WORLD WAR TWO STUDIES ASSOCIATION
(formerly American Committee on the History ofthe Second World War)
Mark P. Parillo, Secretary and
News/eller Editor
Department of History
208 Eisenhower Hall
Kansas State Univmity
Manhattan, Kansas 66506·1002
785·532-0374
FAX 785-532-7004
Donald S. Detwiler, Chairman
Department of History
SouthelD Illinois Unive"ity
aI Carbondale
Carbondale, Illinois 62901-4519
detwiler@midwest.net
NEWSLETTER
Permanent Directors
Charles F. Delzell
Vanderbilt University
parillo@ksu.edu
ISSN 0885-5668
James Ehrman, Associate
EdilOf and Webmaster
Department of History
208 Eisenhower Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas 66506-1002
Anhur L. Funk
University of Florida
Terms expiring 2003
Car1 Boyd
Old Dominion University
Jam'" L. Collins, Jr.
Middleburg, Virginia
No. 70
Fall
2003
Archives:
Institule for Military History and
20~ Century Studies
221 Eisenhower Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas 66506·1002
RoyD. Flint
Valle Crucis, N.C.
The WWTSA is affiliated wlih:
Robin Hill;ham
Kansas State Unive"ity
Ameri= Historical Association
400 A Street, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
Contents
Warren F. Kimball
RUlgers University, Newark
Richard H. Kohn
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Allan R. Millett .
Ohio State University
Russell F. Weigley
Temple Unive"ity
Terms expiring 2004
Marrin B1umenson
Washington, D.C.
D'Aon Campbell
Sage Colleges
Robert Dallek
Unive"ity of California,
Los Angeles
Slanley L. Fall<
A1eXJllldria, Virginia
Ernest R. May
Harvard UDJve"ity
Dennis Showalter
Colorado College
Mark A. Sioler
University ofVennont
Gerhard L. Weinberg
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Terms expiring 2005
Dean C. Allard
Naval Historical Cemer
EdwardJ.Drea
Department of Defense
Waldo Heinrichs
Unive"ity of Nebraska
David Kahn
Great Neck, New Yor!<
Agnes Peterson
Hoover Institution
RonaIdH.Spector
George Washington Unive"ity
Alan Wilt
Iowa State Unive"ity
Earl Ziemke
University of Georgia
http://www.theaha.org
World War Two Studies Association
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The Newsletter
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News and Notes
Annual Business Meeting
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InSlllllle for Military History and
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Kansas Stale University which supports
the WWTSA's website on the Inemet
at the following address (URL):
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Germany at War: A Review Essay
by Donald S. Detwiler
4
Recently Published and Reprinted Books
in English on World War II
34
Selected Titles from an Electronic Compilation
by James Ehrman
Comite International d'Histoire
de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale
Institut d'Histoire du Temps Present
(Centre national de la recherche
.scientifique (CNRSI)
Ecole Normale Supeneure de Cachan
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General Information
Established in 1967 "to promote historical research in the period of World War II in all its
aspects," the World War Two Studies Association, whose original name was the American
Committee on the History of the Second World War, is a private organization supported by the
dues and donations of its members. It is affiliated with the American Historical Association, with
the International Committee for the History of the Second World War, and \vith corresponding
national committees in other countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech
Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the Vatican.
The Newsletter
The WWTSA issues a semiannual newsletter, which is assigned International Standard Serial
Number [ISSN] 0885-5668 by the Library of Congress. Back issues of the Newsletter are
available from Kansas State University Institute for Military History and 20 th Century Studies, 221
Eisenhower Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506-1002.
Please send information for the Newsletter to:
Mark Parillo
Department of History
Kansas State University
Eisenhower Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506-1002
Tel.: (785) 532-0374
Fax: (785) 532-7004
E-mail: parillo@ksu. edu
Annual Membership Dues
Membership is open to all who are interested in the era of the Second World War. Annual
membership dues of$15.00 are payable at the beginning of each calendar year. Students with U.S.
addresses may, if their circumstances require it, pay annual dues of$5.00 for up to six years.
There is no surcharge for members abroad, but it is requested that dues be remitted directly to the
secretary ofthe WWTSA (not through an agency or subscription service) in U.S. dollars. The
Newsletter, which is mailed at bulk rates within the United States, will be sent by surface mail to
foreign addresses unless special arrangements are made to cover the cost of airmail postage.
Fall 2003 - 3
News and Notes
WWTSA Annual Business Meeting
The 2004 WWTSA annual business meeting
will be held in conjunction with the annual
meeting ofthe Society for Military History,
to be held at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda,
20-23 May 2004. The time and place ofthe
business meeting had not been scheduled at
press time for the newsletter. The time and
location of the meeting will be sent to
members by separate mailing and will be
posted on the WWTSA Web site.
WWTSA members may make hotel
reservations at the SMH conference host
hote~ the Hyatt Regency Bethesda (I
Bethesda Metro Center, Bethesda, MD
20814; 301-657-6411; fax 301-657-6478;
Central reservation number: 1-800-233­
1234; House reservation number: 301-657­
1234; Ask for the Society for Military
History group rate. The conference has
reserved 85 rooms for Thursday, 20 May,
and 150 rooms for Friday and Saturday, 21­
22 May. The costs are $ 149.00/night for
single and double occupancy, $174.00/night
for triple occupancy, and S199.00/night for
quadruple occupancy. One bedroom parlor
suites are $400.00/night.
WWTSA Elections
Election ofWWTSA Board of Directors
members for the 2004-06 term will be
conducted by ballot mailed separately from
the newsletter.
WWTSA Annual Dues
The WWTSA annual membership fee comes
due at the beginning of the calendar year.
Members should include the enclosed
renewal form with their dues payment.
WWTSA at the AHA
The WWTSA is jointly sponsoring a
scholarly session at the American Historical
Association annual meeting in Washington,
D.C., on 8-11 January 2004. The session
will be in the Senate Room of the Omni
Shoreham Hotel (2500 Calvert Street, N.W.;
202-234-0700) from 11 :30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m
on Sunday January 11 tho Titled "Teaching
Military History to Undergraduates: A
Roundtable on Methods, Challenges, and
Opportunities," the participants will include:
Chair: Michael A. Ramsay, Kansas State
University
Dale Clifford, University ofNorth Florida,
"The Integration of Military History into the
Curriculum"
John Guilmartin, Ohio State University,
"The Role of Military History in the
Historical Discipline with Particular Regard
to Undergraduate Education"
Patrice Olsen, Illinois State University,
"Secrets, Spies, and Scandals: Approaches
to the Teaching of Foreign Intelligence"
Comment: Lori Lyn Bogle, United States
Naval Academy
4 - Fall 2003
Germany at War: A Review Essay
by
Donald S. Detwiler
Geoffrey P. Megargee, Inside Hitler's High Command. Foreword by Williamson Murray.
Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000. xxi & 327 pp., with a list of
abbreviations, a note on the documents and translations, endnotes, a bibliography, an
index, and 18 photographs (cloth, ISBN 0-7006-1015-4, $34.95; paperback [2002], ISBN 0­
7006-1187-8, $17.95).
Edward B. Westermann, Flak: German Anti-aircraft Defenses 1914-1945. Lawrence,
Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001. xiv & 394 pp., with 25 photographs on 17
unnumbered pages (following p. 137), endnotes, bibliography, and index (cloth, ISBN 0­
7006-1136-3, $45.00).
These two recent volumes in the Modern War Studies series published under the general
editorship of Theodore A. Wilson are important contributions to the literature on Germany in the
Second World War. The fIrst, a magisterial survey and evaluation of German military leadership
during the Third Reich, is based on thorough knowledge of the literature and the most important
primary sources, augmented by interviews with German General Staff officers who served
during the war. The second is a detailed study of German anti-aircraft defenses from the
beginning ofthe First World War to the end ofthe second, but concentrating on the latter,
utilizing the available literature, yet going far beyond it on the basis of extensive research in
German, British, and American archives and research centers, thereby making a valuable
contribution to a relatively neglected aspect ofthe history of World War II.
1. Hitler's High Command
Geoffrey P. Megargee's readable monograph is an authoritative study of German military
leadership in World War II, reviewing its origins and structure in historical context, analyzing its
organizational development and mode of operation from Hitler's appointment as chancellor to
the end of the war, and evaluating the roles, values, and ideas ofthe senior military leaders, their
relationship to National Socialism, and their interaction with their Supreme Commander.
As the author points out in his preface, there has been, especially in the extensive popular
literature, considerable myth-making regarding the German armed forces having been led to
defeat by a fanatical dictator who repeatedly ignored professional military counsel--an
interpretation reinforced by sometimes self-serving postwar memoirs. During the past quarter
century, a more critical and sophisticated view has emerged among scholars and specialists,
epitomized in the
multi-volume official history ofthe war that began to appear in Germany in 1979 and in English
translation in 1990. 1 But until now there has been no concise and accessible, yet thoroughly
r
Fall 2003 - 5
documented and intellectually even-handed overview of the vexed collaboration of the German
military leadership and the Supreme Commander who in six years built up a war machine that in
the fITst three years of World War II overran Europe from the Pyrenees to the Ukraine before
being crushed, in three more years, by agIobal coalition forged in response to its aggression.
0­
its
IT
In his preface, Megargee writes that he offers "no radically new interpretation of the war as a
whole. The primary value ofthe work lies in the fact that it draws together information that has
been scattered throughout a large number of sources, many ofthem in German, up until now. My
go~" he continues, "is to present the reader with the most up-to-date information and thus
correct some of the myths and errors that have sprung up in the last fifty-odd years. The result is,
I hope, a picture of the German high command that is both more accurate and subtly more
complete than that which a reader could acquire by studying the sources individually, even if he
or she had the time and expertise. The whole was more than the sum of the parts, and one must
examine it accordingly. To the extent that I have done so in a form that the average educated
person will fmd clear, readable, and informative, I have achieved my objective" (p. xvii).
He has achieved not only his objective with regard to Hitler's high command, but also provided a
valuable contribution to the study of the Third Reich and Hitler's dictatorship in the context of
modern German history. The opening chapter, "The Roots of the Command System," is a well­
crafted sixteen-page essay on the Prussian-German General Staff tradition from the late
eighteenth century to the end of the Weimar Republic, augmented by fifty-eight endnotes citing
and, in many cases, evaluating the relevant literature both in English and in German, including
monographs and important articles published in the past decade? The next two chapters, on the
period from Hitler's accession to power to the eve of the war, trace the build-up of the German
armed forces and the development of the complex command structure, in which the Armed
Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW) was established as the
headquarters staff of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, without, initially, usurping
the institutionalized role of the High Command of the Army (Oberkommando des Heeres or
OKH) as the General Staff 3 In his treatment of the prewar period, with coverage ofthe military
aspects of the annexation of Austria, the occupation of the Sudetenland, and the march to Prague,
Megargee provides a brief but carefully nuanced account of the organizational and personnel
decisions and manipulations whereby Hitler assured himself full control if not always
enthusiastic loyalty of the senior leadership corps of the anned forces.
The fourth chapter, beginning with German planning in spring 1939 for the attack on Poland and
concluding with the fall of France in June 1940, surveys the functioning of Hitler's command
system during the fITst phase of the war, when Hitler demonstrated "that curious genius that
marked his performance in the early years of the war: that of the inspired amateur" (p. 77). In
terms of the history of the German high command, Megargee points out that Hitler's assignment
to the OKW of planning and control of the German operation launched in April 1940 against
Denmark and Norway, code-named Weser Exercise, marked "a significant new direction" in "the
evolution ofthe command system .... For the first time, Hitler had given the OKW
responsibility for operational planning, a responsibility that, until then, had been the General
Staffs alone. Hitler justified this measure in several ways at the time. He claimed that Weser
Exercise was too large an operation for the OKH to direct, since it would require the close
6 - Fall 2003
cooperation of all three armed services. He also said that the OKW was better suited to
coordinate the operation with the Foreign Ministry. Finally, he stated that the OKH needed to
concentrate on the upcoming invasion of France. " However, as Megargee stresses, "the OKW
was simply not equipped to be an operational headquarters ... [and] had to call upon the OKH
for help. The General Staffs Supply, Transportation, and Foreign Armies West Branches had to
formulate large parts ofthe plan ... " (p. 78).
In his treatment of the conclusion of the campaign in the West in May and June 1940, Megargee
writes regarding the German halt before Dunkirk: "The German postwar accounts are nearly
unanimous in blaming Hitler for the debacle, but the reality ofthe situation was more complex.
Hitler did give the halt order on the twenty-fourth [of May] , but he was, in part, reacting to
Rundstedt's pessimism. The armored units had suffered severely from enemy action and the long
advance, and some ofRundstedt's subordinates were pushing for a rest; the commanders in Army
Group A [under Rundstedt] were apparently willing to leave the reduction ofthe Allied pocket
to Army Group B. Goring had also boasted to Hitler that the Luftwaffe could finish off the
Allies, and there is some thought that Hitler wanted to take some glory away from the army.
Brauchitsch [the commander-in-chiefofthe army] and Halder [the chief of staff of the army]
protested the halt strongly, and on May 25 Hitler gave Rundstedt the choice of whether or not to
resume the advance, but Rundstedt held back for another day. By then the British had formed a
more solid defensive line from which they held off the Germans while the bulk of their army
escaped by sea. Halder's diary reveals that both he and Brauchitsch were fuming at the delay and
its results, but there was nothing they could do. ,,4
In his fifth chapter, treating the year from the French capitulation in June 1940 to the attack on
the Soviet Union a year later, Megargee, shows, in connection with his treatment of operational
plans and their implementation, how, "by the middle of 1941, the OKW, rather than remaining a
strategic planning organ, had begun to take on direct responsibility for more theaters itself,
leaving the OKH eventually to control only a narrow operational zone in the east" (pp. 94-95).
Since the invasion of Denmark and Norway, those countries had been under OKW control, and
the OKW gradually became "the de facto operational headquarters for the west, ... Finland
became an 'OKW theater' in March 1941 ...", and, on Hitler's initiative, the Balkans did also (p.
95). However, the airborne invasion of Crete in May 1941, code-named Operation Mercury,
was a special case; because the airborne troops as well as the planes involved belonged to the Air
Force, this operation was placed under control of the High Command of the Air Force
(Oberkommando der Luftwaffe or OKL). "The result, due in part to the OKL's inexperience with
land and naval warfare, was a Pyrrhic victory," Megargee writes; "Crete fell to the German
assault, but the losses to the airborne forces were so high that Hitler refused to use them again
until the war was nearly over" (p. 96). Particularly complex was the command situation in North
Africa, where a German force was deployed early in 1941, nominally under Italian command,
led by "Major General Erwin Rommel, a talented tactical leader but also an acerbic and
independent officer with a large reserve of faith in his own abilities. Rommel lionized Hitler and
knew he had the FUhrer's support. He also knew that his force was going to North Africa to
prevent an Italian collapse. Under the circumstances, the extent to which he would cooperate
with the Italians--or with anyone else, for that matter--was open to question. The OKH, which
had appointed Rommel, tried to keep a tight rein on him. Rommel was not popular with the
. (
Fall 2003 - 7
senior anny leadership. He was not a General Staff officer (he would become the only German
field marshal in the Second World War who was not). His superiors also noted his popularity
with Hitler and his willingness to use that popularity to avoid their instructions.... At one point,
Halder even sent his assistant chief of staff for operations, Major General Friedrich Paulus, to
Africa, to 'head off this soldier gone stark mad'." Hitler never formally shifted control of the
North African theater from the OKH to the OKW and the Italians retained nominal authority, but
the OKW played an increasingly important role in directing operations there and "Rommel put
the confusion to good use, sometimes ignoring orders with which he disagreed, or appealing to
whatever headquarters he believed would support him. His operational successes and his firm
rapport with Hitler strengthened his bid for independence from the Italians and the OKH" (p. 97).
a
: Air
rth
d
In his sixth through eighth chapters, Megargee deals with the planning and preparations for the
German attack on the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa, and the course of the
conflict through December 1941, when the Russians launched their stunning counter-attack
before the gates of Moscow, the Japanese attacked American and British holdings in Asia and
the Pacific, and Hitler declared war on the United States, and Hitler assumed direct, personal
command of the army. Megargee begins this segment of his book by focusing on the deficiencies
in German military intelligence, logistical, and personnel management systems. Under the
subheading "Cultural Weaknesses and the Intelligence Input to Barbarossa," he writes: "The
problem with German intelligence was not really structural but attitudinal; it did not have so
much to do with the quantity, or even the quality, of the information available, but with the
ability of the high command to evaluate and use that information correctly. Actually, the flaw in
the Gennan intelligence system breaks down into two components. One of these was a subtle but
pervasive bias against the intelligence function itself, a bias that intelligence officers themselves
unconsciously shared to some extent. The other component was a tendency to accept convenient
preconceptions in place of hard facts, especially when the analysis left the realm of operations
and moved into political, economic, and social issues. Neither of these tendencies was unique to
the Wehrmacht, but within that organization they took on particularly insidious and disruptive
forms" (p. 108). In the paragraph concluding Megargee's account of the gathering and utilization
of intelligence in the planning of Barbarossa, he writes: "Clearly the upper echelons of the
German military were not interested in information that did not match their plans and
preconceptions. Michael Geyer's conclusion about Hitler can be broadened to include the senior
military leaders: they did not gather information in order to make major decisions but only to
plan the implementation of decisions they had already made" (p. 116).
Regarding logistics, Megargee writes that "the tenn Logistik did not come into general use until
after 1945; before that time, everything in that sphere came under the rubrics Nachschub or
Versorgung, both meaning 'supply,' a much narrower term," and explains that "the hierarchy
within German staffs mirrored the dominant attitude: supply officers, like their counterparts in
intelligence, were junior in rank and position to the operations officers. Their job was to support
the operation however they could" (p. 123). Due to their miscalculation of the scope of the
operational challenge they faced, the German military leaders grossly underestimated the
logistical support that would be needed. Moreover, Megargee writes, their "illusions applied not
just to logistics but also to manpower" (p. 124). In May 1941, the month before the attack on the
Soviet Union, General Friedrich Fromm reported to Halder that he had 385,000 men available in
8 - Fall 2003
the Replacement Army, and that there were 90,000 in field replacement battalions. Considering
that 275,000 casualties were predicted in the border battles and 200,000 more in September, the
army could run out of replacements in October, unless the OKH called up the next class of
conscripts early. However, Fromm advised against doing this and Halder accepted his
recommendation, for both thought the campaign would be over before more troops were needed.
Referring to the detailed treatment of this issue in the fourth volume of Germany and the Second
World War, Megargee writes: "As Ernst Klink has noted, the problems in manning and
equipping the army turned the leaders' assumption of a short campaign into an obligation. The
Germans simply could not afford to allow serious reverses that would lead to a winter campaign;
they made no preparations for such an eventuality before June 22, 1941, when the attack began.
One can only add that, given the gaps in German intelligence regarding their opponent, the
leaders' confidence becomes difficult to comprehend. The fact that the General Staff could
generate such an exercise in wishful thinking is a damning indictment of their professional
standards. ,,5
In his treatment of the planning for Barbarossa, Megargee writes: "The army's deployment and
attack orders ... differed significantly from Hitler's intentions, but Halder glossed over this fact
in his briefmgs. Apparently, he expected that his concept would win out, once the campaign was
under way" (p. 132). In view ofthe dramatic success of the first phase of the campaign, the latent
conflict over operational goals did not initially emerge. By mid-July 1941, however, there was a
problem: eventhough "the German thrusts had stalled almost exactly where the precampaign
planning had forecast, ... preparations for the next phase progressed much more slowly than
expected" (p. 133). Then, on 19 July 1941, Hitler "issued orders that redirected forces from
Army Group Center to the north and south, essentially halting the drive on Moscow. For the next
month various army generals ... attempted to change Hitler's mind, but he remained adamant"
(p. 134). When the march on Moscow was resumed in the fall, after the conquest of the Ukraine,
it soon bogged down in mud and then, when the roads began to freeze early in November,
making them passable once more, damage to vehicles and locomotives by the severe cold
hampered resupply operations no less than the mud. On 27 November 1941 the chief supply
officer ofthe army, Gen. Eduard "Wagner told Halder that the German army was 'at the end of
our personnel and material strength .. .'," and the commanding general of Army Group Center,
advancing on Moscow, Field Marshal Fedor von "Bock reported to Brauchitsch shortly thereafter
that the expected Russian collapse was a myth, that he could not encircle Moscow, and that the
time had come to decide what to do next. He stayed on the attack for the next few days, because
he believed that was better than losing the initiative. But on the morning of December 4, with the
temperature below zero degrees Fahrenheit, the Soviets launched a massive counteroffensive.
Surprise was total; neither Bock's staff nor Foreign Armies East [the relevant intelligence'branch
of the OKH] had thought that the Russians possessed the forces to mount such an attack. By
December 6 the Germans were struggling, not to advance, but to hold on to what they had. ,,6
While the Germans were reeling from the shock of the Soviet attack, the Japanese attacked
American and British holdings in Asia and the Pacific, and Hitler, four days later, declared war
on America. About this, Megargee writes: "Historians have wondered at Hitler's hubris ever
since, but in truth, as Gerhard Weinberg has pointed out, Hitler had believed for years that he
would have to fight the United Sates eventually. His determination to do so had even helped to
shape his policy decisions and plans after the fall of France. Hitler knew that his navy was too
Fall 2003 -.9
°eak to take on the Americans directly--but with Japan on his side he would have an ally with a
powerful fleet. Thus Germany's declaration of war represents neither a change in German policy
nor a great risk from the point of view of the Wehrmacht's leaders. As subscribers to the 'stab in
the back' myth, most of them did not believe that the United States had contributed much to
Germany's defeat in the First World War, and so they easily dismissed the threat that America
now posed. [The head of the German navy, Grand Admiral Erich] Raeder was positively eager
tor the fight, while the Army and the Luftwaffe paid hardly any attention at all. Halder, who still
occasionally noted international events in his journa~ had nothing to say on the subject of the
German declaration. Whether because he was too wrapped up in the crisis in the east, or because
he had completely given up on strategic thinking, he failed to comment on the event that all but
sealed Germany's fate" (pp. 137-38).
xt
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of
r,
~er
e
the
ch
The crisis on the eastern front triggered a change in the German high command. Brauchitsch's
position as commanding general of the Germany Army had become increasingly difficult. "Any
reverse, any perceived failure or hesitation," Megargee notes, "was enough to bring Hitler's
wrath down upon his army commander in chief, who meanwhile also had to face Halder and his
other subordinates. Brauchitsch frequently agreed with their assessments and intentions, but he
was powerless to affect Hitler's opinions, and few below him were slow to notice that fact. ...
The strain told on him more and more as the campaign went on. On November 10 Halder
recorded that Brauchitsch had suffered a severe heart attack the night before, but the commander
in chief continued to work even from his hospital bed, and in less than three weeks he was back
on duty. As the crisis on the eastern front developed, the pressure on Brauchitsch intensified.
Halder noted his dilemma on December 7: 'The commander in chief is hardly even a messenger
boy anymore. The FUhrer goes over his head to the army group commanders.' In the meantime,
rumors ofBrauchitsch's powerlessness were spreading in the headquarters. On December 15
Halder reported that Brauchitsch was 'very depressed and sees no way to save the army from its
difficult situation.'... On December 19 Hitler relieved him at his own request. 'I'm going home,'
Brauchitsch told [the chief of the OKW, Field Marshal Wilhelm] Keitel after meeting with the
FUhrer; 'he has relieved me; I can't do any more'" (p. 138). Rather than appointing a successor to
Brauchitsch, Hitler assumed personal command of the army, adding its operational control to his
responsibilities as head of state and government and as commander in chief of the Armed Forces
(the position he had assumed in 1938 when, rather than replacing Field Marshal Werner von
Blomberg as minister of war, he had replaced the war ministry with the OKW and assumed
personal command). For Hitler, Megargee writes, taking command of the army represented "the
chance to blame the emerging debacle in the east on Brauchitsch and the OKH (and on the three
army group commanders and other senior officers he would relieve during this period), while he
could appear as the savior of the situation. The army's reaction is illuminating. In retrospect
many officers would see this latest coup as the final death knell for the army's independence, but
at the time no one expressed any such misgivings. On the contrary, this appeared to be the
perfect solution to the army's problems. Even Halder did his best to accommodate himself to the
new situation, in the hope that he could work with Hitler more successfully than Brauchitsch
had." But he could not prevent the army losing power to the OKWand the National Socialist
Party. "Inasmuch as the army had been a unified institution, separate from the OKW," Megargee
writes, "it had possessed some limited ability to resist inroads into its authority. Now that
changed. Hitler had no intention of overseeing all the administrative matters with which
10 - Fall 2003
Brauchitsch had occupied himself, so all the associated agencies that had been subordinate to the
commander in chief of the army, such as the Replacement Army commander, the Army
Personnel Office, and the Army Ordnance Office, went to Keitel to administer. ... In effect, the
OKH had ceased to exist as a unified organization" (pp. 138-40).
Regarding responsibility for the December 1941 crisis on the eastern front, Megargee observes:
"Debate rages to this day over the conduct of Barbarossa. The significance of the battle of
Moscow and of Hitler's earlier decision to divert forces away from Army Group Center have
received most of the attention. Some historians maintain that Germany had only to take the
Soviet capital to knock Russia out ofthe war, and many of them blame Hitler for fatally
weakening the central thrust just when victory appeared certain. Certainly, the army's leading
generals felt the same way: at the time they argued against the diversion, and after the war they
continued to maintain that Hitler made a fatal blunder that summer. There are several reasons
that their argument is not convincing, but the most important is that the Soviets were showing no
sign of the political collapse upon which the Germans were depending. If anything, reports of
German barbarity in occupied Russia were strengthening resistance. The Soviet administrative
apparatus behind the front was functioning, contrary to German expectations, and the Russians
still had significant industrial assets beyond the Urals (as the Germans knew before they
attacked). On the eve of the last German offensive against Moscow in November, the Soviets
were already preparing a further line of defense far to the east. Desperate though this measure
was, it indicates that they were not ready to give up. The Germans were by then at the end of
their resources (as they had known they would be); in fact, any additional gains in the east would
have only put them in a worse position. The Wehrmacht had depended upon operational success
to overcome a strategic risk. Now the Germans' miscalculations had caught up with them. With
the failure of Barbarossa and the entry of the United States into the war, only a miracle could
stave off defeat" (pp. 140-41).
Megargee's ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters focus on various factors from the beginning of
1942 to the end of the war, including the increasing influence of the National Socialist party and
the competition for resources. As Hitler's high command prepared plans for a summer offensive
in spring 1942, it had to take into account Germany's great losses since Barbarossa had been
launched on 22 June 1941. Since the beginning ofNovember alone some 900,000 men had been
lost and only halfthat many had been available to replace them; only 20,000 horses had been
found to replace over 180,000 lost; and in March 1942 the Luftwaffe had nearly six hundred
fewer aircraft than in June 1941--and, in fact, forty fewer than when the war began in September
1939 (p. 174). In late March 1942, comprehensive intelligence estimates of Soviet material and
personnel resources underestimated the Soviet manpower potential, but nonetheless "clearly
showed that the USSR was nowhere near the end of its strength." However, "Hitler ... made his
attitude toward intelligence clear when, on March 17, he issued an order to the OKH, saying that
all comprehensive evaluations of enemy plans and capabilities had to agree with his opinion
before they went to subordinate commands. He was convinced that the Soviet Union had nearly
exhausted its military capabilities" (pp. 174-76). A number of senior officers opposed an
offensive, but it was launched on 28 June 1942 toward the Southeast.? Initially the Germans
advanced rapidly, suffering only light casualties, but also taking relatively few prisoners, for,
unlike the previous year, when the Russians had stood in place and let themselves be surrounded,
n-
Fall 2003 - 11
the
d
55
n
r
: his
I that
ly
r,
ed,
they now withdrew, so that the Germans' tactical envelopments "closed mostly upon thin air.
Nevertheless, Hitler believed that the Wehrmacht was winning a great victory. He decided to
change the concept of the operation entirely; instead of sending all his forces to Stalingrad ... ,
he would split them.... He ordered that Army Group A tum south into the Caucasus right away
while only Army Group B continued on to the east." As the operation proceeded, Hitler involved
himself in operational control; he "issued orders with growing frequency and in increasing detail.
This was not a role for which Hitler was suited. His occasional bursts of inspiration during the
fIrst two years of the war were no replacement for real operational expertise, and as flawed as the
General Staffs performance sometimes was, Hitler's was even worse" (p. 178). A passage from
Halder's journal on 27 July 1942, quoted by Megargee, concludes: "The chronic underestimation
of the enemy's capabilities is gradually taking on grotesque forms and is growing dangerous. It is
becoming less and less bearable. One cannot speak of serious work any more. This so-called
'leadership' is characterized by pathological reaction to the impressions ofthe moment and a
complete lack ofjudgment in assessing the command apparatus and its capabilities" (p. 178).
Under a subheading entitled "The Command Degenerates Further," Megargee recounts the crisis
in Hitler's headquarters in September 1942 that led to Halder's dismissal. Hitler had pressed Field
Marshal Wilhelm List, the commander of the army group advancing into the Caucasus "to push a
spearhead through one particularly mountainous area, and List was resisting the idea because his
forces would be too vulnerable and difficult to supply. JodI fInally flew out at List's request,
reviewed the situation, and returned to report that he agreed with List completely. Hitler was
infuriated. The exact nature of his complaint against JodI is still somewhat in doubt; he may have
believed that JodI was blaming him for the campaign's weaknesses. In any case, his reaction was
immediate, broad, and petty. He considered relieving not only JodI but Keitel and [JodI's deputy,
General Walter] Warlimont as well. For months afterward he refused to shake JodI's or Keitel's
hand or have the two of them at his dinner table. He also insisted that two stenographers be
present at every meeting and briefIng from now on, so that his officers could not twist his words
against him. On September 9, moreover, he had Keitel contact Halder to say that List ought to
resign his post. List did so the next day. The FUhrer did not replace him, however; instead, he
took over command of the army group himself, and kept that position until November 22. Now
he occupied four levels in the hierarchy at the same time: head of state, commander in chief of
the Armed Forces, commander in chief of the army, and commander of an army group that was
operating roughly eight hundred miles from his headquarters" (pp. 179-80). Meanwhile, Hitler,
who found Halder's increasingly urgent warnings about the overextended German front and the
dangerous threat posed by Soviet operational reserves unbearable, dismissed the army chief of
staff on 24 September, saying "that Halder's nerves were used up and also that his own nerves
had suffered from their confrontations. Halder listened silently, then got up and left, saying only
that he would announce his departure."
"Ironically, in dismissing Halder," Megargee continues, "Hitler got rid of one of his most
fundamentally optimistic military leaders. Even at this late date, Halder was unable to grasp the
seriousness of Germany's position. In a letter of September 21 to the commander of Army Group
North, Field Marshal Georg von KUchler, Halder wrote, 'The numerical superiority of the
Russians is a fact that we will continue to face .... It will be balanced out through the high value
of the German soldier.' He expressed similar sentiments to [Foreign Ministry State Secretary
12 - Fall 2003
Ernst von] Weizsacker a week after his dismissal, although he also admitted that the threat from
the west concerned him. Most incredibly, he maintained an unrealistic view even after Germany
went down in defeat. Perhaps the most damning indictment comes from a letter he wrote six
years after the war ended: 'The question [put by an American historian], of when the last war had
to be seen as lost, makes no sense. A war is a political act and can be militarily hopeless for the
longest time while it still offers political chances. Such chances can even come up unexpectedly,
as the Seven Years' War [1756-63] proved. So the correct answer remains: a war is only lost
when one gives up.' Here Halder applied eighteenth-century strategic principles to a modem
mass war in exactly the way that Hitler himself did. Thus, despite his differences with Halder,
the Fuhrer could hardly have asked for a more like-minded chief of staff' (p. 181).
As Halder's successor, Hitler chose Brigadier General Kurt Zeitzler, chief 0 f staff to the
commander in chief west, Rundstedt, promoting him two grades. Considered a National Socialist
before arriving at Hitler's headquarters, he used the greeting "Heil Hitler!" rather than the
customary military salute and expected the same of his OKH colleagues. 8 Under Zeitzler, in fall
1942, what Megargee refers to as "the final split between the OKW and the OKH" took place.
"Up until this point, both staffs had kept themselves informed of broad developments in the war.
A section of the General Staffs Operations Branch had devoted itself solely to monitoring events
in the OKW theaters, and Halder had also received reports personally from officers whose duties
gave them insights into those areas. In addition, Hitler had been issuing his operational orders for
the east through the Armed Forces Command Staff to the Army General Staff, which then
modified them and sent them on to the army groups. After Zeitzler took over, however, Hitler
only used the Command Staff to issue orders that applied to OKW theaters or--in increasingly
rare cases--to the war as a whole, while he sent his orders for the east directly to the army group
headquarters, using the General Staff as the issuing agency. From this point forward, no single
organization could pretend to control the army on all fronts. The divide in the high command
was comp 1et e .... ,,9
In October 1942, Zeitzler requested that Hitler transfer forces from the west to the east, but,
Megargee writes, "developments in Africa as well as Hitler's concerns about the west made such
transfers increasingly unlikely .... After the Allies landed in Algeria and Morocco, Hitler
ordered the occupation ofthe remainder of France and then decided to reinforce his army in
Africa; by the end of the year he would send fifty thousand German and eighteen thousand
Italian troops there, with significant amounts of equipment and air support.... From this point
forward two factors would dominate the Germans' war effort: an inexorable strategic squeeze as
their enemies gained strength, and conflict within their own command apparatus. The relative
importance of these two factors to the overall situation is something that must remain in the
foreground. Barring some absolute miracle, the Germans could no longer win the war. From that
standpoint, then, the command apparatus was completely irrelevant. No matter how well or
poorly organized it was, it could not change the situation in any fundamental sense. Its
organizational evolution and performance during the remainder of the war remain of interest,
however, for two reasons. First, they provide a window into the National Socialist state; an
examination ofthe high command will reveal the growing power ofthe Nazi Party. And second,
the performance ofthe high command, although it could not affect the basic outcome ofthe war,
is an essential element in explaining the war's nature and length after 1942.,,10
Fall 2003 - 13
· . t
ts
es
for
ch
t
as
that
nd,
ewar,
In 1943, Megargee writes, "the relationship between Zeitzler and Jodi ... reached a new low as
they competed ... for every new asset that became available or any existing unit that one
headquarters wanted from another. New units, replacements, tanks, ammunition, and fuel were
the objects of heated disputes. A single trainload of supplies might spark an argument that would
continue, off and on, for days. The subordinate staffs became involved as well, especially those
such as the General Quartermaster, which had to try to meet the conflicting demands oftwo sets
of superiors. In nearly every case Hitler finally had to make the decision, since he was the only
one at the top of the command structure, the only one with authority over each of the competing
agencies. Since everyone recognized that fact, they came to him frrst when they could, and he
tended to side with whomever had offered the latest proposal. The conflicts became so serious
that, on September 11, he had to issue an order regulating his conferences with JodI and Zeitzler.
From then on, both men had to be present whenever one of them wanted to discuss any measure
that would affect the other's strength. On a more personal level, [Hitler's Wehrmacht adjutant,
Gen. Rudolf] Schmundt offered to mediate between the two men, so acrimonious had their
correspondence become, but Zeitzler rejected the idea" (pp. 200-201).
By mid-summer 1944, the successful Allied landings in Normandy in the west, the destruction of
Army Group Center in the east, and the escalating bombardment of Germany from the air
brought the conflict to "the point at which, all hindsight aside, anyone with knowledge of the
situation and a modicum of intelligence would have been able to see that Germany had lost the
war." But following the attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944, Megargee writes, his
"confidence was stronger than ever ... because Providence had spared him, seemingly, from
certain death, saving him to complete his task. At the same time, the events of that day ... sent
the high command into its final chaotic decline." 11
Shortly before the assassination attempt, Zeitzler had argued with Hitler and offered his
resignation, and, when it was refused, reported sick. The day after the attack, Hitler entrusted
General Heinz Guderian, the Inspector General of Armored Troops, with the duties of chief of
staff of the army, without appointing him to the post. Guderian, "who had been unstinting in his
criticism ofZeitzler and whose actions on July 20 indicated that he was not part ofthe
conspiracy," served in that capacity until late March 1945. 12 Regarding Guderian's role at the
time and his postwar account of it, Megargee points out that he "presented himself after the war
as a military genius and a staunch opponent of Hitler; he was perhaps the most successful ofthe
Wehrmacht's former leaders at creating an anti-Nazi image for himself.... There is barely a hint
in any of his writings that Guderian might ever have been attracted to Nazism, while he implies
again and again that he could have saved Germany if only Hitler and the OKW had listened to
him. In fact the new chief ofthe General Staff was one of the FUhrer's most ardent admirers,
even if the two did not always agree on military matters. Furthermore, Guderian shared the same
strategic myopia, the same callous determination to fight to the last, as the other members of the
high command" (p. 213).
Immediately after the assassination attempt, Hitler named the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler,
commander of the Replacement Army, which had been the principal base for the conspiracy, and
in October, Hitler decreed the establishment of the Volkssturm, or Home Guard, who were to be
organized, trained, and employed by the SS. The Home Guard "never amounted to an effective
fighting force," notes Megargee; "in fact, it achieved little except to bring an awful death to
14 - Fall 2003
thousands of boys and old men. For Himmler, however, it was another military organization
under his control, one that he could add to the Waffen-SS, which by the end of 1944 would reach
a strength of 590,000 men, in twenty-four divisions plus special units, twelve corps headquarters,
and an army headquarters" (p. 221).
Regarding the preparations for the Ardennes offensive (the Battle of the Bulge) at the end of
1944, Megargee points out that Hitler involved only Keitel, JodI, and a small group of other
officers in the planning, keeping the preliminary planning for the projected counteroffensive
secret even from the chiefs of staff ofField Marshal Rundstedt, commander in chief west, and
Field Marshall Walter Model, commander in chief of Army Group B, until 22 October 1944.
Once fully informed, "neither Rundstedt nor Model believed that Hitler's plan would work, but
they could not depart from it, despite repeated requests," writes Megargee, adding that "the
contrast with the planning processes for the offensives of 1939 to 1941 was marked" (p. 218).
On the eve of the fmal collapse, on 24 April 1945, Megargee reports, "Hitler finally unified the
command: he gave overall control of operations to the OKW and placed the General Staffs
Command Group officially under JodI's control. As [General Adolf] Heusinger said later, in the
last fourteen days ofthe war, the Gennans had the perfect high command organization."
However, as Megargee continues, "when Hitler issued that last order regarding the command
structure, Russian artillery shells were already bursting in the Chancellery courtyard above his
head" (pp. 228-29). Only when the Wehrmacht had been shattered was he prepared to relinquish
even nominal operational control to a single officer. Until then, at the cost of efficiency, he had
been determined to exercise personal control. The extent of his success in this would not have
been possible without the dedicated cooperation and collaboration of the overwhelming majority
of the senior members of the German officer corps. Readers of Megargee's illuminating study of
their role and their interaction with their Supreme Commander will, I think, generally agree with
the conclusion of his final assessment: "Although Hitler does remain central to the story of the
German high command, we can now place him in the proper context, at the center of a flawed
system that supported him almost unconditionally" (p. 236).
2. German Flak
In Flak: German Anti-aircraft Defenses 1914-1945, Edward B. Westermann draws on relevant
monographic, periodical, and governmental publications, but his study, largely based on
extensive archival research in America, Britain, and Germany, is an original, important and
welcome contribution to the literature on a relatively neglected aspect ofthe history of World
War II and oftwentieth-century military aviation and warfare. The work, as he puts it, "examines
the organization and operations of German ground-based air defenses in the period between 1914
and 1945." In preparing it, he found that "discussion of the Luftwaffe's fighter forces and the
development of strategic bombardment was necessary to place the Luftwaffe's earthbound efforts
in context" (p. 6). He has done so, in meticulously documented detail, with the consequence that
his book provides a wealth of information and valuable insight on the Anglo-American bombing
campaign, on the use of German anti-aircraft artillery in land combat, and on the impact of the
air war on the German home front. 13
Fall 2003 - 15
In his introductory essay and first three chapters, Westermann recounts the emergence of
German ground-based air defenses during World War I, the development of air defense theory
from the end of the war to the early thirties, and the establishment of a ground-based air defense
force by the Third Reich by the beginning of World War II (pp. 1-78, with endnotes, explanatory
as well as documentary, on pp. 303-322). Treating his subject in the historical context of the
quarter century from the eve ofthe First World War to the eve of the Second, Westermann
provides information and insight on an aspect of German military development that will interest
not just specialists in aviation, but historians of twentieth-century Germany and Europe as well.
As a contribution to the history ofthe Second World War, this volume brings out in great detail
the scale of the German commitment to the air defense, enabling the reader to see that, in terms
ofthe resources it commanded, the defensive air war was a major front, employing personnel,
ordnance, and ammunition that, if available for deployment on the Eastern front or against the
Western Allies, could have changed the course ofthe war. 14
Under the aggressive leadership of Hermann Goring, who was initially appointed to Hitler's
cabinet as a minister without portfolio, but within three months became Minister of Aviation and
less than two years later Commander-in-Chief of the newly established German Air Force,
ground-based German air defense forces were not developed by the German Army, but as an
integral part of the new Luftwaffe. "Goring followed Hitler's lead," Westermann writes,
"concerning the air defense of the Third Reich by emphasizing flak, searchlights, and sound
detectors as the first line of protection against aerial attack. He, like Hitler, believed that ground­
based anti-aircraft defenses could create a formidable barrier around important urban and
industrial centers, as well as along the borders of the Third Reich." But Westermann adds: "One
must be careful ... to not overdraw this point. Clearly both men placed great store in flak forces;
however, it is higWy unlikely that a Luftwaffe run by a close circle of fighter pilots like Goring,
Helmuth Felmy, Ernst Udet, Karl Bodenschatz et al. would completely neglect the necessary role
of fighters in air defense, and indeed they did not" (p. 57). How and why they did not is one of
the central themes ofthis study; Westermann explains in detail the coordination of the German
ground-based air defense forces with the airborne fighter forces, enabling them to achieve, in
coordination, a level of effectiveness that did not succeed in preventing the bombing of Germany
and German-occupied Europe, but certainly made the bombing campaign extremely costly and
severely handicapped and constrained it until very late in the war.
t
es
1914
efforts
that
bing
·the
In June 1938, Goring's deputy, General Erhard Mi1c~ State Secretary in the Ministry of Aviation
and Inspector General of the Luftwaffe, ordered the establishment of Air Defense Zone, West
[LuJtverteidigungszone-West], an aerial barrier of flak guns, searchlights, and sound detectors
integrated with the army's West Wall fortifications, augmented by fighters, to engage attacking
aircraft "as they attempted to penetrate German airspace and once again as they attempted to
leave"; by fall 1939, 245 anti-aircraft artillery sites had been completed, providing for 788 heavy
(88-mm or 105-mm) flak guns and 576 light (20-mm or 37-mm) guns (pp. 79-80). Westermann
notes that, after the war, the former inspector of flak artillery, General Walther von Axthelm,
observed that the Air Defense Zone, West, had not met expectations, but that this judgment "was
somewhat misleading, as the Air Defense Zone must be seen in the context of the times. For
example, British doctrine throughout the 1930s called for the daylight bombing of targets from
approximately 10,000 feet; from this altitude, the flak forces of the ADZ would have been higWy
effective in either engaging these aircraft or forcing them to higher altitudes. The RAF simply
16 - Fall 2003
chose to ignore the danger posed by anti-aircraft fire at an altitude of 10,000 feet and relied on
the speed of the aircraft to get it through the flak zone quickly. Ironically, this was an assumption
shared by the U. S. Army Air Corps ... [at that time]. If some within the RAF and the Army Air
Corps underestimated the effect of flak, it is equally true that both Hitler and Goring
overestimated the effectiveness offlak in the years prior to the war. However, they had taken
substantive measures in creating the most modern ground-based air defense force in the world"
(p. 81). The effectiveness ofthe German defense system was dramatically demonstrated in the
response to RAF daytime attacks during the early months of the war, culminating on 18
December 1939: "German radar identified the force [of twenty-four bombers] and alerted fighter
and ground-based air defense units. German flak guns forced the bombers to 13,000 feet and
loosened the formation, allowing fighters to press home their attacks. The RAF lost twelve
bombers on this raid ...." The unacceptable cost of these raids "shook the RAF's faith in
daylight raids by large bomber formations" and led British air planners to draw the lesson "that
fighters were superior to bombers in daylight operations." During the next few months, "the RAF
bombing campaign was extraordinarily limited.,,15 But on 15 May 1940, "the War Cabinet
authorised Bomber Command to extend its operations ... to the heart of Germany. That night,
ninety-nine aircraft of Bomber Command were despatched to attack oil and railway targets in the
Ruhr," and with that, wrote one of the leading British historians of the air war, Noble Frankland,
"the strategic air offensive against Germany had begun.,,16
The German air defense forces were not heavily engaged in defending the homeland during the
first months of the war, but they did have an important role to play in the protection of German
Army units engaged in combat on the ground. "The transfer of the air defense forces to
Luftwaffe control in April 1935 had ... shifted the responsibility for this mission from organic
army assets within the Wehrmacht to the air defense units of the air force. During operations
against Poland [in 1939], the Luftwaffe attached anti-aircraft forces to each of the numbered
German armies (AOK), the highest organizational echelon of the German army," Westermann
writes, noting that on several occasions during the Polish campaign, flak forces participated in
direct ground actions; and during the campaign in the West, the Luftwaffe deployed twenty-four
mixed flak battalions and eleven light flak battalions, which accounted for "the destruction of
503 aircraft, 152 tanks, 151 bunkers, thirteen forts, and over twenty warships and naval
transports" and "played a key role in assisting the army in breaking the French positions along
the Maginot line." Early in July 1940, Hitler praised the performance of the flak in the Battle of
France, "especially in the destruction of bunker fortifications," but he "prohibited the official
publication of these results until the end ofthe war to prevent Germany's enemies from taking
countermeasures." By the end of 1941, two Luftwaffe flak battalions of the Africa Corps had
destroyed, in addition to 42 aircraft, 264 tanks, and thirty Luftwaffe mixed flak battalions and
eleven light flak battalions were credited with 1,891 aircraft, 926 tanks, and 583 bunkers in the
Soviet Union. 17
Westermann writes that "one of the greatest successes achieved by the ground-based air defenses
in the early stage of the war was the construction of numerous dummy installations
(Scheinanlagen) throughout the Reich." In the vicinity of existing industrial sites, the Luftwaffe
"constructed replica buildings, factory facilities, railway stations, and even streetcar lines,
including devices to simulate the electric sparks generated in the overhead lines by the passage
of a streetcar. They also placed flak guns and searchlights around the targets.... The flak guns
Fall 2003 - 17
commenced firing and searchlights scanned the skies upon the approach of British aircraft...."
To cite but two of the cases considered by Westermann, "in Augsburg, on the night ofNovember
6 [1940], the fake sites alone received 33 percent of the high-explosive bombs and 70 percent of
the incendiaries dropped by the RAF bombers. Similarly, in Stuttgart on the night ofNovember 8
[1940], the numbers were almost reversed, with 65 percent ofthe high-explosive bombs and 38
percent of the incendiaries hitting the dummy installations." Westermann points out that the
phony sites "required few resources and very little effort to maintain" and that they "offered an
excellent live fire training ground for inexperienced gun and searchlight crews, as well as
recently mobilized reservists." 18
At the beginning ofthe war, the Gennans had eight radar installations in operation along the
northern coasts capable of identifying approaching planes at distances up to eighty miles. These
were useful in warning of impending attacks, but did not provide altitude information and were
not precise enough to be used in directing anti-aircraft fire. During the following year,
Telefunken developed what was known as the Wtirzburg gun-laying radar system, which came
into service in August 1940. Gradual improvements made the system increasingly effective for
aircraft targeting at night and when daytime visibility was reduced by cloud cover, and a model
introduced in December 1941 remained "the standard flak control radar through the end ofthe
war" (p. 96).
- - ur
the
nses
waffe
sage
guns
In the course of 1941, the increasing use of gun-laying radar to direct flak, coordinated at night
with searchlights and the deployment of night fighters (that began to carry aerial intercept radar
in August 1941) led to increasing success against the British bombing attacks. "In the last six
months ofthe year, flak forces in the Reich and in the west brought down 405 aircraft during the
day and an additional 242 at night for a total of647 aircraft destroyed" (p. 133). In mid-1941,
meanwhile, the British changed their bombing strategy as a consequence of "a devastating
evaluation of the results of some 100 RAF bombing raids conducted between June 2 and July 25.
After examining poststrike photographs of the targets, the report concluded that no more than
one crew in five of all aircraft dispatched had dropped their bombs within five miles of the
correct target. Furthermore, the flight crews had obtained even worse results in the heavily built­
up and smog-filled Ruhr, where only one in ten bombers placed its bomb load within five miles
of the target. 19 In addition to being concerned about the problem of accuracy, the British were
increasingly worried about the growing effectiveness of German ground-based air defenses, and
seriously considered, in the fall of 1941, the employment of the new radar countermeasure code­
named "Window," which used bundles of aluminum strips (chaff) to disrupt radar by causing a
cloud ofretums, preventing the targeting of individual aircraft by gun-laying radar. However, as
.Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal explained to the head ofRAF Bomber Command in his letter of
30 September 1941, the influential scientific adviser Sir Henry Tizard had misgivings that the
utilization of this countermeasure "would help the enemy beat our own defences." Consequently
the use of chaff was deferred for almost two years, until the summer of 1943. 20
As the year 1941 drew to a close, German air defenses were exacting a relatively high toll of
attacking British aircraft. Following the loss of37 bombers in raids on the night of7 November
against Berlin, Mannheim, and targets in the Ruhr, a total of fourteen percent of the attacking
force, Bomber Command ordered that raids be limited to coastal areas, with occasional
incursions into the Ruhr. Apart from "numerous nuisance raids by [high-flying, very fast]
18 - Fall 2003
Mosquito bombers, it would be fourteen months before a large Allied bomber force again would
be seen in the skies over Berlin. Despite the restrictions on deep penetration missions, the RAF
lost a further 141 aircraft in the last six weeks of the year [1941] in attacks on Hamburg, Kiel,
Emden, and Essen ...." But the achievements of the German air defense program did not come
cheaply. "The percentage of total funding from the entire armed forces weapons budget devoted
to the flak arm rose continually throughout 1941, from 15 percent in the first quarter, to 17
percent in the second quarter, 19 percent in the third quarter, and fmally 24 percent in the fourth
quarter,,21--this at a time when the German armed forces were engaged in the largest land
operation in their history, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The limited success of British bombing and the losses incurred in RAP attacks on Germany late
in 1941 led to the shift from precision bombing of specific targets to area bombing, aiming "for
'built-areas' within German cities instead of specific targets, the goal being to strike at 'the morale
of the enemy civil populations and, in particular, of the industrial workers,.,,22 This new approach
was implemented under the leadership of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, who became head of
Bomber Command in February 1942, at a time when an increasing number of long-range, four­
motor bombers were corning into service. On the night of28 March 1942, as a "test case for the
emergent strategy of area bombardment ... ,It Harris sent 234 aircraft of Bomber Command
against LUbeck, an easily distinguishable target because of its location as a port city on the Baltic
coast. 23 The lead planes, flown by specially selected crews, were "ordered to illuminate the target
with flares and, as far as possible, to set it on fire with incendiaries. This was intended to make it
conspicuous to the main force following up with, for the most part, less experienced crews ....
Most of these too carried maximum incendiary loads ... , exploiting the self-destructive capacity
of the target, that is its inflammability, instead of trying to knock it down piece by piece ....
Photographic reconnaissance, carried out ... on 12th April, showed that nearly half of the entire
city ... had been devastated. ,,24 The attack on LUbeck, though considered operationally
successful, had cost the RAP thirteen bombers, some 5.5% of the attacking force, "a rate that,
according to Harris, if continued over time, threatened to prevent the expansion of Bomber
Command or at least keep its offensive from reaching its fullest intensity." However, the fact that
the losses over LUbeck and in later attacks on the Baltic port ofRostock were not higher
indicated that "a large bomber force of several hundred aircraft could saturate German defenses
over a lightly defended target," leading Harris "to test his theory concerning bomber
concentration on a major urban area in a massive nighttime raid." This was done on the night of
30 May 1942 in a thousand-bomber raid, code-named Millennium, against the city of Cologne.
"To assemble a thousand planes, Harris had to gather crews and aircraft not only from Bomber
Command but also from operational training units and aircraft conversion units. Initially,
Bomber Command chose Hamburg as the primary target, but poor weather in the north of
Germany sealed the fate of the alternate target, the city of Cologne .... On the night of May 30,
thousands of seasoned operational crew members and a lesser number of inexperienced student
trainees clambered aboard a diverse array ofRAF bombers with instructions to strike Cologne.
Over 900 aircraft reached the target and released their loads of high explosives and incendiaries
with devastating effect. ,,25 The fact that the Cologne raid cost the RAP no more than 41 aircraft,
a loss rate of some four percent, was seen as bearing out Harris' theory that German air defenses
could be swamped by concentrated attacks by large numbers of bombers against individual
targets?6 Following this raid, the German night fighter force was substantially strengthened:
from 154 aircraft in January 1942 to 362 in December; and after mid-1942 its interceptors were
Fall 2003 - 19
. creasingly equipped with onboard radar??
order to increase the volume and accuracy of frrepower of its anti-aircraft artillery, the
Luftwaffe in spring 1942 began creating "superbatteries" (Grossbatterien) that linked three
batteries of four flak guns each to a centrally located fire director with improved WUrzburg gun­
laying radar. The three guns ofthe superbattery formed the comers of an equilateral triangle,
with the radar and fire director in the center. The superbatteries were "vulnerable to attack and
disruption due to the centralization of the fire direction function and the thousands of yards of
cable and wiring needed to provide the gun batteries with firing solutions," but they had the
advantage that they required fewer technically qualified personnel. This was a critically
important consideration by 1942, because of the very heavy losses suffered on the Eastern Front.
To release personnel for duty there, the Luftwaffe in 1942 began organizing Home Guard flak
batteries to protect individual factories and augment the defenses of various cities. Usually
equipped with a diverse mix of older German flak weapons and captured enemy flak guns and
equipment, they were often manned by industrial workers, who, after work, would train at the
flak batteries and be on alert in case of an RAP night attack. By the end of 1942, over 200 heavy
flak batteries and 300 light flak batteries were manned by approximately 100,000 Home Guard
members. Westermann points out that while the creation of these units "demonstrated the
increasing manpower strains being felt throughout the Wehrmacht by the summer of 1942 ... ,
the fact that sufficient weapons and munitions existed to arm over 500 heavy and light batteries,
even if for the most part with captured weapons stores, highlighted the available stockpiles still
present within the war economy by mid-1942." The steadily worsening personnel shortage led,
by the end of 1942, tothe mobilization not only of young German women in the flak force, but
also prisoners of war. "With the promise of better rations, pay, and cigarettes, the Luftwaffe
enticed Russian enlisted men for the physically demanding positions associated with hauling
ammunition and loading the heavy flak guns.,,28
.AJthough unequivocally committed to area bombing by night rather than precision bombing by
day, the American approach, RAP's Bomber Command did conduct one daylight raid into
Germany in mid-April 1942. "In an attempt to show that RAP bombers could best assist in the
Battle of the Atlantic in attacks on targets within Germany instead of raids aimed at port
facilities, Harris ordered an attack on the submarine engine assembly plant in ... Augsburg. On
April 17, 12 Lancasters took off on a low-level flight of over 1,000 miles. Luftwaffe fighters
brought down 4 ... over France, while flak defenses in Augsburg tallied 3 more bombers and
damaged the 5 remaining Lancasters. The bomber force had suffered a catastrophic 58 percent
loss rate on the mission. In the words of one British historian, 'The main lesson of the raid ...
was in any case clear. Lancasters in 1942 could no more brave the skies of Germanl in daylight
without crippling losses than could Blenheirns or Wellingtons in 1939 and 1940'."2
The first American bombing mission, on 4 July 1942, was by "a joint Anglo-American force of
six Boston light bombers each against aerodromes in Holland. Of the six aircraft with American
crews, only two actually hit their targets, while German flak defenses brought down two
bombers and severely damaged a third. In addition, the British force lost one aircraft to flak."
Thereafter USAAF "medium bombers were ordered to higher altitudes." In the second raid, on
17 August, twelve B-17 bombers escorted by RAP fighters "attacked the railroad marshaling
yards at Rouen (France) from an altitude of23,000 feet ... and the bomber force experienced no
20 - Fall 2003
losses." During the next two months, the Eighth Air Force (which, unlike the British Bomber
Command, was committed to conducting precision-bombing raids by daylight) carried out over a
dozen "missions against targets mostly in France. The largest effort included a raid of 108
bombers against industrial targets in the French city ofLille. Despite heavy fighter escort, only
69 bombers succeeded in reaching the target." Three B-17s and one B-24 were lost and another
46 bombers damaged, and "accuracy proved disappointing, with only 9 of 588 high-explosive
bombs falling within 1,500 feet of the aiming point.,,30 Because of poor weather in Europe, the
need to support Allied landings in North Africa (resulting in the diversion of Eighth Air Force
aircraft to the Twelfth Air Force), and attacks on German submarine pens on the French coast to
reduce the threat of U-boats to the North African invasion convoys, U.s. air attacks on targets in
Germany itself began only late in January 1943, and it was only in March that "the Eighth Air
Force would be able to conduct missions involving more than one hundred bombers on a
consistent basis. ,,31
Early in 1943, the cost of the bombing campaign to the RAF remained very high. During the first
months of the year, "only 17 percent of Bomber Command aircrews could be expected to survive
thirty operational missions, and the life span of a bomber was a mere forty flying hours. In his
postwar memoir, Harris observed that between 1942 and 1943, the Germans 'brought their radar­
assisted night fighters and anti-aircraft guns to a point of extreme efficiency'. ,,32 Westermann
points out, however, that in considering the relative success ofthe German air defenses as of the
start of 1943, several factors should be borne in mind. Only 6.5 percent of the total tonnage of
bombs that were eventually to fall on German targets had yet been dropped; the Luftwaffe
suffered critical losses on the Eastern Front near Stalingrad as well as in North Africa during late
1942; and already acute shortages of personnel and equipment would become worse,
increasingly hampering the ground-based air defense force. On 13 January 1943, Hitler issued a
directive on the "Comprehensive Employment of Men and Women for Duties in the Defense of
the Reich" that applied to men between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five and women between
seventeen and fifty and that led to the employment of tens of thousands ofteenagers as
Flakhelfer (flak auxiliaries). "In 1943 alone, approximately 116,000 young women replaced
Luftwaffe enlisted men employed in air defense duties. ,,33 The equipment shortages that became
critical in 1943 directly affected training. Flak guns and fire directing equipment for flak guns
were taken from the schools for use at the front and the shortage of fuel triggered curtailment not
only of Luftwaffe target training aircraft, but also the training of new pilots. Despite shortages,
however, ground-based air defense continued to be upgraded; in the course of 1943, all heavy
searchlight batteries were converted to radar control, and the stepped-up consolidation of the flak
units into superbatteries not only improved the utilization of available firepower but decreased
the overall demand for highly trained personnel and fire control equipment. In absolute terms,
the year 1943 saw an increase in flak protection. "On January 13, 1943, there were 659 heavy
and 558 light anti-aircraft gun batteries defending Germany proper," and at "the end of 1943,
1,234 and 693, respectively." In addition to the gains through increased production, the
Luftwaffe rebored captured Russian artillery pieces to accommodate German 88-mm
ammunition. "Between 1939 and 1944, the Luftwaffe's captured weapons section salvaged a total
of9,504 flak guns and almost 14 million rounds offlak ammunition." And from 1942 to the end
of 1943, the number of searchlight batteries within Germany increased from 174 to 350. 34
On the night of 5 March 1943, RAF Bomber Command began the employment, on a large scale,
Fall 2003 - 21
-tbe use ofa Pathfinder Force in a raid by 442 bombers on Essen in the heart of Germany's
ubr industrial region. Using improved navigational aids, Pathfinder Mosquito bombers at
. des of some 29,000 feet dropped red target indicators on the city, whereupon "Pathfmder
rce Stirling and Halifax bombers followed up by raining green target markers onto the red
~et markers to ensure the visibility of the aim points during the entire raid, Finally, waves of
mbers carrying loads of one-third high-explosive and two-thirds incendiary blasted the city for
roximately forty minutes." The raid left 160 acres ofthe city, including 3,000 dwellings, in
ruins, and severely damaged another 450 acres, though the damage to numerous buildings in the
Krupp factory complex "failed to destroy the factory's heavy equipment or to disrupt production
'gnificantly." The attack, which cost the RAF fourteen planes, 3.2 percent of the number
ispatched, and which was celebrated by Harris "as the greatest victory on any front," did mark,
:ording to Westermann, "a new phase in the battle for control of the skies over the Third
Reic~" for, in addition to validating the effectiveness ofthe Pathfinder target-finding system, it
nfirmed what had been demonstrated in the attack on Cologne ten months earlier, that "a
"ghtly bunched bomber stream not only overloaded German night fighter areas in the west but
Iso provided flak crews with less time to successfully acquire and engage their targets,,35
late
Eda
of
e
not
~'
.eflak
total
eend
~
ale,
On the evening of24 July 1943, after having bombed Hamburg almost one hundred times since
the beginning of the war, RAF Bomber Command launched a series of attacks code-named
Gomorrah. Almost 800 planes were deployed to drop bomb loads that averaged, per square
kilometer, seven armor-piercing bombs, 147 high-explosive bombs, 459 phosphorous bombs, 29
. llied gasoline bombs, and 17,580 incendiaries. Eighty miles from the German coast leading
aircraft began dropping, at one-minute intervals, bundles of twelve-inch aluminum foil strips. As
these thousands of strips of chaff, code-named "Window," descended, "they expanded into a
growing cloud of radar-reflective material that in effect blinded the ground-based WUrzburg
radar, as well as the night fighters' built-in aerial intercept radar sets. In the words of one
participant, the ground-based radar operators were faced with 'an undecipherable jumble of echo
points resembling giant insects, from which nothing could be recognised at all.' Likewise, one
Luftwaffe night fighter pilot described the situation as equivalent to 'fishing in the murk'. With
their gun-laying radar out of commission, searchlight batteries wandered aimlessly across the sky
... ." The raid, which cost the RAF twelve aircraft, 1.5% ofthe aircraft dispatched, killed some
1,500 and left an estimated 200,000 without shelter.36 Hamburg and other targets were hit in
daylight raids by the American Eighth Air Force on 25 and 26 July, but at the cost of a loss rate
of over ten percent, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe's flak and fighter defenses
in daylight and during good weather. Finally, on the night of27 July, Bomber Command again
attacked Hamburg with over 700 bombers that dropped more than 2,300 tons of high-explosive
and incendiary bombs. "Dry conditions and the damage sustained ... earlier ... , including the
loss of numerous water mains, combined to produce a firestorm that ravaged the city. The
resulting inferno proved apocalyptic, melting asphalt streets, ripping three-foot-diameter trees up
by their roots, and even burning thick wooden pilings in the city's canals down to the level ofthe
water. Approximately 40,000 persons perished in this single raid, many dying of asphyxiation as
the fires literally sucked oxygen out from basements and air-raid shelters throughout the city.,,37
On 1 August, German flak batteries downed 41 American bombers, almost a third of the force
conducting a daylight attack on the oil refineries and storage facilities at Ploesti, Romania, and
on the twelfth ofthe same mont~ when the USAAF conducted its only mission in 1943 against
22 - Fall 2003
the heavily defended Ruhr, 25 of243 heavy bombers were downed, largely by flak. In daylight
raids on 17 August, 46 of the two-pronged force of 31 0 bombers attacking targets in Regensburg
and Schweinfurth were shot down by Luftwaffe fighters, 5 were downed by flak, 8 were fmished
off by fighters, and almost a third of the surviving bombers returned with flak damage. 38 On 14
October 1943, "the Eighth Air Force chose to launch one of its most ambitious raids of the year
in a return visit to the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt .... Lying deep within Germany,
Schweinfurt was a daunting target with approximately twenty-three heavy flak batteries, five
light flak batteries, six searchlight batteries, and a smoke generator company, making it per
square mile on ofthe most heavily defended cities within Germany. The USAAF massed 291
bombers for the mission, with 229 successfully reaching the target. The prevailing clear weather
not only allowed for an excellent bomb pattern but also allowed Luftwaffe fighters and flak to
inflict a crippling toll on the attacking force. In the course of the mission, fighters intercepted the
bomber formations along their route of flight prior to, and after, they released their bomb loads.
At the end of the day, the Eighth Air Force had lost 60 aircraft, or almost 17 percent of the force
dispatched on the raid. ,,39 The USAAF did not launch another raid deep into Germany for the
rest of the year, but RAF's Bomber Command conducted eight raids on Berlin during the last two
months of 1943, during which, at a cost of 180 bombers, over fourteen thousand tons of bombs
were dropped, taking the lives of almost 6,000 and leaving over 470,000 homeless. 4o
Although German flak could not spare Berlin from extensive devastation late in 1943, it did
contribute substantially to the successful evacuation of Axis forces from Sicily to the Italian
mainland; "the massed firepower of one hundred flak batteries established a 'fire canopy' over the
Straits of Messina that prevented effective attacks by Allied aircraft and enabled the Wehrmacht
to withdraw 100,000 troops and 10,000 vehicles from Sicily in August" (p. 232).
By February 1944, "the size of the Luftwaffe's ground-based air defense force had swelled to a
wartime high of 13,500 heavy flak guns, 21,000 light flak guns, 7,000 searchlights, and 2,400
barrage balloons" (p. 234). Moreover, "despite the growing shortages of personnel and material
resources within Germany, the Luftwaffe's air defense forces experienced a major expansion in
the first half of 1944 ... , " with fighter production exceeding 2,000 aircraft per month for the
first time in May of that year (po 236). However, the ground-based air defense force became
increasingly hampered, in 1944, by an ammunition shortage, with the continued expansion of the
number of flak guns beginning to "outpace the ability of the German armaments industry to
provide these guns with adequate supplies of ammunition." During the third and fourth quarters
of 1943, flak ammunition had accounted for 20 and 19 percent, respectively, of the Wehrrnacht's
ammunition budget, but in the first two quarters of 1944, it declined to 17 and 16 percent,
respectively (po 238)0 In terms of personnel, the shortage of manpower was increasingly made up
by employment of women. "In the spring of 1944, some 111,000 young women were active in
the air defense network of the Reich proper. By the end of the year, the searchlight batteries were
operated almost exclusively by female auxiliaries, and growing numbers of women were serving
with the barrage balloon units. Furthermore, young women increasingly could be found
operating fire control equipment, communications systems, and sound detectors within the heavy
flak batteries" (p. 239). Moreover, forei&n workers and POWs were increasingly employed, as
illustrated by the composition of the 14 Flak Division in October 1944, primarily responsible
for the defense ofthe Leuna synthetic oil refinery in central Germany, which had 28,000 regular
Luftwaffe personnel, 18,000 Labor Service personnel, 6,000 male Luftwaffe auxiliaries, 3,050
Fall 2003 - 23
3.
e Luftwaffe auxiliaries, 900 Hungarian and Italian volunteers, 3,600 Soviet POWs, and
others, totalling altogether 62,550.41
-
m the beginning of 1944 to late March of that year, Bomber Command continued its attacks
Berlin, launching a series of eight raids against the German capital, half of them involving
"ef 500 aircraft, costing the RAP 351 planes, with 1,787 airmen killed and 506 crew members
tured, but causing extensive damage,killing 3,589 and leaving over 230,000 homeless. 42 On
_larch 1944, meanwhile, the USAAF Eighth Air Force dispatched its fIrst mission to the Berlin
. escorted with the newly available long-range P-51 Mustang fighters equipped with drop
, and returned fIve times during the month, in the course of which an average of some 470
mbers per raid dropped a total of 6379 tons of bombs, at a total cost, for the six raids, of 187
. raft and 1,870 aircrew members killed or captured. But the cost to the Luftwaffe of inflicting
losses caused by interceptors was very severe because it was becoming extremely difficult to
replace fallen personnel and destroyed equipment. In April 1944, General Adolf Galland,
mmander of the Luftwaffe fIghter arm, "noted in a report concerning Luftwaffe fighter losses
t 'the day fighters have lost more than 1,000 aircraft during the last four months, among them
ur best officers. These gaps cannot be fIlled.... Things have gone so far that the danger of a
llapse of our [fighter] arm exists'.,,43 On the other hand, technical improvements in fire control
the development of antijamming devices for gun-laying radar significantly improved the
performance of the German flak during the fIrst half of 1944. Consequently, by the late spring of
that year, the improvement of German anti-aircraft gunnery together with the crippling losses
suffered by the German interceptors (and the increasingly critical shortages of aviation fuel)
meant that German ground-based air defenses were "emerging as the main line of defense in the
- ce of the combined Allied bombing effort" (p. 249).
During spring 1944, the USAAF's Eighth Air Force and the RAP's Bomber Command were
largely diverted from their strategic campaign against Germany to operations over France in
support of the impending cross-channel invasion. However, in April and May, the American
Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, launched a series of raids on the major oil facilities at Ploesti,
omania. Moreover, in May, Eighth Air Force conducted three major raids on synthetic oil
production facilities in Germany. And on 20 June, the Eighth Air Force sent a record force of
,361 heavy bombers and 729 fighter escorts against oil targets in Germany.44 The cumulative
impact of these raids was such that on 21 June, Goring ordered reinforcement of the flak
defenses around the synthetic oil and hydrogenation plants and on 30 June, Armaments Minister
_.:\lbert Speer informed Hitler ofthe "catastrophic" attacks and severe reduction in fuel production
capacity, urging that more fIghters be assigned to protect the critically important facilities. Six
eeks later, when Hitler ordered the transfer of Luftwaffe "fighter reserves from the defense of
Germany proper to the Western Front," Speer and General Galland flew to his headquarters in
East Prussia to ask that he rescind the order, only to have Hitler categorically reject their advice;
be ordered that all available resources be utilized to upgrade the flak artillery and that there be a
two-fold increase in flak ammunition. 45
The ensuing effort to strengthen ground-based defenses of the oil sites led to the deployment at
Leuna, by the end of 1944, ofa total of "over 500 heavy flak guns, including 150 of the
Luftwaffe's prized 128-mm guns ..." while "the heavy gun defenses of the hydrogenation plants
at Politz and BoWen rose from 26 and 24 heavy guns in March to 352 and 203, respectively, by
24 - Fall 2003
December." But reinforcing the defenses of the oil sites was not achieved merely by giving them
priority for newly produced guns; it also required the reallocation of already deployed resources,
leading the Luftwaffe "to withdraw flak units from Berlin and the Ruhr, and even to completely
strip Eisenach, Weimar, Chernnitz, and Dresden oftheir ... flak defenses." Regarding the
effectiveness of the upgrading of the defenses at Leuna, Westermann writes that "of the 82
aircraft destroyed by known causes in raids on Leuna, flak defenses accounted for 59, fighters
received credit for 13, and 7 fell to accidents. In other words, flak accounted for 72 percent of
known losses, a figure 4.5 times greater than the number of fighter shootdowns. On the other
hand, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey team found that the flak defenses surrounding
Leuna 'undoubtedly contributed to inaccuracy in the bombing ofthe target.' In fact, the survey
found that only 10 percent of all bombs delivered against the target fell within the plant grounds,
an area of757 acres." Thus massed flak fire could not only inflict damage, but also "prevent
accurate bombing.,,46
As 1944 drew to a close, the ability of the Luftwaffe to respond to the steadily escalating air
attacks on Germany gradually declined. "By the fall of 1944, the Luftwaffe's consumption of flak
ammunition peaked at over 3.5 million rounds of heavy flak ammunition and 12.5 million rounds
of light flak ammunition per month." But the damage inflicted on the German chemical industry
resulted in so serious a shortage of nitrogen that inert fillers increasingly had to be used in the
flak shells, reducing the explosive force of individual rounds, contributing to "the increase in the
number of rounds per aircraft destroyed in 1944.,,47 As late as September 1944, "Eighth Air
Force flak reports ... remarked on the 'noticeable increase' in flak damages and losses." But in
the last quarter of the year there was marked change. "By the end of October ... the bombers
experienced a 'sharp reduction' in the number of losses due to flak," attributable only in part to
poor weather. "The number of Eighth Air Force bombers destroyed by the flak in the last four
months of 1944 fell from a high of 162 aircraft in September to 66 aircraft in October, then rose
slightly to 90 in November but plummeted to 44 in December."48
During the final months of the war, German ground-based air defenses were widely dismantled
to provide artillery support for the Wehrmacht units defending the beleaguered Reich. "In the last
week of January [1945], the Luftwaffe withdrew flak batteries from the defense of Hamburg for
duties at 'the front, despite the strenuous objections ofthe local National Socialist district leader."
On 7 February, "in a clear-weather attack against oil facilities near Vienna ... , the Fifteenth Air
Force lost between 19 and 25 bombers to the city's still formidable flak defenses ... ," but "a
Bomber Command raid on the night of February 13 and a follow-up raid by the Eighth Air Force
on February 14 devastated the city of Dresden in a frrestorm reminiscent of Hamburg, leading to
the deaths ofan estimated 25,000 persons. In one respect, the success of British bombers in
achieving a tight concentration of bombs resulted from the Luftwaffe's previous decision to strip
Dresden of its flak batteries to strengthen the defenses of other more important objectives.
Although the presence of flak defenses might not have prevented the conflagration that arose in
the ancient baroque city, it is conceivable that anti-aircraft fire mighty have prevented the RAF
from achieving the massive concentration of incendiaries that eventually generated the
devastating firestorm that engulfed the city. In any event, devoid of flak defenses, the city's
inhabitants paid the ultimate price for the Luftwaffe's shell game involving the flak.,,49
By the last month of the war, "the flak arm was receiving only one-third of the ammunition it
Fall 2003 - 25
uired," and the fuel shortage had become so critical that "teams of oxen were used to pull Me­
_ _ jet fighters to runways to conserve the fuel used by these aircraft in taxiing to their takeoff
sruons." But although the Messerschmittjets were more than a match for the P-51 Mustangs,
.° very few of them actually came into service, and a number of American bomber pilots did
50
see a German fighter during their entire tour of duty in the last months of the war.
f
mg
v
s,
. the
°een July 1942 and April 1945, German flak destroyed some 1,345 RAP Bomber Command
aft, compared to Luftwaffe interceptors' estimated tally of 2,278, although many of the RAF
es shot down by fighters had been damaged and rendered vulnerable by anti-aircraft fire. But
accounted for more than half of the USAAF's wartime combat losses in Europe, almost
':.400 aircraft having been downed by anti-aircraft artillery, opposed to the 4,300 by Luftwaffe
- _ ters (pp. 286-87). Yet as Westermann points out repeatedly in his monograph and stresses in
. conclusion, a realistic evaluation of German ground-based air defenses during the Second
'orId War should take into account not only the number of enemy aircraft shot down (not to
ntion the far greater number damaged), but also the effectiveness of flak in "prevent[ing] the
mbers from accurately striking their intended targets" (p. 300). On the basis of the wartime
rd and carefully examined postwar assessments, Westermann demonstrates that German
_ und-based air defenses substantially contributed to inaccuracy in bombing, thereby
diminishing the effectiveness of the Allied air raids--apart from their success in downing
arracking bombers--and that "the efforts and performance of these defenses clearly deserve more
it than they have received" (p. 301).
m
Notes
to
ill
ose
led
last
for
er."
Air
. Issued by the Research Institute for Military History (initially in Freiburg, since unification in
tsdam) and published in English translation by Oxford University Press, Germany and the
~ cond World War, vols. 1-3 were reviewed in the fall 1966 issue of this newsletter, vol. 4 was
viewed in the fall 1999 issue, vol 5, part 1, in the spring 2001 issue, and vol. 6 in the spring
_002 issue. The English translation of vol. 5, part 2, is scheduled for publication in 2003.
a
Force
g to
strip
sem
RAF
it
- Megargee's annotations to his subsequent chapters do not suffer by comparison to those in his
.first, but because of the broad scope of the initial chapter, his expert overview of the relevant
. erature in the endnotes, in which he cites English translations where available, is worth special
ntion.
The Armed Forces High Command was not created from scratch by Hitler. Early in 1938,
nen Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg was constrained to resign as Minister of War, Hitler
. not replace him, but assumed direct control of what had been the War Ministry, redesignating
. as the OKW and naming General Wilhelm Keitel, who had headed Blomberg's staff in the
ministry, as OKW chief of staff. The classic study of this epoch-making event, in historical
ntext, and of the accompanying measures whereby Hitler secured effective personal control of
leadership corps of the German military establishment during the first half of 1938 is the very
readable account by the late Harold C. Deutsch, Hitler and His Generals: The Hidden Crisis,
J.
26 - Fall 2003
January-June 1938 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974).
4. Megargee, p. 85. In considering the controversy regarding Rundstedt's role at Dunkirk, it
should be noted that he was the senior general serving in the German Army. On 1 January 1938,
he was third in seniority after Field Marshal von Blomberg, the Minister of War, and General
Werner von Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but later that year Blomberg was
stricken from the Army list, and never recalled to duty, and Fritsch, though replaced by
Brauchitsch in 1938 and not reassigned, exercised his honorary prerogative as Chef of Artillery
Regiment 12 to go to the front with this unit when the war began and was killed in action on 22
September 1939, as spelled out in Rank Lists 4 and 7 onpp. 382 and 388 of Telford Taylor,
Sword and Swastika: General and Nazis in the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1952; repr., Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969). For a concise biographical summary of Rundstedt,
giving dates of birth, promotions, assignments, and death, see footnote 5 on p. 335 ofHelrnut
Heiber, ed., Hitlers Lagebesprechungen. Die Protokollfragmente seiner militiirischen
Konferenzen 1942-1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), a 971-page critical edition
ofthe salvaged fragments of the protocols of Hitler's situation conferences (incompletely burned
at the end of the war), in which copious annotations provide, among much else, personnel record
summaries of hundreds of officers mentioned in the conferences (and listed by name in the index
of persons).
5. Megargee, p. 130, where he cites, in endnote 42, the German edition of the fourth volume of
the official German history ofthe war; in the English edition, Germany and the Second World
War, vol. 4 (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1999), reviewed in this newsletter in Fall 1999, the
relevant passage in Ernst Klink's subchapter on the planning of the land war against the Soviet
Union is onp.JI7. In his text, Megargee follows his indictment by citing (on pp. 130-31) the
official General Staff manual (and adding a comment about Clausewitz to his endnote): "Their
actions," he writes, "did not even agree with the principles by which they had been trained: 'In
war the situations are of unlimited variety. They change often and suddenly, and they can only
seldom be seen clearly in advance. Unknown quantities are often of decisive influence. The
independent will of the enemy encounters your own will. Friction and error are everyday
phenomena' [Germany, Heer, Heeresdienstvorschrift 300/1 (H.Dv. 300/1),1. Teil.
Truppenfuhrung (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1936), 1. This is pure Clausewitz]."
6. Megargee, pp. 135-37. Bock referred to encircling rather than taking Moscow because, as
Megargee notes parenthetically on p. 136, "the plan was not to take the city but to surround it,
starve its citizens to death, and flatten it. Hitler ordered on October 12 [1941] that Army Group
Center not accept the city's surrender even if offered."
7. Megargee writes that "after the war Halder and his associates would maintain that he opposed
the renewal of offensive operations in the east in 1942. A postwar footnote to his diary entry of
February 15, 1942, for example, states that Halder wanted Germany to stay on strategic
defensive in 1942, in the belief that the army needed lots oftime to recover from the losses it had
sustained.
IfHalder really believed that, however, there is no record that he said so at the time. In contrast,
many other officers believed that an attack was foolish. These included [Field Marshal von]
Rundstedt and [Field Marshal von] Leeb, who both suggested a withdrawal, perhaps as far back
Fall 2003 - 27
938,
Polish border. [The head of the Replacement Army, General Friedrich] Fromm, [the head
Replacement Army], [General Eduard] Wagner, [the chief supply officer of the army,] and
I'-""~~Jial Georg] Thomas (head of the OKWs Military Economics and Armaments Office) all
sed an offensive as well, as did many in the General Staffs Operations Branch; they all
. ed that Germany did not possess the forces to achieve Hitler's goals. Some such as [the
of the OKW's Foreign- and Counter-Intelligence Office, Admiral Wilhelm] Canaris, were
suggesting--quietly--that the war was already lost" (p. 175).
" legargee, pp. 183-85. On 23 July 1944, at Goring's suggestion, following the assassination
mcmpt on Hitler's life, the so-called "German greeting" officially replaced the traditional
miJtitaJry' salute throughout the Wehrmacht (Megargee, p. 222).
. Ibid., p. 189. Although operational control was divided between the OKW and the OKH, the
e ofthe war as a whole, including the air war and the war at sea, based on staff notes made
~. at Hitler's midday and evening briefmgs, was recorded in the war diary ofthe OKW, which
reconstructed after the war by the former war diary officer and subsequently published as
- 'egstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtfuhrungsstab) 1940-1945,
, e-d by Percy Ernst Schramm, 4 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Bernard & Graefe, 1961-65), with
plements containing previously lost segments of the fourth volume following in 1969 and
9' 9.
, Megargee, pp. 190-91. Megargee also reports that when Zeitzler, not long after having been
inted OKH chief of staff, briefed Hitler on a study showing that "the army had reached its
strength and , , . would not be able to make up its losses," Hitler offered him two hundred
- usand Luftwaffe troops. "Goring intervened, however; he said he did not want his National
ialist youths going to the reactionary army. He instead offered to form ten so-called
uftwaffe Field Divisions. The army would have to equip these divisions, but the Luftwaffe
, uld provide all the personnel, including officers. This measure ... spelled certain doom for
inexperienced Luftwaffe personnel who would now have to fight as infantry, without proper
training or leadership. Lieutenant Colonel Burkhart Muller-Hillebrand, then chief of the [OKH]
ganization Branch, thought this idea so outrageous that he protested strenuously, in writing
verbally, until Zeitzler finally sacked him at the end of October [1942]" (p. 190).
sed
of
it had
ast,
J
rback
I. Megargee, pp. 210-11, where he writes that, on 22 June 1944, the Red Army "launched a
_. antic pincer attack against Army Group Center. Within twelve days, twenty-five German
.. risions--at least three hundred thousand men--disappeared . , . ," Regarding the bombardment
Germany, he writes on p. 209 that "the air war over the Reich was draining resources away
, m the front; most of the Luftwaffe was already defending Germany, and there would come a
int in 1944 after which half of all German artillery would be 'at home pointing skyward' [citing
hard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History o/World War II (Cambridge
-niversity Press, 1994), p. 617]."
2. Megargee, pp. 213 and 225, Guderian, who had distinguished himself in France and had been
omoted to general in July 1940, had been relieved of command when he insisted on ordering a
llback of his armored forces before Moscow in December 1941. But in February 1943, when
28 - Fall 2003
Hitler wanted to upgrade the armored forces, he recalled Guderian from the Fiihrerreserve and
appointed him to the new post ofInspector General of Armored Troops, directly subordinate to
Hitler himself, rather than to the chief of staff ofthe OKW or to that ofthe OKH. About this
appointment, Megargee writes (on p. 196) that Hitler's Wehrmacht adjutant, Gen. Schmundt,
"reminded the Fuhrer that Guderian ... was 'one of his [Hitler's] truest followers among the
generals.' (Even Goebbels, who did not generally hold army officers in high esteem, liked
Guderian, whom he believed ... [to be] 'certainly an ardent and unquestioning disciple of the
Fuhrer'.)"
13. Westermann's book is also timely, in that the air war over Germany has recently been the
subject of reconsideration. In 1999, a work was published in Germany that dealt with the
bombing of that country during World War II, that gained considerable attention, and that has
recently been published in this country, W. G. Sebald, On the Natural History ofDestruction,
translated by Anthea Bell (New York: Random House, 2003). Meanwhile, the publication last
fall of Jorg Friedrich, Der Brand. Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945 (Berlin: PropyUien,
2002), has generated further controversy whether and/or to what extent Germans should be
regarded as having been victims, leading to the compilation and publication ofLothar
Kettenacker, ed., Ein Volk von Opfern? Die neue Debatte um den Bombenkrieg 1940-45 (Berlin:
Rowohlt, 2003), which, according to the online listing (with descriptive information) of the
German branch of the internet bookseller Amazon.com, <http://www.arnazon.de>. includes.
contributions by Horst Boog, Hans Mommsen, Richard Overy, Martin Walser, Hans-Ulrich
Wehler, and others.
14. InA World at Arms, Gerhard Weinberg wrote ofa major contribution ofthe bombing
offensive having been "the enforced diversion of German resources to the defense of cities and
installations, to the defense ofthe skies. By 1944, over 1.1 million ... were employed in firing
and controlling 12,000 heavy and 19,000 other anti-aircraft guns. Almost half a million of the
crew members were auxiliaries-- primarily teenagers and women--who could not have been
employed in front-line units; but, on the other hand, not only were enormous quantities of
ammunition as well as guns tied up in defense of the Reich against air attacks, but the bulk of the
German air force had had to be shifted to this defensive mission. The German air force was
absorbing the majority of Germany's military industrial resources ..." (p. 773).
15. Westermann, pp. 88-89.
16. Noble Westermann, pp. 86-87 on flak in Poland, pp. 92-93 on flak in France and Hitler's
quashing publicity about it, and p. 121 on flak in North Africa. For a brief but well-informed
overview of German anti-aircraft ordnance in World War II, see the segment "German Flak
Defenses" on pp. 23-43 of Kenneth P. Werrell, Archie, Flak, AAA, and SAM: A Short
Operational History ofGround-Based Air Difense (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University
Press, 1988). "Flak" is an acronym for FlugzeugQbwehr/s.anone ["aircraft defense cannon"]. The
standard 88-mm Flak gun, initially designed by Krupp engineers at Bofors in Sweden and
refined in Germany in the 1930s, comprised about sixty percent of Germany's heavy flak guns
during World War II. It fired a 20.3-pound shell at a muzzle velocity of2,690 feet per second
(fps) to an effective ceiling of26,000 feet. With its high muzzle velocity and accuracy, this
versatile weapon was widely employed not only against aircraft, but as an anti-tank gun and a
Fall 2003 - 29
5D1:daJrd artillery piece. (The 1941 model of the 88-mm flak gun fIred a 20.7-pound shell at a
.DlZile velocity of3280 fps to an effective ceiling of37,000 feet, but because of mechanical
ty(I~blems did not come into service until 1943; by February 1944 only 279 units had been
5ek:ied.) The 128-mm flak gun, which fIred a 57.2-pound shell at 2,890 fps to a maximum
crilling of35,000 feet, used a powder charge four times as great as the 88-mm gun, making its
flight time only one-third as long. Werrell also reports that "the AAF lost 18,418 aircraft
at against Gennany in World War II. The American airmen credit antiaircraft artillery
dov.ning 7,821 of these, enemy aircraft with 6,800," and he adds a consideration that
. _ ermann treats in detail, that "flak also degraded bombing accuracy. A 1941 British report
.
accuracy had been degraded by a fIgure of one-third. A similar study of [U.S.] Eighth
Force bombing errors between May 1944 and February 1945 credits ahnost 40 percent of
errors to enemy guns" (Werrell, pp. 42-43).
rankland, Bomber Offensive: The Devastation ofEurope (New York: Ballantine Books,
., p. 23.
id., pp. 99-101, where Westermann also mentions that Goring's deputy, Field Marshal
]:yoJ....,.......J Milch "ordered that only captured flak pieces be used at the [dummy] sites, a measure
prevented the further dilution of German air defense resources and saved the best flak guns
rational positions. "
'estennann, op. cit., p. 125. Noble Frankland, on pp. 38-39 of Bomber Offensive (cited in
16 above), explains that the report by D. M. Butt was instigated by Prime Minister
hill's scientifIc advisor, Lord Cherwell, "to fInd out the answer to the increasingly raised
'on of how accurate or otherwise was night bombing." In endnote 86 on p. 333,
ennann mentions that the entire text of the Butt Report is printed in the official history of
British bombing campaign, Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air
ensive Against Germany, 1939-1945, Vol. 4, Annexes and Appendices (London: H. M .
. nery Office, 1961), pp. 205-213.
and
g
-.
'estennann, op. cit., p. 133 for the Portal letter and pp. 213-14 for the initial employment of
in July 1943 attacks on Hamburg code-named Operation Gomorrah. (See also note 36
w for Gennan concern about the Allies' possible use of chaff.)
_ . Ibid., pp. 134-36.
_. Ibid., p. 150.
...::. Ibid., p. 154.
- . Frankland, Bomber Offensive, pp. 42-43. Westennann on p. 154 quotes Harris' statement in
. postwar memoirs that "the main object of the attack [on LUbeck] was to learn to what extent a
wave of aircraft could guide a second wave to the aiming point by starting a conflagration."
.-:. Westennann, pp. 154-55.
30 - Fall 2003
26. Ibid., p. 156. Although the Cologne raid revealed severe limitations in the German air
defense system, it also led to a demonstration of the extent of the civil defense program
developed in Germany by 1942. Earl R. Beck, in his monograph Under the Bombs: The German
Home Front 1942-1945 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), writes that there had
been an extensive program for air-raid alarms and shelters before the war, but that civilian
defense was greatly expanded following an emergency decree by Hitler in September 1940
designating eighty-two cities in which air raid shelters and emergency installations were to be
built. "Prior to the thousand- bomber raid [on Cologne]," Beck continues, "five hundred air raid
shelters, secure against bomb fragments, provided places for 75,000 people. Fourteen auxiliary
hospitals with 1,760 beds had been built. Twenty-seven emergency first-aid stations and fourteen
stations for secondary medical assistance were in place. Twenty-five bunkers secure against
direct hits provided shelter for 7,250 people. Twenty-nine more were under construction. These
projects and auxiliary provisions had cost twenty-four million marks and involved the movement
of200,000 cubic meters of earth and the use of 100,000 cubic meters of iron and 35,000 tons of
cement. Emergency water supplies had been provided. Forty-two thousand private air-raid
shelters were being built in private homes. In all, thirty-nine million marks had gone for air-raid
protection. And the bombs fell, buildings were destroyed, and there were 460 dead--not a heavy
toll ....
"Within a few hours after the May 30/31 attack, the roads to Cologne were filled with trucks
bringing 61,000 sheets, 100,000 meters of curtain material, 34,000 pieces of clothing for men
and women, 50,000 pieces of clothing for boys and girls, 90,000 boxes of soap powder, 700,000
cakes of soap, and ten million cigarettes. Three hundred seventy-four workers dealing with
claims for war damage were aided by 43 from Bonn and DUsseldorf, 160 more from the Interior
Ministry, and 150 court agents, and before a month had passed, 140,000 claims had been
handled. The final total of claims amounted to 370,000 and 126 million marks were paid as
damages. Five thousand two hundred workmen from Cologne itself were backed up in the repair
work by 3,400 glaziers brought in from outside, 10,000 building advisers, 25,000 soldiers ....
"These figures present in brief summary a part of the story to follow. The bombings were to
prove damaging to the houses and buildings of the cities but took a relatively minimal toll of
people and had a relatively insignificant effect upon war production. The bureaucracy made
heroic efforts to deal with the bombing damages as they occurred. But behind the figures lies the
story oflost homes, of constant fear and uncertainty, of the movement of thousands of people to
unfamiliar places ....
"During the remainder of 1942, there were thirty-two more attacks on German cities.
Approximately 12,600 tons of bombs fell on nineteen different targets, with Bremen being
attacked five times, Duisburg four times, and Essen, Hamburg, and Emden twice each. But this
was only a modest beginning to the hail of bombs released in 1943" (pp. 8-9).
27. Westermann, p. 175, where he explains that the onboard radar (Lichtenstein) "consisted of
three cathode-ray tube displays in the cockpit that indicated the range, height, and horizontal
displacement of the aircraft being tracked. Although tested operationally in August 1941, the
aerial intercept radar was not readily available until the middle of 1942."
28. Ibid., pp. 157-163.
Fall 2003 - 31
-
ermann, p. 178. Blenheims and Wellingtons were twin-engined bombers, Lancasters
tored. The Avro Lancaster, powered by four 1,460-horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin
~:IDe:s,- compared to the four 2,000-horsepower engines of the American B-17 Flying Fortresses
_ Liberators, carried heavier bomb loads than the American heavy bombers (Thomas
flSml1. ed., The Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of World War 11 [New York: Simon and
SdllllSler, 1978], pp. 41 and 355; Percy Ernst Schramm et aL, Geschichte des Zweiten
_.'CI.n·eges, 2. Teil, Die Kriegsmittel [Wiirzburg: A. G. Ploetz, 1960], pp. 537,615, and 616). In
the Bombs, cited above, Earl Beck writes that in 1944, when the USAAF was attacking
. d Reich by day and the RAF by night, the "Germans soon came to realize that the British
Ooi:nbers carried the larger and more destructive bombs," noting the particular "force ofthe
1I'3:mD!I1 or suction created by the explosion" of the 4,000-pound bomb (pp. 108-109).
-
ermann, p. 179.
id., pp. 180, 183.
'estermann, p. 184, citing Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive (London: Collins, 1947; repr.,
....".ca.A.I'n: Greenhill Books, 1990), p. 147.
"estermann, pp. 185-86.
erior
. repaIr
-estermann, pp. 187-192, where Table 7.2 provides a comparison of the change in flak
:sm:~th from 1942 to 1943 in terms of heavy and light flak batteries and searchlight batteries in
Gelrml:ury, in occupied western Europe, in Norway and Finland, on the Eastern Front, in the
SO'Im~ (Romania, Greece, and Hungary), and in the South (North Africa and Italy).
:.:. Ibid., pp. 194-95; however, the effectiveness of the target-marking system was in time
what reduced by the Luftwaffe's adoption of "decoy rockets ... [and] decoy ground flares
'ariety of colors" (p. 198).
Ibid., pp. 213-214, where Westennann goes on to point out that just three days before the raid
Hamburg, some of Hamburg's heavy flak batteries had been sent to the Mediterranean, where
_- . y had been invaded earlier in July. He also writes that the Germans had been concerned
the Allies' use of chaff before the Hamburg raid, explaining that they had tested chaff in
trials over the Baltic and gone so far as to prohibit work on a countermeasure lest
-ledge of it leak out and alert the Allies to its potential. (Their concern corresponded to that
.ir Henry Tizard, noted above, regarding the danger of an enemy using chaff.)
J
this
:d of
1
e
_
_ . Ibid., pp. 214-216, where the author notes that Bomber Command followed up their earlier
ks with raids on 29 July and 2 August, thereby launching, during the "Battle of Hamburg" a
of over 3,000 sorties dropping more than 8,500 tons of bombs, mostly incendiaries, and
ering a total loss rate of less than 2.5 percent. He cites, in addition to Harris, Bomber
_ ensive (noted above), Denis Richards, The Hardest Victory: RAF Bomber Command in the
nd World War (New York: Norton, 1994), and Gordon Musgrove, Operation Gomorrah:
Hamburg Firestorm Raids (London: Jane's, 1981). Regarding chaff, Westermann goes on to
lain that it was not always successful, particularly when high winds dispersed it. In fall 1943
32 - Fall 2003
the USAAF introduced an active radar-jamming device (named "Carpet") carried by lead
elements of a bomber formation that transmitted "a powerful electromagnetic signal designed to
overwhelm the ground radar" (p. 220).
38. Ibid., p. 221. The 1 August 1943 raid on Ploesti, codenamed Tidalwave, included Eighth Air
Force heavy bombers on loan to the Ninth Bomber Command (Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller,
The Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology 1941-1945 [Albert F. Simpson
Historical Research Center, Air University, and Office of Air Force History, Headquarters
USAF, 1973],p. 168).
39. Westermann, pp. 229-230.
40. Ibid., pp. 230-31, where the author describes Berlin's formidable defenses, "with over 700
heavy flak guns, including three mammoth concrete flak towers studded with twin-barrelled 128­
mm flak guns," adding that "by the end of September [1943] the Luftwaffe had withdrawn
German and Italian flak forces stationed in Italy into the Reich's defenses," that "the flak area
surrounding the capital was forty miles wide, and the searchlight belt extended for sixty miles,"
and quoting what an RAP bombardier wrote regarding a mission against Berlin: "Lying in the
nose of a Lancaster on a visual bomb run over Berlin was probably the most frightening
experience in my lifetime. Approaching the target, the city appeared to be surrounded by rings of
searchlights, and the Flak was always intense. The run-up seemed endless, the minutes of flying
'straight and level' seemed like hours and every second I expected to be blown to pieces" (citing
Martin Middlebrook, The Berlin Raids: R.A.F Bomber Command Winter, 1943-1944 [New
York: Viking, 1988], p. 26).
41. Westermann, p. 240, where it is noted that "approximately 51,000 Soviet prisoners of war
were serving with the flak by August 1944."
42. Westernmann, pp. 241-43, noting that Flak gunners restricted their fire to no higher than
16,500 feet in order to avoid hitting German interceptors that were operating at that altitude and
higher against the bombers (especially those illuminated by searchlights).
43. Ibid., p. 246, with citation of Adolf Galland, The First and the Last: The Rise and Fall o/the
German Fighter Forces, 1938-1945, translated by Mervyn Savill (New York: Ballantine Books,
1954), p. 195.
44. Westermann, pp. 258-262, and Carter and Mueller, The Army Air Forces in World War II:
Combat Chronology, pp. 334-376, where the entry for 20 June 1944 notes that on that day 50
heavy bombers (B-17s and B-24s both were used) and seven fighters were lost, and that the
attacking force claimed to have destroyed 76 aircraft.
45. Westermann, pp. 262-69. Galland feared that the relatively inexperienced pilots who would
be transferred to the Western Front would be lost without serving any useful purpose; Speer
thought that they could be most usefully deployed in the defense of key installations in Germany.
Throughout his book, Westermann brings out clearly that Hitler, from the beginning, was a
strong supporter of the flak arm and that his consistent support was instrumental, among other
Fall 2003 - 33
its being provided a relatively large proportion of the Wehrmacht's budget for ordnance
amnrutnit' ion. In 1944, "the percentage of the total Wehrmacht budget allocated to anti­
-eapons remained between 25 and 27 percent for the entire year" (p. 273).
- ,p. 263-64.
· , p. 273.
· . pp. 275-76. Westennann cites a corresponding decline in the number of aircraft
flak during this time span. He also notes that Fifteenth Air Force, operating out of
agaInSt targets in southern and southeastern Europe, did not experience the same decline in
to flak, explaining that this was due in part to the continuing attacks against very
Ji¥o7..-.r".­ efended oil facilities and in part because of missions in support of the Russian advance
Balkans, which involved attacks on bridges, airfields, and transportation hubs requiring
~l:nbing_ from lower altitudes for the sake of accuracy.
t2I~~ed by
, pp. 280-81.
· , p. 281. The Me-262 was a turbojet fighter, of which well over a thousand were built,
~~ ery few came into operational use. On 18 March 1945, when 1,251 Eighth Air Force
mbers attacked the Berlin area, escorted by 645 P-51 Mustangs (Carter and Mueller,
Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology, p. 601), Me-262 jets shot down 25
rorc.bers and 5 fighters without suffering any losses (Percy Ernst Schramm et aI., Geschichte des
£li1rncm Weltkrieges, 2. Teil, Die Kriegsmittel [Wtirzburg: A. G. Ploetz, 1960], p. 209).
DSD/July 2003
and
ofthe
oks,
II:
50
uld
:er
ermany.
mer
34 - Fall 2003
Recently Printed and Republished Books in English on World War II
Selected Titles from an Electronic Compilation
by
James Ehrman
Abella, Alex, and Scott Gordon. Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret Terrorist Plot Against the
United States. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2003.
Adam, Magda. The Versailles System and Central Europe. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing,
Limited, 2003.
Adler Jr., Bill. World War II Letters: A Glimpse into the Heart ofthe Second World War
Through Those Who Were Fighting It. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2003.
Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Lord. War Diaries 1939-1945. Berkley, CA: University of
California Press, 2003.
Alexander, Thomas E. The Wings of Change: The Army Air Force Experience During World
War II. Abilene, TX: McWhiney Foundation Press, 2003.
Alford, Kenneth D. Nazi Plunder: Great Treasure Stories of World War II. New York, NY: Da
Capo Press, 2003.
Allen, Louis. Singapore, 1941-1942. Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003.
Allen, Robert W. Churchill's Guests: Britain and the Belgian Exiles During World War II.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2003.
Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. New York, NY:
Henry Holt & Company, 2003.
Authers, John. The Victim's Fortune: Inside the Epic Battle over the Debts of the
Holocaust. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company, 2003.
Axell, Albert. Marshal Zhukov. New York, NY: Longman Publishing Group, 2003.
Bahmanyar, Mir. Darby's Rangers 1942-45. Osceola, WI: Osprey Publishing, 2003.
Baldridge, Robert C. Victory Road. Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks Library, 2003.
Barber, John, and Andreaei Rostislavovich Dzeniskevich, eds. Life and Death in Besieged
Leningrad, 1941-44. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Fa112003-35
Ba':ber.• 'oel. Sinister Twilight: The Fall of Singapore. New York, NY: Cassell, 2003.
1:::IIf1ll)~".
Orner. Germany's War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
. . 'ersity Press, 2003.
B2i1SCh. 'William H. December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor. College Station, TX: Texas
M University Press, 2003.
~crer.
Ian. German Armoured Warfare of World War II: The Unpublished Photographs
: ""9-1945. Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2003.
SlDaer, Ian. The Secret Archives: Western Front. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational
'es, Incorporated, 2003 .
......-._u.
Edward Latimer. Submarine. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003.
~~ u..
Charles Austin Beard. President RooseveIt and the Coming 0 f the War, 1941:
..,\ppearances and Realities. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003.
Earl R., and Keith Eubank, eds. European Home Fronts, 1939-1945. Wheeling, IL:
arlan Davidson Incorporated, 2003.
r, Antony. The Fall of Berlin 1945. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2003.
Donald V. Honor Untarnished: A West Point Graduate's Memoir of World War II.
'ew York, NY: Tom Doherty Associates, 2003.
6e:rme'tt,
o
-'
_ Doris L. War and Genocide: A Concise History ofthe Holocaust. Lanham, MD:
Rmvman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.
"'l
oJ.
Belmstein, Mark, Alex Lubertozzi, and Dan Rather, narrators. World War II on the Air: Edward
R Murrow and the Broadcasts That Riveted a Nation. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks,
Incorporated. Compact Disc; 2003 .
Simon. Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry between Churchill, Roosevelt, and
DeGaulle. Emeryville, CA: Avalon Publishing, 2003.
.tseI::thon,
bloss, Michael R The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's
Germany, 1941-1945. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Anthony. An International History of the Twentieth Century. New York, NY: Routledge,
2003 .
. . Mark. British and Commonwealth Armies 1944-45, Vol. 2. West Midlands, England:
Helion & Company, 2003.
36 - Fall 2003
Bigger, Margaret G., ed. World War II - Hometown and Home Front Heros: Life Experience
Stories from the Carolinas' Piedmont. Borough Books, 2003.
Bilek, Anton F., Gene O'Connell. No Uncle Sam: The Forgotten of Bataan. Kent, OH: Kent
State University Press, 2003.
Binns, Stewart, and Adrian Wood. America at War in Color: Unique Images onhe American
Experience in World War II. London, England: Carlton Books, 2003.
Black, Jeremy. World War Two: A Military History. New York, NY: Routledge, 2003.
Blatman, Daniel. For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labour Bund in Poland, 1939-1949.
Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell Publishers, 2003.
Bloomfeld, Gary. Duty, Honor, Victory: America's Athletes During World War II. Guilford,
CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2003.
Bollich, James. Bataan Death March: A Soldier's Story. New York, NY: Pelican Publishing
Company, 2003.
Bonsall, Joseph. G. I. Joe and Lillie: Remembering a Life of Love and Loyalty. Green Forest,
AR: New Leaf Press, 2003.
Bowman, Martin W. B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the Pacific War. Osceola, WI: Osprey
Publishing, 2003.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _. B-24 Liberator. Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife Publishing, 2003.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _. Wild Blue Yonder: Glory Days of the US 8th Air Force in England. New
York, NY: Cassell, 2003.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _, and Theo Boiten. Raiders onhe Reich: Air Battle Western Europe, 1942­
45. Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife Publishing, 2003.
Bowyer, Chaz. Air War over Europe. South Yorkshire, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2003.
Boyce, Robert. The Origins of World War Two. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Bradley, James. Flyboys: A True Story of Courage. New York, NY: Little Brown & Company,
2003.
Braunschweig, Pierre. Secret Channel to Berlin: The Masson-Schellenberg Connection and
Swiss Intelligence in WWII. Front Street Press, 2003.
Brennecke, Jochen. The Hunters and the Hunted: German U-Boats, 1939-1945. Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press, 2003.
Fall 2003-37
in:oer..
lliiam B. The Spy Who Spent the War in Bed: And Other Bizarre Tales of World
Sons, 2003.
. n. New York, NY: John Wiley &
&]~'~:',
Douglas, editor. The New York Times Living History - World War II, Vol. I: The
_ .' Assault. 1939-1942. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company, 2003.
,BnJQks. Thomas R. The War North of Rome: June 1944 - May 1945. New York, NY: Da Capo
,2003.
&~~_ David.
The Road to Oran: Anglo-Franch Naval Relations, September 1939-July 1940.
and, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003.
1949.
&mir'19, John R. Jungle Ace: Col. Gerald R. Johnson. the USAAF's Top Fighter Leader ofthe
P
War. Dulles, VA: Brassey's, 2003 .
me
•~:non, Henry. Politicians at War. South Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Books, 2003.
g
Boda:r!i.·, Donna M. Italian Women's Narratives of Their Experiences During World War II.
'\\iston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003 .
. rest,
>JIool._-..... ~., Robert J. At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy. Annapolis, MD:
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003.
_ -. Dawn, and Lawrence I. Pifer. Our Last Mission: A World War II Prisoner in Germany.
· 'orman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
liarwn. Reginald. Railway of Hell. Prabhadevi, Mumbai: Magna Large Print Books, 2003.
New
Tober, Theresa. Hide and Seek: A Wartime Childhood. Albuquerque, NM: University of
_"ew Mexico Press, 2003.
1942­
. Lawrence, David E. Cane, Judy Barrett Litoff, and David C. Smith, eds. Fighting Fascism
· Europe: The World War II Letters of an American Veteran of the Spanish Civil War.
· "ew York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2003.
_ 3.
'--~
Otto. Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto
anus. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.
any,
ca:pe:1lller, Stephanie A. On the Farm Front: The Women's Land Army in World War II.
Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003.
, Allene G., and Robert L. Allen. Honoring Sergeant Carter: Redeeming a Black World
'ar II Hero's Legacy. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company, 2003 .
. ,MD:
38 - Fall 2003
Catherwood, Christopher. The Balkans in World War Two: Britain's Balkan Dilemma. New
York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Chancellor, Henry. Colditz: The Defmitive History: The Untold Story of World War II's Great
Escapes. New York, NY: Harper Trade, 2003.
Chapman, F. Spencer. The Jungle is Neutral: A Soldier's Two-Year Escape from the Japanese
Army. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2003.
Cheney, James B. Under His Wing. Hilliard, OH: Perfection Homes, 2003.
Chickering, Roger, and Stig Forster, eds. The Shadows of Total War. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Childers, Thomas. In the Shadows of War: An American Pilot's Odyssey Through Occupied
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....._ 0....-0:0.
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Patrick. Flattop Fighting in World War II: The Battles Between American and
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Jeffrey. Rebuilding Urban Japan after 1945. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan,
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40 - Fall 2003
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