Hitler sacks Goring

Hitler has to eat humble pie after his defeat at the B.O.B. and with Sea Lion now on hold Hitler decides Herman Goring must be sacked from his post as head of the Luftwaffe. Who do you think would take over and how would the Goring fan club react this this blow?

 

Some of the other Luftwaffe marshals would be able to step into his boots, Kesselring, Milch, Sperrle...

Though not impossible it would raise some waves as Goering was such a big wig in the Party with a lot of other past and present responsibilities, not the least of which would be Jaegermeister of the Reich

The fact is Goering despite his obvious faults remaind head of the LW until his fatidic telegramm offereing to replace the Fuhrer. The question we should ask is what did keep him up there.

 

Let me flesh this out a bit, Hitler really is angry with Goring and takes no stick from anyone who supports Goring. Would this caused some problems in the long term or not. And with this vacancy open to the Generals who would have the guts to step in and even reorganize the Luftwaffe?


Za, in the real events Hitler was loyal to his followers and stuck with them like Mussolini when he got him out to safety. I think it's more like Hitler believed they would never go against him but as we all know from the last days of the war Goring and Himmler did. Result of this must have shattered Hitler's possible belief they would all go down with him and not stab him in the back.

 

Milch would be the obvious replacement for Goring. He reminds me of Heydrich who also had visions of himself replacing Himmler.

Erhard Milch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At the outbreak of World War II Milch, now with the rank of general, commanded a Luftwaffe wing during the Norwegian campaign. Following the defeat of France, Milch was promoted to field-marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and given the title Air Inspector General. Milch was put in charge of the production of planes during this time, and his many mistakes were key to the loss of German air superiority as the war progressed. Due to changing the designs and aircraft requirements frequently, manufacturers like Messerschmitt were unable to focus on aircraft output. Germany produced fewer than 5,000 planes during 1942, whereas Russia increased its aircraft production to over 40,000, leading to a change of superiority on the Eastern Front. Interestingly, during 1944, when Allied bombers were razing German factories and cities, aircraft production moved up to over 40,000, comparable with the Soviets, but too late. In 1944 Milch sided with Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler in attempting to convince Hitler to remove Göring from command of the Luftwaffe following the failed invasion of the Soviet Union. When Hitler refused, Göring retaliated by forcing Milch out of his position. For the rest of the war, he worked under Albert Speer.
Following Hitler’s suicide, Milch attempted to flee Germany, but was captured by Allied forces on the Baltic coast on May 4, 1945. On surrendering he presented his baton to the Commando-Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts who was so disgusted by what he had seen when liberating Belsen, broke the baton over Milch's head. [1] Milch was subsequently tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment at Landsberg prison, although he was released in June 1954. He lived out the remainder of his life at Düsseldorf, where he died in 1972.

 

I concur with most, but after getting rid of Goring Hitler had to move quickly to blood let Goring's supporter base, Gorings replacement would have to go to Erhard Milch as Luftwaffe Head and begin to promote Generals to head the respective Luftwafe departments on merit, a novel approach, but one thing has me stumped and that Herman Gorings influence within the Gestapo and the SS, this could be a problem.

But if the Luftwaffe had leaders of merit things may have turned out differently.

 

If Hitler had Goring die in an aircraft accident then it would take the politics out of it and the German Air Force might or might not get a more useful commander, however over all it would not change the outcome of the war.

It is an interesting question on how he managed to stay in power for so long, looking at him in film and in pictures does not inspire much confidence in me as a leader.

 

Goering was never a non-entity, a buffoon just fit for the photo-ops. From Hermann Goering

(my underscores)

So you can see Goering was an individual totally immersed in the Nazi taking over of the entire nation, in economical, industrial, political and security terms. It's quite natural that Hitler owed a great debt to this man.

 

I would agree that he owes Goring but Hitler also owed the SA alot and did you notice their reward?

 

Yeah a Versaille style "stab in the back".

 

No. They still would have lost.

 

Like what, say i throw a spanner into the mix and say we have, Milch in charge and decides as early as 1941 to reorganize the Luftwaffe into a Heavy Bomber Strategic Air Force instead of a Medium Bomber Tatical Air Force, but we still have medium bombers to support the troops, but we also have four engined heavies like the Messerschmitt Me-264 which flew in 1942, we also ramp up the He-277 production (The mated twin engines are seperated into four seperate engine as Heinkel wanted to do but was forbiddin by Goring), the four engine heavies would then launch large scale raids against British and Soviet industries.

 

Can't be done. the German aircraft industry cannot produce enough for both a tactical and strategic bomber force of the size needed.
Remember one of the main reasons the Germans were able to produce so many aircraft in 44, was the fact they concentrated on fighters which are simpler to produce than multi engined bombers

 

Old English proverb: "Thou cans't have thy cake and eat it too"

 

No the main problem was that the Germans refused to give up on obsolete designs, they tried to wring everything out of those designs instead of allowing the manufacturers design and build new aircraft, also political interference was crippling the RLM, as mentioned as an example Heinkel wanted to decouple the engines of the He-177 Greif and redesign it back to a four nascelled heavy bomber but Goring forbade it, ironically Heinkel did produce a four nascelled He-277 and its performance was extraordinary, the Messrschmitt Me-264 "Amerika Bomber" which flew in mid 1942 could in theory fly up to five tonnes of ordnance from Poland into the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union east of the Urals, Messerscmitt had planned to build up to 2000 a year, this how ever meant scrapping the Me-109 again Goring forbade this.

 

The problem here is that as any production guy you'll tell you you can't very easily set up new or convert old production lines. It forces you to entirely stop production at that plant for months. The best you can do is do incremential changes to existing models. That's why the me-109 was in production from what, 1936 through 1945, even if the 45 model had little to do with the 36 model, bar the name.

If you look at a list of German planes you see an incredible amount of types in service or others in low-production/prototypes only. This was a madness that Germany economy could not afford at all and tried to stop.

This was a good idea but then again the economy was in such a bad position that it could't afford. Besides swithching production again would entirely stop production of the only half-decent heavy bomber for months.

Your last paragraph responds to this: priority given to Reich Defence against the Allied Bombers.

But even so, you have no idea how dispersed and how far Soviet industry was in Siberia, 20% of oil coming in from the Sakahlin Islands close to Japan! All the rest was imensely dispersed at locations that became know only postwar when the Americans started their U-2 overflights. Again, remember that even under heavy bombing Germany managed to increase production, so why would things work different for the Germans with a very much weaker program and no P-51s to escort them?

 

The Germans did conduct a bomber offensive against Britain from January to May 1944, which the British called the 'Baby Blitz'.
It achieved nothing, and cost the Luftwaffe over half of the 550+ bombers committed to the operation

 

Any war changing alternatives for the Luftwaffe must go back to 1938 or earlier. Different development and production policys must be in place that early to alter any major outcomes. Perhaps if General Werner (Wever?) had not died in a aircrash in the middle 1930s better production policys would have been followed.

 

I see a lot of excellent points here. Once the war began, it was too late to make any major changes for Germany. After 42', the production seemed to focus on fighters, which it should have. The aim would be to have air superiority over the Fatherland first and then the battlefields. But here, Hitler had become a nuisance with his demand for bombers or converting fighters over to fighter-bomber roles such as using the ME 262 as a bomber as well. Such idiocy cost Germany the war. After 42', Germany could not carry the war past it's borders so investing in bomber fleets would be a waste. It would take too long as Za has pointed out and short change the fighter fleet which was needed against the enemy bombers. As Carl pointed out, any plans for a strategic fleet should have been implemented in the 30's prior to going to war. Even if Germany had the 'Amerika' Bomber, it would do no good bombing targets hundreds of miles away. Not while Germany was on the defensive.

 

The problems with the Luftwaffe extend far beyond just one or two top personalities. Sacking Göring probably would have done little to change the situation the Luftwaffe faced before and during the war.

First, aircraft production was fragmented by the nature of the German aircraft industry. Unlike the US, Britain or, the Soviet Union most German manufacturers did not have any great amount of inter-company cooperation in design or manufacture of aircraft. Compounding this, strong unions and the "meister" system of skilled craftsmen doing mostly hand work made getting aircraft into some sort of production line system was nearly impossible.
On top of these problems many of the top Luftwaffe personnel who were decision makers in the RLM were not technical experts but rather military officers with a very limited business and techincal background. They did not understand the manufacturing process sufficently, often demanded or wanted nifty bells and whistles added to aircraft that inserted unnecessary complexity and decreased reliability. They also, like the army often had manufacturers insert minor changes in design into aircraft almost continiously. This too slowed manufacturing, often to a crawl.

Then there is the problem on the nature of National-Socialism and having Hitler as a sole ruler. It encouraged fiefdoms like the one Göring was building. Why the Luftwaffe had ground military units is one absolutely clear example. There was none, nada, no need for the German Air Force to field a panzer division or infantry divisions.

Then there is the problem of resources. The fuel shortage is going to impact the Luftwaffe severely even early in the war. There are also shortages of many other materials necessary for aircraft manufacture.

The alternative for air defense, flak also got out of hand. Flak became more and more the sole defense system against air attack. It got so voratious it began to consume munitions and tubes to a point that the army had severe artillery shortages in the field.

Now, when you top this off with a very schitzophrenic strategic outlook the Luftwaffe was in bad shape right from the start of the war.

 

Of course none of this would prevent Final Victory provided the people kept their faith on the Führer! :adolf: