Was the luftwaffe really apolitical or not? Does a "clean luftwaffe" thing exist?

[michael rauls]

All fair comment ... but answer me this if you will please. Nearly all of the photos ... happy snaps (taken with a Leica possibly) of German servicemen taken well into the last year of the war ... East Prussia, Courland ... capture the faces of young men who are proud of themselves and their comrades in their group/regiment.
They aren't VICTIMS, they are soldiers at war. Well trained, well armed, and (at the front) well led. They couldn't have been otherwise to inflict the amount of destruction that they inflicted on the Soviets ... Soviet casualties in 1945 were higher than in 1941.
To cast Germans as soulless victims does not jibe with the mountains of evidence that documents the opposite picture.
NOTHING excuses the Nazi-racial-mindset.
But recasting society to comply with comfortable platitudes is a dangerous path, IMO.

I certainly agree that to cast the Wermacht in general as victims would be wrong and more than a bit of a whitewash. However, if I can reiterate a bit, at least in my view generalizations are valid in general terms but ultimately responsibility when it comes to moral questions has to rest with the individual whatever the percentages within the organization, good, bad, or somewhere in between, in question are.
IMHO, to do otherwise and trod down the road of collective judgment risks doing the very thing that is so objectionable about the philosophies expounded by the nazis and imperial Japanese leadership, which is judgement and action resulting from that judgement made collectively upon groups or societies.
I don't mean to infer that it would be wrong to say that in many instances German forces, or imperial Japanese for that matter committed atrocities. Of course they did, and plenty of them.
Its just that at the same time I think its important to keep in mind the sovereignty
and ultimate responsibility of the individual lest we begin to unwittingly slide down the same road we so detest.

 

[nuuumannn]

Hmmm. I am surprised that this discussion has been allowed to go on for as long as it has, having strayed so far from the original question as frequently as it has, and the political nature of the subject matter.

The question under discussion is that this is about policy versus morality, which in a military organisation's case in wartime is always going to be blurred. There are two questions here. Was the LW apolitical? No, it wasn't, because of the simple fact that it was an instrument of the Nazi government. Secondly, did the LW commit atrocities as a matter of policy? Possibly. The difficulty of proving such things took place is that we have to rely on eyewitness accounts and those are not always verifiable. Documentary evidence is required, but much paper information - the Germans (not just the Nazis) love a paper trail - was destroyed during the war, by the Nazis themselves or inadvertently by the Allies in bombing raids. So, although not immediately verifiable, it is possibly so that the LW committed atrocities as an arm of Nazi foreign policy. This is a presumtion, however.

Where does morality come into it? Again, a difficult thing to quantify. The lines between acceptable practise and atrocity in wartime by the military - any country's military are almost always blurred by circumstance. This means soldiers merely doing their duty is almost expected as a response to an accusation of the carrying out of a wicked order during a total war scenario - the morality play here is irresistable and enormously complex, so much so that there is probably no 'right' answer and individual situations must be examined in isolation. Individual acts of defiance against a deplorable policy are difficult to prove, but it's likely they happened, of course. To deny this is assuming that every single individual under the Nazi regime was merely a thoughtless monster, which we are not.

One recurring thing in this and I'm sure in every other discussion on the subject is that the argument of the opposition carrying out atrocities is given as a riposte, or to downplay the actions of the other side, usually either the Germans or the Japanese atrocities, as relevant as it might be to the discussion, offers nothing to the mix. It simply presumes that everyone is bad and that such actions are thereby somehow justified under the circumstances (even though they are not) because all sides carried out atrocities, so where does that leave the original question, or, in fact the definition of what is or isn't an atrocity?

This is also an example of what is currently referred to in the USA as "whataboutism", which is essentially political jousting and just inflames a situation without actually addressing the original premise (which is often why it is done in a political scenario), which is what has happened in this discussion. (As prevalent as it is in US politics right now, the USA is certainly not the only country whose government is guilty of whataboutism in public statements! Whataboutism at work!)

So, where does this leave us with the original question? Back to the obvious. Yes, as an instrument of the Nazi government, the LW was not 'clean', but to what degree cannot be satisfactorily verified, as there is often (but not always) insufficient evidence of the deliberate committing of atrocities. The rest is irrelevant and score keeping.

 

[pbehn]

If a gang take hostages and start to kill those hostages, if the hostages get the chance to kill the gang then no law will find them guilty, no matter what method they used would have to be considered lawful.

 

[fliger747]

No organization is apolitical. Any dealings between even individuals that are set to cause some gain in any matter to either or both is politics.

All that said it was theoretically not permissible for a member of the Luftwaffe to join "The Party", however one who was already a member could join the Luftwaffe. Selection and retention of command positions is always political in some for or another. Certainly development and production of aircraft and their employment could be and often was quite political.

The long shadow of "Der Dickie" was cast far and wide over the Luftwaffe.

 

[The Basket]

You can justify anything and everything.
The dark side of the internet is a pathway to many ideas some considered to be unnatural.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Funny how most of ones who survived the war weren't Nazis!

 

[taly01]

The dark side of the internet is a pathway to many ideas some considered to be unnatural.

Actually surprised the discussion didn't degenerate further, tried to find good Luftwaffe memes but only found weird Japanese anime Strike Witches.

 

[The Basket]

You should try Reddit.
I only go on there for star wars memes.
Some of the political discussion are not only beyond the pale but beyond human dignity. Calling for murders and all sorts.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

 

[DogMan]

Those pics of the cooking hogs belong on an ISIS website, they would go blind!

 

[Dimlee]

Soviet casualties in 1945 were higher than in 1941.

Sorry, just for the sake of accuracy... They were not.
Neither version of statistics (there are dozens of them) of Red/Soviet Army WWII casualties supports this assumption. What could be true that daily combat losses (POW excluding) in some periods of 1945 were higher.

 

[michaelmaltby]

My source for that statistic is John Mosier's analysis of the Eastern Front "Death ride" and he uses this number to assert his claim that the Soviet Command was not fighting any differently (smarter) than it had in 1941 ... that the only absolute victory that the Soviet Army won, by 1944, was Operation Bagration, June 22, 1944.
I recommend the book. Mosier has the knack of standing statistics on end. I am currently reading his analysis of Verdun.

 

[The Basket]

Eh?
Did the Soviets lose?
Reminds me when I saw a pal of mine reading a book about Berlin in 1945. I told him the Soviets win. Totally ruined it for him! Oh er Spoiler Alert!

 

[parsifal]

Soviet losses for the war are not precisely known, however the most accurate estimates are that at least 26 million died at the hands of the axis or whilst under their occupation. At least a further 4 million were lost to Soviet action, independent of German actions.

It is at least logical to suppose that more Soviet civilians were massacred as the Heer was being forced back out of German occupied territories. There is simply no way to precisely quantify these figures, but it is at least logical in understanding the patterns of losses sustained by the Soviet Union.

It is estimated that Soviet battle related fatalities amounted to 9 million men. Of these, more than 4 million perished in 1941, and another 2 million in 1942. Approximately 1.5 million Russian soldiers are believed to have died in 1943. One million are believed to have perished in the 1944 campaigns. About 500000 perished in the 1945 campaigns. These figures don't include wounded and don't include captured soldiers. The prisoner counts were generally reducing after 1941, with each year that passed. .
It is estimated that at 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 6.7 million that surrendered during the war. Overwhelmingly these surrenders occurred in 1941, with a leser number occurring in 1942. This casualty figure represents a total of 57% (after taking into account enforced drafts into the heer) of all Soviet POWs and may be contrasted with 8,300 out of 231,000 British and U.S. prisoners, or 3.6%. About 5% of the Soviet prisoners who died were Jews. The most deaths took place between June 1941 and January 1942, when the Germans killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs primarily through deliberate starvation, exposure and summary execution. It is estimated a further 1 million had been "released", most of whom were so-called Hilfswillage for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht, 500,000 had fled or were liberated, the remaining 3.3 million had perished as POWs. The Hilfswillage personnel that survived the war were nearly all killed on repatriation after the war. Judging by the experiences of my stepfather in 1942, many more Soviets than show in official figures wound up fighting in the heer. My stepfather, was a machine gunner . His, and every other heavy weapons unit in the division, had Russians assigned to various units. None of these were on strength "officially" until much later. We have no way of knowing how many of these unlawful draftees were killed

The figure of 3.3 million POW dead is based on German figures and analysis. Data published in Russia presents a slightly different view of their POW dead. Zemskov estimates Soviet POW deaths at 2.3 million, he published statistics that put Soviet POW losses at 2,471,000 (5,734,000 were captured, 821,000 were released for German military service, 72,000 escaped and 2,371,000 liberated ). Of the 823,000 POWS released for service in the German military forces 212,400 were killed or missing, 436,600 were returned to the USSR and then executed or worked to death. and 180,000 remained in western countries after the war.

Russian military historian Krivosheev maintains POW and MIA losses of the combat forces were actually 1.783 million, according to Krivosheev the higher figure of 3.3 million POW dead includes reservists not on active strength, civilians and military personnel reported missing who were recovered during the course of the war. I suspect the Soviet sources arer playing with the figures a bit.

By September 1941, the mortality rate among Soviet POWs was in the order of 1% per day. According to the US holocaust museum, by the winter of 1941, "starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions". This deliberate starvation, despite food being available, led many desperate prisoners to resort to acts of cannibalism and was was partly Nazi policy and partly the result of underestimatiing the numbers of captured soldiers. The Germans did have an official policy designed to kill the Red Army PoWs by starvation, called the "Hunger Plan" developed by Reischminister Beck

Based on these figures, rough as they are, I cant see how Russian casualties in 1945 exceeded 1941, except if soldiers that were defenceless at the time of their loss (ie PoWs) are included in that mix.

As an aside, Axis prisoners held in Soviet captivity after the war also suffered, but the numbers lost are dwarfed by the losses inflicted by the Germans. The 1974 West German report into this placed the number (of all nationalities) in Russian custody at 3.1 million of which about 2.4 million were german. The west german report goes to say that about 1 million detainees perished (which includes those Hillswillage personnel). This German source says that by 1949, less than 100000 remained in custody, and that in 1946, more Germans were being held in custody by the british, than were held by the Russians. I personally find that last figure hard to believe.

Mosier as an author is generally not well regarded. He has been labelled a "contrarian" rather than "historian" and many of his claims are highly selective to the point of extreme bias. ive noit read him myself, but the reviews of his work are at best mixed

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... Mosier as an author is generally not well regarded. He has been labelled a "contrarian" rather than "historian" and many of his claims are highly selective to the point of extreme bias. ive noit read him myself, but the reviews of his work are at best mixed"

The ultimate put down ..... read him and decide for yourself .... Mosier claims very little Soviet/Russian data can be believed ... and that is a fair assessment IMO. The data is controversial.
World War II casualties - Wikipedia

 

[swampyankee]

One problem with historical analyses of Soviet data is, of course, that these archives were essentially locked until the 1990s and possibly corrupted before that due to the actions of the various secret police agencies and the Soviet Army's high command. I'd also be surprised if the Soviets kept records as well as the Germans. A second problem is that some people -- I hesitate to call them historians -- will let ideological perspectives color their interpretation of Soviet archives to an extent not considered acceptable for, say, the interpretation of archives of the British Army in the Crimea. A separate issue may be the politically correct view of the Soviet Army taught during the Cold War, when most current historians would have been trained, portraying the Soviet Army as a bunch of bunglers barely better than the Chinese.

 

[parsifal]

So, in answer to the original questions, my view on the discussion that has transpired so far is:


1) Was the luftwaffe really apolitical or not?
The consensus is, I think , that the Luftwaffe was a politically motivated force. A further question might be was it malevolently so? This appear to be the second part of the thread.

2) Does a "clean luftwaffe" thing exist?
On the face of it, the LW appears to be driven, at least in part, by bad intent. It behaviour towards its sister services was very poor particularlly the navy. Nearly all the worlds armed services suffered from this problem, but the Luftwaffes issues seem to be magnified. Having said that, there were occasions when co-operation was very close between DKM and the LW. Tactical co-operation between the army and the air force was also outstanding. The problem arises when resources are being divided up. here again there are parralels with foreign armed forces. best example might be the near fatal squabbles over the diversion of some BC resources to coastal command. They absolutely refused to do that for a very long time, apparently out of a desire to win the war all on their own, Thats gotta be seen as at least as bad as anything the LW got up to


And....i will pass on reading mosier given the reviews ive seen on him

 

[michaelmaltby]

'....And....i will pass on reading mosier given the reviews ive seen on him"
PLEASE, forward links to said reviews so we can judge for ourselves.

The Chanel Dash and support of Black Sea naval operation disprove your claim of lack of LW support for KM.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... He has been labelled a "contrarian" rather than "historian"

They said that same thing about Winston Churchill's books ... during the '30s ... and some claim, even now, that he wasn't an Historian. They're wrong!

History isn't about statistics .... they are useful and can be subject to various purposes to prove a point .... but ... History is about the PERCEPTION of events by the participants and bystanders. Grandfathers don't cite statistics to the grandchild on their lap ... if they talk ... they relate perceptions.

I find it ironic the any reference to Hans U Rudel on this site can only be made with the caveat ** NAZI**.
Who cares.
I read his book Stuka Pilot and have picked up additional tid-bits about him in the years since ... but nothing causes me to disbelieve that he was aggressive, committed, skilled and lethal .... so I am interested in HIS perceptions as a participant of the Great Eastern Conflict.

When Vasily B Emelianenko, in his memoir writes about fear and losses in Soviet IL-2 squadrons .. with the therapeutic 100 grams p.d. of vodka ... the ration of the 'missing' being consumed by the survivors; or, when he writes about what an unpleasant and vulnerable AC the Il-2 was to fly in combat, supported with anecdotal perceptions to make his point, I BELIEVE him.

He was a Communist. Rudel was a Nazi.
Both were air warriors to be learned from.

Not your kind of History, eh Parsifal.

 

[parsifal]

Here is one review of mosier. he is a sensationalist, not a serious historian. A good read, probably more suited to the fiction section by the look of it.
Deathride - book review - Failure magazine


Here is a review of a book that deals with the overall failure of the Luftwaffe to provide effective co-operation to DKM. Doenitz compliained bitterly about it, the loss of the Scharnhorst was a direct result of it, Raeder also complained about the gernal refusal of the LW to co-operate much. Im well aware there were exceptions to this generalisation, especially in the East, but in general, the LW was unsupportive of KM requests for co-operation

The Luftwaffe and the War at Sea 1939-1945: As seen by Officers of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. Edited by David Isby. Greenhill Books, Barnsley, 2005, paperback edition 2017.
Reviewed by Gregory P. Gilbert.

 

[parsifal]

History should try to be unbiased and avoid making personal judgements based on manipulation of the facts. It is a matter of historical fact that Rudel in the postwar period tried to re-write history and present facts in an untruthful fashion. Its not a reflection of his abilities as a flyer or a soldier, just that he allowed his political biases to rule his judgement as a human being during and after the war. Don't know about the communist guy. But if someone writes something, it has to be as verifiable as possible, and for historical records, that when a claim out of the ordinary is made, it has to be cross referenced with other source material. often it is necessary to utilise primary sources rather than rely on post war revisions of that account. At the same time, information made at the time , like aerial victory claims, comes out in the wash as the opponents records are discovered, that such contemporary claims are often disproven.

Autobiographies (like some of Churchills work) are generally good general background material however the "this is the war according to me because I was there" type books, without exception, have to be taken with a very large grain of salt. The authors often have an ulterior motive for saying what they do.

Russian versions of history do suffer from a political bias as a rule and have misused statistics at times. that, but to a lesser extent so too do the German accounts. Case in point has to be their loss returns for aircraft. There were weaknesses in their reporting systems anyway, given that a loss wasn't recorded as a loss until it was fully written off, and an aircraft could often be kept on strength, languishingat the edge of the airfield, still listed as an effective, when that aircrafts chances of ever flying again were about as possible as you or I sprouting wings.. Everybody lied about the war. everybody got things wrong.. Declassified Russian records seem dodgy, but that could just as easily be because they are telling a different story. krivosheevs account about the numbers of Red Army PoWs is a good example of that. He claims that in 1941, the numbers of Red army prisoners were far less than is currently believed generally. When queried about that discrepancy, it turns out he was excluding those soldiers called up as militias, but not actually part of the regular army.....a bit misleading, but not intentionally.

In my opinion, it is important not to allow our prejudices to cloud our overall judgement of the facts. That's not always easy. Having rabid anti soviet, or anti-German beliefs just perpetuates existing untruths, or adds new ones to the mix. Its important to be dispassionate about the facts