From Danny Parker " To win the winter sky"

Galland ( late 1944 it seems ): "It is true that the Luftwaffe as a whole has sixty to 70 thousand officers;but this same air force has never gotten beyond the figure of 7,000 aircrew."

Does this mean Göring concentrated totally on developing the wrong forces, the Luftwaffe Field divisions? Could one say that Göring was to blame for neglecting the pilots in the end?

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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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Everly Brothers - What I Have To Do Is Dream
"Never wrestle with pigs, you both end up getting dirty and the pig likes it."

Sorry, douple post. Otto, please delete this.

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Everly Brothers - What I Have To Do Is Dream
"Never wrestle with pigs, you both end up getting dirty and the pig likes it."

After Stalingrad was surrounded Nov 1942 as more operations were starting in the German Army Group Center section several Luftwaffe Field division troops were transferred to the front line. The Soviets called them " The Army Group Center´s Rumanians" after the Stalingrad experience...

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You would think being a former combat pilot that Goering would be more thoughtful about supporting his pilots but seems like when people get behind a desk for a few years they forget or something happens to change them.

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.

Goering was a bad egg through and through. In WW1 he succeeded von Richthofen as commander of Jagdgeschwader I, but after the war he was not invited to the unit's reunions. Of course as he became leader of the Luftwaffe...

The only think I can recommend about Goering was that he had a taste for arts (although he stole almost all of his collection), good wine and model trains. His train layout was in the attic of Karinhall, which was blown up.

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Everly Brothers - What I Have To Do Is Dream
"Never wrestle with pigs, you both end up getting dirty and the pig likes it."

Did you also know that he foreseen the failure of Operation Barbarossa, and tried to convince Hitler to abandon the plan?

That I did not know

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

He was also a on & off again morphine addict. Susposedlly started on it after a injury during the 'Beer Hall Putch' in 1923.