

PS!

WIth regards to the lost 1944 material loss record - my hope is that we will still see these eventually. The reason being that there are still uncataloged items even at the BA/MA in Freiburg - and also in other locations around the globe.

This holy grail of Luftwaffe loss record research was not made out in one single copy - if you look at the Verteiler for these listings for January 2nd 1944 - the last known date available to the public from the archives - it has the following copies:

1. Reichsmarschall
2. Statssekr.d.Luftf.u.Gen.Insp.d.Lw & Generalluftzeugmeister
3. Lw.Führungsstab Ia
4. - 6. L.P. Chefabteilung
7. - 8. L.P. I/IV
9. Gen.d.Fliegerausbildung
10. Chef Nachschub d.Lw. (2.Abt)
11. Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt.(III)
12. - 13. Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt.(V)
14. Entwurf

My assumption is that for some of these units, these reports would be interspersed inbetween other daily reports made out to the different parts of the central command structure - that is how we have found other information while researching amongst other sources the Von Rohden collection.

Most of these units were of course in Berlin - and we have reports that enormous amounts of documents are still in untouched state in the former Soviet Union. My source for this being researchers of the Holocaust allowed to research archives in the Soviet Union in the early 2000s when they themselves opened sealed document bags brought out of Berlin and unopened after that.

So there is still hope that someday they will resurface. It is only probably 5 - 10000 pages in total we are talking about. Not a large amount of paper when compared to the lorry loads that were seized by the different allied armies.

Regards,
Andreas B

[edNorth]

Greatest content PS post in long time I have seen. Thanks.
Can this be verified, and locations indentifed?
I once heard such document hoards (full warehouses) of unsorted USN papers
from WW2, did exist in the eighties. -Ed

[Larry deZeng]

Two P.P.S.s to Andreas' P.S.

First, it appears from the Verteiler-Liste that L.P. (Luftwaffenpersonalamt) received 5 copies in all. The Luftwaffenpersonalamt had all of their documents dated after early October 1944 with them when they evacuated Berlin for South Germany and handed them all over to the Allies in June 1945. These amounted to about 160 tons of documents and they were all transported to the Captured Documents Library on Monck Street, London, during fall 1945. This cache of treasure was all catalogued there, but the 1944 Gen.Qu. Verlustmeldungen were not part of the loot. This is all documented in British Air Ministry A.I.12/USAFE reports for 1945-46 available at AFHRA Maxwell AFB, Montgomery/Alabama. So, 5 copies but not one of them survived? All 5 were destroyed, lost or stolen? That seems hard to believe.

Secondly, the so-called Special Archive in Moscow that Andreas referred indirectly to does indeed hold a lot of unprocessed and uncatalogued captured German documents with the estimated amount ranging from 80 cubic feet, to "shelf after shelf", to "hundreds of boxes". The director of the Special Archive has been quoted as saying that the Luftwaffe material isw "of little value", and that's why the Archive has not made resources available to catalog it. MGFA in Potsdam (formerly in Freiburg) tried making funds and personnel available to microfilm and catalog the documents but the negotiations fell through. That was about 10 years ago.

L.

[Norbert Schuchbauer]

Hi,
the ground losses reside in RL 2 III 785 through RL 2 III 809. Dates are from 01-Jul-43 to 01-Apr-45. Mostly Luftwaffe ground units like Flak and Fallschirmjäger.

Regarding the Russian records. They may soon be useless since they are not stored in conditioned rooms and the paper is deteriorating quickly. Has to with the way paper was made in those days. Another reason for the reluctance to allow anybody to visit may be the fear of discovering something that they rather keep secret. Just my 5 cent.

Regards,
Norbert