Strategic Culture in the Luftwaffe – Did it Exist in World War II?

[Broncazonk]

Full academic research paper:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...43042000344803

This work may create serious consternation with some...

Bronc

[Chris Goss]

Not an academic paper as such but an Advanced Staff College paper

[VtwinVince]

I started reading this thing, but it lost credibility with me when the author claimed that Luftwaffe flying leaders early in the war commanded from the comfort of headquarters. A ridiculous and erroneous statement, as evidenced by the fact that my uncle, and many of his colleagues, flew combat at an 'advanced' age and always led from the front.

[richdlc]

er, there's a strategic culture in all airforces surely

[MW Giles]

It is a meaningless concept, by this definition all organisations have a strategic culture

I would also suggest that each unit within an Air Force will also have a similar, but subtly different culture.

You may have the most brilliant strategic culture but will still fail miserably if you have worse aircraft, tactics or numbers

Utterly pointless

[edwest2]

The word Strategic in the title does not belong there. This is more like an anthropological study along the lines of 'Certain Lost Tribes of the Amazon: Their Leaders, Culture, Rituals, and Symbols with Related Commentary.'

It reduces the wartime Luftwaffe to a series of formulas and borders on the mathematical. A list of the activities of these people, read as inputs, and the results. It lacks sufficient examples to place all persons, events
and activities mentioned into meaningful contexts which would provide enough information to prove the writer's points/conclusions, and increase the knowledge of the reader. It has little evidentiary value.

To put it another way, it is a look back at the wartime Luftwaffe and how they failed at efficient business management.

[Broncazonk]

Agreed. Beyond a few interesting anecdotes:

Originally Posted by edwest2

It has little evidentiary value.

But, I would be interested in reading other Luftwaffe research if anyone has a link to it.

Bronc

[egbert]

The Jagdflieger had a love of good food and of quality wine and spirits. Whenever poor weather or the operational tempo permitted, pilots would frequent high quality restaurants, eat expensive local delicacies and drink the best alcohol available.
Many of the less successful ‘flirters’ used prostitutes as a source of entertainment........Contemporary German aircrew share many of their forefathers’ traits and characteristics

Well I am a former wing commander Lw and certainly address my RAF colleague as biased, unfair and not applying the principles of scientific work codes while on staff college. I have serious comments on every para I actually wanted to stop at first page when he states the Lw was founded in 1954 (it was actually Jan 1956). It is not worthy a wing commander RAF to blubber such sociopathy nonsense and claiming unproven, unfounded bs. Most likely he was an exchange pilot with a Lw unit and could not cope with the pace of life, thus-----revenge 2006.

[ChristianK]

I did stop after the first two paragraphs.

First, the author suggests that there was some official "Experten"-designation in the Luftwaffe, which is not true (and also: I encounter the "Experten"-term much much more in English-language publications than in contemporary German texts or documents. In German, "Experte" ("expert") is used in very much the same way and in the same instances as in the English language. There is no particular meaning to it in the context of the former Luftwaffe)


Secondly: "Legion Condor" is spelled wrong.


Thirdly: Hartmann was not credited with 354 victories, but with 352. Also, no mentioning of the debate concerning the validity of these numbers.


These three things alone in the first two paragraphs tell me everything about this article I need to know. I wonder if "Defence Studies" is peer-reviewed at all..

[Nick Beale]

Apart from its factual errors the essay seems to rely entirely on secondary sources and to accept Adolf Galland's postwar exercises in reputation-polishing as gospel. A piece making more use of Pow interrogations and the SRA reports (covert recordings of prisoners' conversations) might have reached quite different conclusions. When I read that Galland was "regarded among the Luftwaffe’s all‐time great leaders", I mentally added "not least by himself". Ulrich Steinhilper took didn't revere Galland and the and old guard. Steinhilper may not have been typical but I doubt he was unique. Way back, I read a very critical PoW interrogation report from his time as Jafü Sicily (but can't locate the file reference at the moment). The prisoner concerned had worked in Jafü HQ and claimed Galland went in for all the bullying, accusations of cowardice and court martial threats that he complained of when Goering did the same.

"The entry of America into the air conflict over Europe in 1943 highlighted the lack of investment in home air defence in earlier years." Again he takes the Galland line but what then should Germany have done given its industrial capacity and existing military commitments? What was the daylight threat to the Reich before the USAAF arrived and was it being adequately contained? What should Germany have given up, say in Summer 1942, to expand home defence when the camaigns in Africa and the USSR were going well for them. I'd argue that they'd got in way over their heads, with no right answer given the manpower and material resources they could generate.

"The Luftwaffe was hierarchical and bureaucratic in structure" — and there’s an organisation of a million-plus people that isn’t?

"There was very little interest in team related sports" and "None of the pilots interviewed for this article expressed any interest in football." — that is genuinely interesting when you compare it with RAF ORB "Summary of Events" which often read more like a calendar of sporting fixtures.

"Towards the close of the war the Jagdwaffe had 17‐year‐old pilots on squadrons" — so they'd joined up at 15?

"The bewildering variety of aircraft types brought into service" — was any of the major powers immune to this?

"Venereal disease was an accepted disadvantage" — wasn't catching an STD punishable under the Military Code? In general though, I don't find it remarkable that large groups of young men away from home might go in for skirt-chasing and booze. Add in the combat adrenalin and repeatedly seeing their friends killed and injured and it would be more surprising if they'd spent their off-duty hours at poetry readings and flower arranging.

"Geschwader carried the name of a famous World War I hero or some other dignitary" — Afrika, Grünherz, Pikas, Herzas? And the names of Boelcke and Immelmann, fighter pioneers both, didn't go to fighter units. And what about JG 52 having the most claimed victories but no honour title — how does that square with the famous names = motivation argument?

I think also that to talk about Luftwaffe culture conferring competitive advantage puts him on shaky ground. What worked against Poland and (at greater cost) France didn't work against Britain for example. There were other factors at work — the relative preparedness, strength and technical sophistication of the opponent, the Channel. Did the chasing of high individual scores produce a fighter arm that was more or less effective than its opponents? Others have observed that the old guard saw bringing down enemy fighters as where the glory lay, even when bombers and (indirectly) reconnaissance machines were a bigger threat. So was the Jagdwaffe's culture the same year-by-year and theatre-by-theatre and if it didn't adapt to changing circumstances did it confer competitive advantage or become a liability?