In the last months of the war, the Luftwaffe was in a state of chaos and disorder like the Army and Navy, and whether it was operational command, logistics supply, personnel training, and equipment production, it was already in a very embarrassing situation. By the beginning of 1945, the Luftwaffe still had a million people, but most of them were no different from infantry, the strength of the aviation force had fallen to the bottom, by April the air force was only left in the 4th, 6th and Reich air forces, many wings and brigades could not be replenished after a long period of consumption, it had no name, although there were still 3300 aircraft in service on paper, but in service did not mean that they could fly, let alone be able to fight, the front-line troops seriously lacked skilled pilots, and 40% of novices were difficult to survive in battle. The average attendance of the aviation wing was only 5%, more aircraft could not be moved because of lack of fuel, and in 1945 Germany produced only 12,000 tons of aviation gasoline, consuming 110,000 tons! The military-industrial system under Speer was still desperately building aircraft, producing more than 7,000 aircraft of all types between January and April 1945, but it was difficult to compare with the 35,000 produced by the Allies in the same period, not to mention that the output of aircraft was only a number and meaningless when the entire logistics system was on the verge of collapse. However, the Luftwaffe did not give up the battle, even if it fought the last aircraft, the last drop of oil, to keep the soldier's oath until the last moment, in the first four months of 1945, the Allies lost 1560 aircraft over Germany.
When the building was about to fall, the top brass of Nazi Germany, led by Hitler, pinned their hopes on the so-called "secret weapons", which was diametrically opposed to the neglect of technological research and development in the early stages of the war, and the Luftwaffe suffered from a serious "new weapons obsession" at the end of the war, and the designers worked day and night to conceive all kinds of strange combat aircraft, many of which were whimsical and extremely creative, but also many were delusions and fantasies that were divorced from reality. The Me 262 was undoubtedly the most valuable new fighter in service by the Luftwaffe in the later stages of the war, capable of giving lethal attacks to Allied bombers with its extremely high speed and powerful 30 mm cannon, and in one battle the Me 262 shot down 12 bombers and 1 fighter, losing only 3.
In April 1944, the first Me 262 jet fighters were delivered to the Luftwaffe, pictured with the Me 262 fighters of The 262nd Experimental Task Force, which was tasked with testing the performance of the new fighter and studying tactics.
This image is believed to have been taken on November 8, 1944, before Novatney's last air battle. On the same day, under the gaze of Garland, Keller, Schneerell and others, Novotney was killed in a crash after winning the 258th air victory.
Unfortunately, this cutting-edge fighter is late, and only one-tenth of the 1400 Me 262s produced have participated in actual combat. The rocket-powered interceptor Me 163 is also very peculiar, extremely fast, one hit, more than 300 were built, and the Luftwaffe also formed the 400th Fighter Wing, specially equipped with the Me 163, achieved at least 9 results, but more aircraft were destroyed in accidents. In addition, a series of special models such as the He 162, Ba 349, Do 335 and so on all show the outstanding talent of German designers, in addition to a large number of aircraft and weapons design schemes that stay in the drawing stage, if put into practice, almost all have the possibility of turning defeat into victory, but the Third Reich did not have enough time and resources to build such a large number of new aircraft and armaments in batches.
Harvlich Kuf brod on April 17, 1945, Hartman's most classic photograph of the war, he won his 350th victory on the day, with his Bf-109 K4 fighter behind him.
In the absence of victory in conventional warfare, the Germans, like their eastern allies, had crazy ideas. Herman, the founder of the "Wild Boar" tactic, proposed in March 1945 to form the so-called "Elbe" special forces, by the flight cadets to fly Bf 109 fighters to attack the Allied bombers with collision tactics, in order to be more brisk and agile, the aircraft removed most of the armament and bulletproof steel plates, only a machine gun, the operation first climbed to a height of 10,000 meters, and then dive to the bomber group at high speed, with the propeller hit the enemy aircraft's wide tail, causing it to crash out of control, the pilot parachuted to escape, which is actually similar to suicide attack.
At the end of March, the force was indeed formed, and Hermann commanded the rookie to enter the first battle on April 7 after a brief explanation of the tactical intentions, about 120 aircraft attacked, 23 B-17s fell from the sky, but only 30 returned, about 40 people were killed, and then the operation was suspended, after all, the German concept could not accept a suicide attack like the Japanese. The Luftwaffe also proposed to convert the V1 missile into a human operating bomb, manually correct the deviation, improve the hit rate, the driver is also nine deaths, which is like suicide, Herman, Skolzne, Leich and other famous figures have participated in this plan, but in vain.
On April 15, 1941, Garland prepares to fly to his residence in Ostekamp for a birthday party.
On May 8, 1945, the last day of the European theater of World War II, the number one ace of the Luftwaffe, Major Hartmann, then the commander of the 1st Brigade of the 52nd Fighter Wing, flew on the plane on the last mission, reconnoitred the movements of the rapidly advancing Soviet troops, and found two Soviet Yak-9 fighters over Brno, Czech Republic, and the Soviet pilots seemed to have begun to celebrate the victory in advance, playing stunts over their own troops, Hartman had no intention of letting his opponents get so overwhelmed, skillfully approaching and firing. Shooting down one of them, his 352nd air victory, he could have killed the other, but a sudden appearance of American P-51s forced him and his wingman to flee from low altitude. Upon returning to the airfield, Hartmann's command burned the remaining 25 fighter jets and a large amount of ammunition, and marched west on foot to find the American troops to surrender, which was also the last moment of action for most of the luftwaffe officers and men. In the afternoon of the same day, fritz M. Lieutenant Fritz Stehle also shot down a Yak-9 fighter, the last confirmed air combat achievement of the Luftwaffe in World War II. The next day, Germany announced its surrender.
The history of the Luftwaffe came to an end with the fall of the Third Reich, but many amazing records have been left in the history of war. According to incomplete statistics, in the five years and eight months from September 1939 to May 1945, the Luftwaffe shot down 128,670 enemy aircraft over Europe, including 22,001 British aircraft, 18,369 American aircraft, and 88,300 Soviet aircraft, producing as many as 3,000 ace pilots, almost equivalent to the sum of the number of other major participating kings, of which 107 were the top aces with a record of more than 100, and the highest result was recorded as 352 by Major Hartmann In contrast, the number one ace of the Soviet army, Kuri Dub, has a record of 62 aircraft, and the record of British and American aces has not exceeded 40. Whether victorious or lost, as long as the end of the war always has to pay a bloody price, the Luftwaffe lost more than 116,000 aircraft during World War II, and when the war ended, only about 1,500 were left, about 3.5 million people served in the Luftwaffe, of which about 165,000 were killed, 155,000 were missing, about 190,000 were wounded, but only 120 officers and men were accused of escaping from the battle.
Mordés, the world's first pilot to break the air battle 100-100 mark, was in late June and early July 1941, when Moldes was consulting with Admiral Guderian, commander of the 2nd Panzer Group, on how to better provide air support to the armored forces.
Imagine that when the war broke out in 1939, the Luftwaffe lineup was at its peak, with world-class combat aircraft, the pilots were well-trained, experienced, tactically novel, coordinated, air-ground cooperation, and invincible; however, in 1945, the main aircraft equipped by the Luftwaffe were only improved models of the old models at the time of the war, completely overwhelmed by the opponent in numbers, only a small number of advanced models, limited role, the overall quality of pilots was low, training was insufficient, it was difficult to survive in battle, logistics supply was chaotic, and fuel was scarce. No longer able to defend the empire's skies. In the face of this bleak picture, who is responsible?
(Above) In September 1942, Marceu sat in the "Yellow 14" and prepared to set off. On September 1, he shot down 17 enemy planes in three sorties, setting a world record at the time.
In early July 1943, Rudel was using a T-34 model to demonstrate to his comrades how to attack Soviet tanks.
This may be due to the short-sightedness of the leadership of the Air Force in the early days of the pre-war period, their misconceptions about the construction of a strategic air force and their neglect of homeland air defense systems were heavily punished in wartime, and there were many fatal mistakes in operational command, if Goering had not ordered the transfer of targets at the critical moment of the British Air War, if the German army had successfully captured the island of Malta, if Hitler had not intervened and let the Me 262 take on the bombing mission, perhaps the Luftwaffe and even the Third Reich could have won a greater victory. But all assumptions cannot avoid the fact that Germany, whether it is industrial capacity or resource reserves, is far from being able to compete with Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, and in a long war of national power, Germany's defeat is almost doomed. When Hitler was determined to go to war against the Soviet Union, when the United States passed the Lend-Lease Act, the war was beyond the capabilities of the Luftwaffe, and it was able to gain a temporary advantage but was powerless to take the crown of victory.
This article is excerpted from the Illustrated General Dictionary of the Air Force of the Third Reich 1935-1945
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