Luftwaffe over Germany - available?

[John Manrho]

Don Caldwell still visits the board, as can be easily tracked by the virtues of the possibilities of this board. I also checked his posting on Vol. II of JG 300. Nothing wrong with that. As soon as someone has published his data it is in the open and can be used by everyone as long as properly quoted (what Don said he would do in his post). The fact that the English version of Vol. II is so much delayed should be blamed on the publisher.

Cheers,

John.

[Ruy Horta]

Let's keep this constructive.

Even if his research is based, in part, on previously published material it still depends on how it is implemented and finally presented. The end result can still be original and a valuable addition to any collection.

Regardless how he does it, I expect Caldwell to deliver a well written book on the subject of Reichsverteidigung. This expectation is such that the book has been placed on my pre-order list. A critical reappraisal can always be delivered after reading it...

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by John Manrho

As soon as someone has published his data it is in the open and can be used by everyone as long as properly quoted ....

John you are (so) right ...and I agree with your last too Ruy..

[FalkeEins]

haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else yet ....similar subject and somewhat bigger if the blurb is anything to go by...a new 500-page tome due this month from Bernard & Graefe

Die Reichsverteidigung 1943-1945. Die Luftwaffe in der Defensive von Dieter Hölsken

[Jukka Juutinen]

Is this the same Dieter Hölsken who wrote the big book on the V-2 for Monogram?

[Don Caldwell]

Hello all:

The book should have reached the UK by now and will be in stores there shortly. The American copublisher, MBI, gets its books from Greenhill instead of directly from the printer, which explains the "May" date quoted by Amazon. Rich and I argued successfully to get the swastikas removed from the cover so that it can be displayed in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent. We're hoping for wide distribution of the book. As for its quality, readability, completeness of citations, etc., I'd recommend at least waiting for some knowledgeable reviews, rather than bickering about something you haven't seen. Ruy will be getting a review copy, so you can badger him to review it.

I've been very busy with this book for the past couple of years, but should have more time in the future for this forum. I was put off by the complexity of its new format for a while, but that was my problem, and I've overcome it. There does seem to be less exchange of information than there used to be, and more petty bickering, which I don't like at all. I've observed and mentioned previously that many of the squabbles seem to originate in language misunderstandings. Native English-speakers need to avoid slang and jargon. Some of the rest of you use expressions that are stronger and more insulting in English than you may intend. More use of dictionaries by the contibutors will save all of us a lot of time.

Horrido!

Don

[Jukka Juutinen]

You can freely display books with swastikas (Finnish or German) on the cover in Finland. So far we have not been polluted by Fischer-Merkelianism.

Waiting for those reviews with interest, BTW!

[Griffon]

it is no problem to display books with this black thing on it here in Austria either.
it has to be a scientific publication though and has to have an appropriate ISBN number I was told by my bookdealer.

anyhow, I am looking forward to that new book-should be available here in Vienna in about one weeks or two I was told, depending on how fast the transport agencies can get back into business after the Easter holidays

[Peter D Evans]

...and for those in the UK who are also members of the Military & Aviation Book Society (or any BCA Book/Video Club I think), you can pre-order this volume for £17.99 (+P&P) using the order code 4721254...

Kind regards,

Peter D Evans
LEMB Administrator

[FalkeEins]

..my copy has arrived and I've been dipping in and out of it ever since. My comments & concerns earlier on this particular thread aren't really valid at all.. in fact I'd go so far as to ask why the authors would want to use older sources such as Jung, Hennig & Bethke or Rose - as they do on occasion when dealing with JG 300...Bretschneider downed by flak on 24 December 44 ? - thats from Hennig & Bethke I guess..the Kommandeur of the 'newly-formed' IV./JG 300 lost on 17 December..? Maj. Heino Offterdinger survived the war - pictures of his 'Green 45' taken in March 1945 feature in the JG 300 book. Elsewhere the account of Walfeld's II./JG 300 ramming on 11 September is taken from Dahl - unfortunately Wahlfeld (spelling) was a Sturmstaffel pilot and this incident occured in January or March 1944 and was featured on the cover of an edition of the Berlin Illustrierte. Similarly the G-6 photo taken from Jung on P234 is not 'Yellow 2' in the fall of 1944 but 'Red 12' in the summer of 43 at Hangelar..

Enough nit-picking- the JG 300 stuff is only a very small part of the whole. It would be very churlish of me not to say that I'm enjoying this. The book is relatively large format, 320 pages, and the narrative scope is a lot wider than I imagined it might be - there's a lot of reading here and the material is superbly organised with any number of different themes cropping up throughout. Chapters 1 & 2 cover the period 1914-1941, while other chapters deal with the 'Oil campaign', 'The big 'blow' that never fell' and 'The final desperate expedients'. The text is detailed, very readable and well written, with most 'big' dates (7 July 44, 27 Sept, 2 November, 14 January 45, 24 March 45) given reasonable treatment within the space allowed - perhaps the Sturmgruppen really merited a chapter of their own although this would admittedly have made it very difficult to organise the rest of the material ...

Photographic content is OK.. There are of course a number of pictures of JG 26 personalities (perhaps too many portraits, but I guess they were easier to lay out) while I have to say a good number of shots were new to me - the schraege Musik Fw 190 for one.. Otherwise the text has a good number of pilot accounts - although some of these are curtailed no doubt for reasons of space, eg Ernst Schroeder's long account from 17 December 1944, or II./JG 300 Guenter Kuring's description of his ramming of a B-17 on 14 January 45. The maps and diagrams are good as is the lengthy discussion of fighter command and control techniques and organisation, fighter doctrine, morale and motivation (a little familiar that passage) and the summing up. A little irritatingly perhaps the authors use their term 'RLV' throughout - I'm sure this came up in discussion here before, but all things considered is probably a useful shorthand..

conclusion .. within one set of covers this is quite probably the best overview in English on the subject..in fact there's no contest ... (9 out of 10)