For the army, navy and air force of any country, the chief of staff of each service is very important, and compared with the commanders of each service, the chief of the general staff is the one who usually takes the idea from a certain angle. After all, the chief of the general staff is the one who really works, and if the chief of the general staff is an incompetent person, then what if the chief of the general staff is an incompetent person? Therefore, the chief of the general staff of each service must be the elite within its services, for example, the chief of the general staff of the Luftwaffe in World War II can be described as the elite leader of the Luftwaffe.
However, the position of Chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe seems to have some kind of negative bonus, and most of the people who become chiefs of the Luftwaffe General Staff will be unlucky, and some of them will end up with a bad ending.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" >, the first chief of the general staff died in a crash</h1>
The Luftwaffe during World War II was very young compared to the German Army and Navy, because the Luftwaffe during World War I was disbanded after the war, and the Luftwaffe during World War II was formed in 1933 before the war under the name of the "Reich Air Ministry", and was officially re-established in 1935.
At this time, although the Luftwaffe was not short of funds and the aviation industry, this officer was too scarce, especially the lack of professional staff officers. There was no way out, the Luftwaffe had no choice but to recruit a group of staff officers from the Army General Staff and form its own Luftwaffe General Staff.
As a result, the Luftwaffe General Staff was filled with a number of German Army staff officers, of course, now they are all Air Force staff officers, and the first chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, Walter Wefer, is no exception.
This man served in the General Staff of the German Army before transferring to the Air Force, was an aide-de-camp to the famous German general Ludendorff in World War I, and was naturally a rare general, who was the head of the training department of the General Staff of the German Army before transferring to the Luftwaffe, and now although he is going to serve as the chief of the General Staff in the Air Force he has never been in contact with, he is also full of confidence to do something big.
As the first chief of the general staff of the Luftwaffe, although he was a halfway monk and had no aviation experience, he tailored various operating regulations, troop establishments and general staff regulations for the Luftwaffe, and he was determined to build a strategic air force for Germany after painstakingly studying aviation knowledge.
In Walter Weaver's eyes, the Air Force could not only be limited to ground support, but also develop a strategic bombing force, so as to truly influence the outcome of the war. It was also under his impetus that the Luftwaffe conducted research on strategic bombers.
However, Walter Weaver was really unlucky, and because the German aviation industry was still in some way insufficient at that time, the development of this strategic bomber was delayed. And Walter Weive himself was inexplicably unlucky.
On June 6, 1936, while traveling to Berlin on a HE-70 aircraft, the ground crew failed to detect that the aileron windlocks of the aircraft had not been opened due to a stall accident due to a stall accident caused by the failure of the ground staff to find that the aileron windlock of the aircraft had not been opened. Poor Walter Weaver had only been chief of the general staff for three years when he died.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="14" > second, he was arrested and imprisoned for his career</h1>
Walter Weaver, the best strategist in the Luftwaffe, died in an aviation accident, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, wept like a tearful man. But the Luftwaffe could not do without the Chief of the General Staff, so the Luftwaffe ushered in a second Chief of the General Staff, General Albert Kesselring.
Albert Kesselring was an experienced man compared to Walter Weaver, who had received aviation training in the Soviet Union before the formation of the Air Force and was responsible for budgeting and logistics in the Luftwaffe. Now that General Walter Weaver had been killed, Albert Kesselring, who had been the head of logistics, naturally became the second Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff.
Albert Kesselring had a tough personality and was not very good at interacting with people, so although he was a very capable chief of the general staff, he had a bad relationship with Elhard Mirch, head of the Luftwaffe's armament department, deputy commander of the Luftwaffe and director of the Luftwaffe.
In Albert Kesselring's eyes, Elhad Mirch was not a soldier, but he was always directed at his management and command, which was really annoying. And Elhad Mirch is not very fond of Albert Kesselring, thinking that the other side is not a serious pilot, but stealing the position of chief of the general staff, which is really annoying.
The two of them were therefore intolerable, and they had to quarrel every three to five minutes. The worst one was when Elhad Mirch wanted to deal with the commander of the 3rd Training Brigade, Hans Jessenek, who had an excessive accident rate, and Albert Kesselring refused, even scolding Elhad Mirch, "Get back to your civil aviation!" From then on, these two people did not share the same sky, as long as they met, they were bound to quarrel, from the war regulations to the aircraft model, and finally to the problem of the flow of officers, and all that could be quarreled again.
It is said that his own subordinates are in such a situation, and Herman Goering, the commander of the air force, should be in charge, but this duke wants Albert Kesselin and Elhad Mirch to fight with the clams, and he is good to be a fisherman, so he adopts a non-attention attitude. Albert Kesselring was also more upright, and after a year of work as chief of the general staff, he resigned and did not do it, and afterwards ran to become the commander of the air force.
However, Albert Kesselring was not known for commanding air campaigns, but inexplicably became an expert in land warfare and was also appointed to command the army units. Moreover, his life was not good after the war, and he was inexplicably dragged to trial and sentenced to a life sentence, if it were not for his discharge from the hospital due to illness, it is estimated that he would have died in prison.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > third, too much pressure to raise a gun to kill themselves</h1>
Well, a few years after the luftwaffe was established, the chief of the general staff had changed twice in a row, and Hermann Göring had to consider finding another unlucky man to be the chief of the general staff. Originally, he wanted to go to the Army's Franz Halder or Alfred Yodel, but both of them knew that the political struggle within the Luftwaffe was too deep for him to grasp himself, so they both refused Hermann Goering's invitation. Did Hermann Goering see that the Chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe had become a position that no one wanted? He simply found a candidate for the chief of the general staff within the Luftwaffe.
At first, Hermann Goering had Hans Jürgen Stompf work for a while, but this man was less capable, so he stepped down in 1939, replaced by the aforementioned Hans Jessenek. It is also strange to say that Herman Goering's criteria for selecting people, whether the ability has been put aside first, his criteria for selecting the chief of the general staff are young, and secondly, he has few connections, and it is better to have a bad relationship with Elhad Mirch. Looking at the entire Luftwaffe, the only thing that came to mind was Hans Jessenek, who had almost been sent to court-martial by Elhad Mirch.
Of course, this is not to say that Hans Yeschnek is incompetent, on the contrary, he still has some ability, the first chief of the general staff Walter Weaver but trained him as his successor, but Walter Weaver may not have thought until his death, this Hans Yeshnek turned right so quickly?
Folks, this is not a good thing, when the chief of the general staff must have enough seniority and connections, but this Hans Jessenek is too young, when he was the chief of the general staff was only 40 years old, you say he can suppress the old senior generals on the front line? Don't say that the old senior generals on the front line can't be stopped, even among the young generals of the same generation, he has no connections, who do you say he can control?
Therefore, Hans Yeshnek, the chief of the general staff, deserved to be called a suffocation, basically no one could control it, and he himself was also dazed because of his lack of experience. During the Battle of Britain, in order to replenish the losses of the front-line pilots, he mobilized the instructors and flight cadets in the flight school, and finally destroyed the reserve force of the Luftwaffe.
Moreover, when the Allies attacked the German industrial zone in 1942, he was also scolded by Hitler for the lack of defense on the mainland, and he was also thrown down by his colleagues. In the end, Hans Jessenek could not resist, and on August 18, 1943, after being reprimanded by Hitler, Hans Jessenek was ashamed and embarrassed to raise his gun and kill himself at the age of 44.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
To sum up, the Luftwaffe's seven chiefs of staff, Walter Weefer, was brilliant, but he crashed and fell to his death because of an aircraft failure. Albert Kesselring worked for a year before resigning after being run by Elhad Mirch, and after the war he was imprisoned by the Allies, suffering a heart attack within a few years of his release.
Hans Jessenek was a pure scapegoat and eventually committed suicide under pressure. The latter ones didn't really get any better, such as Hans Jessenek's successor, Günter Korden, who didn't accomplish much during his tenure but didn't make any mistakes, so he wasn't mentioned before, and the only thing worthy of his praise was that he was seriously injured by a bomb during hitler's assassination on July 20, 1944, and finally died of his injuries.
In other words, four of the luftwaffe's seven chiefs of staff did not end well, and there is no more evil and unlucky position in World War II. Therefore, being chief of the General Staff of the Air Force in Germany is a high-risk occupation, because in the end you will probably not be able to die well.