I disagreed with your post saying that the British downplayed the performance of the Poles Czechs Dutch and French while exaggerating the power of the LW for their own ends. The fact is that they all fell very quickly. The British overestimated both the strength of the LW and Germany's aircraft production. German propaganda in this respect was so successful that the RAF shot down non existent aircraft in the BoB. Until long after the war only LW records showed how many aircraft were lost and what their strength at any time was.
After the BoB, nothing happened in the invasion of Russia to change the opinion that the LW as part of the German military was a very, very formidable opponent. The figures you quote are known now, they were certainly not known in 1940 but could possibly be surmised from the "maximum effort" raids on London, they were clearly running out of bombers.
As to your question, as far as I have read, it was a small group of fanatics who led Germany into war, to keep the population quiet they made sure as little effect was felt at home as possible. Until the army halted in Russia the German victories had been achieved at almost no cost to Germany at home. Of course by the time things changed it was too late.
Actually LW records are hard to read and understand. Many aircraft listed as damaged and never repaired remained on the LW quartermasters "available" lists for long periods, when there was not not the slightest chance of that airframe ever returning to service. This was done to appease the senior german leadership at the time. They were besotted with numbers basically.
So whilst technically correct to rely on German records, in practice you have to be VERY careful.
The fact that they fell quickly means what? The BEF was defeated as quickly as the French in 1940, and again in Greece, and Crete. With one exception....around tobruk....the british suffered successive defeats in the air and on the ground until June 1941. The BoB was not an outright victory, it was an avoidance of defeat, which made it a victory in a roundabout way.
Despite all this success, the Germans, even in the context of the early part of the war were facing technical defeats. Each time they stepped into the ring with an opponent, they lost something, something they could not afford to lose.
Discounting the effects of the continental European nations is dangerous. If not for their efforts, my opinion is that Germany would have entered the BoB far stronger than it did and in position to defeat FC in that battle.
It was not a "small group of fanatics" that led Germany to war. the nation was itself fanatical and bent on war. all of the major interest groups were in favour of war. it is a post war fiction to blame just a "few bad eggs" for the conflagaration. Luckily we have written rulings in the form of the Nuremberg declarations to settle this largely moral question. Germany at the end of the war was found to be guilty of waging an aggressive, illegal war....not just hitler, the german nation was guilty .....its an indictment that still applies to every german man, woman and child to this day (an unforeseen an unfortunate byproduct perhaps), because the indictment was made against the nation, not a specific person or persons 9if it had been made against a specific person or persons, the indictment would resolve when the person or persons died. for this "nation related' indictment to die, the nation of Germany will have to cease to exist...that might have occurred incidentally in 1952 with the reformation of the west German Republic ). from that basic indictment of war guilt, all the findings against the Nazi war criminals as individuals could be made. Without that indictment of national guilt, the individual crimes under the Nuremberg rules cannot stand. that's why no Russians have ever stood trial (things are in theory different today under the ICC rules) Without this mechanism in place, the german underlings could have mounted successful defences about " we were just following orders" or ' everyone else was doing it, so why shouldn't we". The war guilt clauses as they are known made, among other things, the following of illegal orders a crime in itself, but it was at least harder to prove the illegaility of an order, unless the purpose for which that order had been issued was itself amoral and illegal. That's why it was important, and valid, to find Germany as a ntion, guilty of a war crime, so to speak.
Germany fuelled its war effort up to December 1941 by artificial pegging of the exchange rate , causing an influx of raw materials into Germany, the virtual complete shut down of industry outside Germany within the occupied territories. Opportunities to tap into European industrial complex were squandered by the Nazi short sighted policies, designed to prop up the failing german economy. It had other casualties, like destroying the economies of her allies as well . these allies were not impressed by that, and in the case of Rumania, extracted exorbitant special deals from the germans for their oil. In the case of finland, there was a virtual shut down of her vital mines. in the case of Spain, and Turkey, the germans were unable to pay for goods with their basically worthless currency ...they had to pay in manufactured items or foodstuffs ....a very inefficient way to run an advanced economy. The defeat in Russia was a product of that broken system, not a cause.
). I have attached a scanned page from the book about the event. The background for the test was the final acceptance for the French orders, they wanted confirmation as to its ability to catch up with a Stuka in a dive. They got it. Please note the last paragraph in the text, which is why I was a little conservative in my "claim".
