The Luftwaffe Felddivisionen was another of those absolutely stupid mistakes caused by Goerings out-of-place pride and by those who consented to this.

What Goering did was to form infantry divisions out of redundant ground personnel and keep them under the Lutwaffe organization and chain of command and supply.

A Division is more than a mass of PBI, a division needs commanders trained at all levels, needs specialists for artillery, communications, supply, engineers, etc. Also these troops need to be equipped and of course the Luftwaffe did not have the wherewithal. Equipment had to come from Army depots, and of course what they supplied was what they had on their backshelves, like captured artillery pieces etc.

So what we have here is a bunch of ex-aircrafts mechanics, refuellers, admin personnel, REMFs in general, turned into infantry and commanded by technicians who had only the most cursory training in their new functions. Recipe for disaster, they simply melted in contact with the enemy because of simply not knowing how to fignt as a cohesive unit which is what a division is supposed to be.

It would have been much better if Goering had relinquished the personnel and turned them over to Army as much needed replacements, where they could be converted into infantry privates or have their skills been taken advantage of in a larger organisation instead of improvising staffs with people who had no idea of what they were doing.

But of course the Reich was like that, a federation of private fiefs, and in the end, so much the better for that, it helped made defeat quicker.

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