Need assistance: Role of the Luftwaffe/Germany in the Battle of Britain?

[wh0whatwhere]

Hey all,

Just made my account after discovering this site and I found it quite interesting and informative so thought I'd give it a shot in seeing if you guys would be able to help with a little research project I'm undertaking.

I'm currently do a research paper on the Battle of Britain and the accompanying variables which ultimately lead to the British victory.

I've analyzed and come up with most points on the Allied side of things, namely, the dynamics which factored into Britain's victory (i.e. leadership, radar, etc). Although, from my research so far, I've found that Germany, and the Luftwaffe as a whole, cannot be disregarded as having an integral part in Britain's victory.

Essentially, I'm looking at the ways in which Britain both helped herself to victory, but just as much, the ways in which Germany helped Britain due to miscalculations and overall costly decisions.

I've searched the web inside and out (boy is it difficult), and have really found a hard time falling upon a primary source from the German side which can explain clearly the role of the Luftwaffe, or the general German strategy in regards to the Battle of Britain.

Does anyone have an reputable links in terms of primary sources (revolving around the Battle of Britain on the Axis end of things, mainly the Luftwaffe) or scholarly articles published in the last 20-30 years or so which can contribute to my paper?

Also, any input on the matter would be extremely helpful as well seeing as I really have no idea the extent to which Germany really facilitated her own defeat, just that she did have some cause in it.

I'd also like to add that I wouldn't be able to officially cite your responses, not that anyone's opinion is wrong, irrelevant, or meaningless, it's just that university professors just don't take random knowledge off the internet as "evidence" or "scholarly content"

Thanks in advance!

[CJE]

An interesting book is "Luftwaffe: Strategy for Defeat" by Williamson Murray.
It explains a lot of things regarding the BoB seen from the German point of view.

Williamson Murray, Ph.D. in military history and Professor Emeritus of the Ohio State University.
I think you can cite him...

[Nick Beale]

And "The Most Dangerous Enemy" by Stephen Bungay which devotes a lot of space to Germany's lack of any coherent strategy in the Battle.

[Peter Cornwell]

I would add to your required reading list The Breaking Wave by Telford Taylor (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1967) and, if you can get hold of a copy, The Rise & Fall of the German Air Force (1933 to 1945) a restricted Air Ministry 'Pamphlet' issued by Air Vice-Marshal Sir T.W. Elmhirst KBE, CB, AFC, the Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Intelligence) in 1948.

[mhuxt]

Originally Posted by CJE

An interesting book is "Luftwaffe: Strategy for Defeat" by Williamson Murray.
It explains a lot of things regarding the BoB seen from the German point of view.

Williamson Murray, Ph.D. in military history and Professor Emeritus of the Ohio State University.
I think you can cite him...

That one's available as a free pdf download, if you look hard enough.

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by CJE

An interesting book is "Luftwaffe: Strategy for Defeat" by Williamson Murray.
It explains a lot of things regarding the BoB seen from the German point of view.

Williamson Murray, Ph.D. in military history and Professor Emeritus of the Ohio State University.
I think you can cite him...

Online @ http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aup...Murray_B12.htm

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by wh0whatwhere

Hey all,


I'm currently do a research paper on the Battle of Britain and the accompanying variables which ultimately lead to the British victory.

..how are your foreign language skills...? Bungay et al present entirely 'conventional' views of the BoB - a number of recent works from German/continental authors argue that the Battle of Britain wasn't a 'real' battle at all -the Germans had no intention of invading England, not that they had the means- so the Germans certainly didn't lose it....(Die Jagdfliegerverbände der Deutschen Luftwaffe Teil 4/I Einsatz am Kanal und über England, Prien, Stemmer, Rodeike). I have to say the authors do a great job of highlighting some of the more misleading 'primary' sources, such as Galland's memoir.....

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

..Bungay et al present entirely 'conventional' views of the BoB - a number of recent works from German/continental authors argue that the Battle of Britain wasn't a 'real' battle at all -the Germans had no intention of invading England, not that they had the means- so the Germans certainly didn't lose it....(Die Jagdfliegerverbände der Deutschen Luftwaffe Teil 4/I Einsatz am Kanal und über England, Prien, Stemmer, Rodeike). I have to say the authors do a great job of highlighting some of the more misleading 'primary' sources, such as Galland's memoir.....

First, I think Bungay makes a number of points about command and control you won't find elsewhere, also about the absence of a coherent German strategy.

To say the Germans didn't lose implies that they attained some definable objective. What then was that objective and in what sense was it attained? What did Germany achieve by fighting the battle? What was gained for the expenditure of about 2000 aircraft and their crews?

[Adam]

Moving away slightly from the RAF v. Luftwaffe operations, but still focusing on that period and giving good food for thought is

Derek Robinson Invasion, 1940 Robinson, London, 2005

It deals more specifically with the planned invasion, but does address certain aspects of what it seems to be you are looking at with regards to a somewhat mishaped and at times aimless approach by the Germans to the air battle.

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

To say the Germans didn't lose implies that they attained some definable objective. What then was that objective and in what sense was it attained? What did Germany achieve by fighting the battle? What was gained for the expenditure of about 2000 aircraft and their crews?

..Isn't the absence of a strategy perhaps an indication that the 'battle', as we Brits like to understand it, was never any such thing in German eyes..ie the Luftwaffe didn’t lose the ‘battle’ (at least that is my understanding ) because there was no ’battle’ worthy of the name. In this respect Galland’s memoir ‘The First and the Last’ comes in for sharp criticism from the source mentioned in my previous post. While Galland writes that Luftwaffe fighter pilots regularly flew two or three sorties/day throughout the course of the battle, Prien puts forward the following figures which paint a completely different picture; that the average Jagdflieger flew no more than 50 sorties during an 85 day period from 8 August to 31 October, contacting the enemy on only around 20 of these; that for around 20 days at the supposed height of the Battle there were no German aircraft at all in the skies of England; that when the bombers turned on London in September the 1,000 Luftwaffe aircraft of the British ‘official’ history were never more than 400; that on only two occasions (7 & 15 September) could the Luftwaffe put more than 300 bombers in the air; that on nearly 20 days of the ‘battle’ the Luftwaffe flew less than 200 sorties..all pretty minor league stuff as Meimberg points out in his memoir, especially in comparison with the later battle over the Reich. This was no attempt to bring Britain to her knees by an overwhelming application of force. The 'so-called' Luftschlacht über England was ‘a relatively small affair..’ (Prien quoting AJP Taylor..), perhaps no more than Hitler’s attempt to exert some political pressure on British public opinion in order to strengthen the hand of the ‘peace faction’ in particular..

Continental authors are scathing too at what they see as the ‘mythification’ of the ‘battle’ (cf Jean-Louis Roba's recent 'La bataille d'Angleterre'); the notion of the ‘The Few’, the Churchillian propaganda of the ‘We shall fight them etc..’ - I think Bungay is too though IIRC. The RAF fighter force was patently not 'The Few' - certainly not being inferior numerically to the Luftwaffe's, which had just lost 25% of its strength on the Continent. Churchill in particular (as former First Lord of the Admiralty responsible for the Dardenelles fiasco) knew full well that there was no chance of a sea-borne invasion prior to 1941 at the earliest, even if such a scheme was ever seriously contemplated (statements from Goebbels diaries suggest it wasn’t).