Luftwaffe Fighters Combat on all Fronts 2

Messerschmitt Me 262: Development & Politics

by Dan Sharp

There are many myths surrounding the development of the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. Its unparalleled performance is beyond doubt; easily able to outpace its opponents and possessing the firepower to shred them in seconds. Yet immediately after the Second World War, rumours abounded that official indifference, technical shortcomings, and interference from the Führer himself had crippled the Me 262’s progress and delayed its appearance on the front line until it was far too late.

Begun as a series of design concepts during 1938, the fighter would not enter mass production until the spring of 1944. Even then it failed to make any notable impact until the closing weeks of the war, when Me 262s began destroying USAAF bombers at an alarming rate. Exactly what happened to cause this apparently late start and who was responsible has until now been largely a matter of conjecture.

Grounded in research involving thousands of wartime documents spread across archival collections in three countries, Messerschmitt Me 262 Development & Politics finally sweeps aside the myths and provides a clear understanding of the real history. Sharp examines the aircraft’s technical development in unparalleled detail as well as analysing the ongoing discussions surrounding the Me 262 at the highest levels within the Messerschmitt company, the German Air Ministry and Adolf Hitler’s inner circle.

“No matter how many of those previous Me 262 titles you own, this one deserves to accompany them. It’s a fine authorial achievement.”

Introduction

Welcometo the second instalment of new stories of the German fighter pilots and their aircraft. In the first volume we suggested that the continued ‘fascination’ with the Jagdwaffe has more to do with its ‘weakness’ than its strength, a theme we continue to explore. The paucity of resources in the fighter arm resulted, for example, in the deployment of cannon-toting He 111s as night-time ‘interceptors’ over the Eastern Front. A single new Bf 110-equipped Gruppe, IV./NJG 6, established to defend the Ploesti airfields, found itself fighting RAF, USAF and Soviet bomber formations.

Elsewhere, large numbers of the quite tricky French Dewoitine D.520 served as advanced fighter trainers. The revolutionary Me 262 was flown late on as a fighter by former bomber pilots, experienced on multi-engine types, but who, in many instances, had been put to work as manual labourers after the disbandment of their units during the late summer of 1944. And as JG 1 made desperate

attempts to put into service another ‘miracle weapon’, the Heinkel He 162, it was soon apparent that the type could achieve little more than the obsolescent machines it was designed to replace.

The German fighter pilots underwent a particularly brutal blood-letting. We look at what happened to JG 27 after the death of its leading ace in North Africa – the Geschwader suffered heavy losses defending the southern borders of the Reich. By this stage of the war the Jagdwaffe was almost always on the back foot and eventually overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Training programmes were never up to the task of making up losses. At times of ‘crisis’, schools were stripped of instructors, until the crisis became ‘permanent’ and many schools – and units – were disbanded. Former instructor Hans Karger was a competent Fw 190 pilot in the new II./ JG 6 – but when it came to marksmanship he couldn’t hit a barn door. Towards the end fledgling pilots had nothing to fall back on but their own devices. For most it was simply not enough. We detail

the career of Heinz Zimmer who flew his first fighter combat sorties in JG 4 during April 1945 and was told to ‘bring back a victory or don’t bother coming back at all’!

Losses both through accidents and combat were enormous. Peter Schmoll’s figures show that around one thousand Me 109s were being written off monthly from January 1944 to April 1945. Given Allied air supremacy during this period, every training flight, every sortie, every air test was a potential rendezvous with death. Hardly surprising then that many turned to drugs and alcohol in order to be able to endure the dangers and the trauma. The loss of friends and comrades, constant thoughts of death and dying, physical and psychological exhaustion up to total collapse must have impacted morale and fighting spirit. While relatively few possessed the self-awareness to know that they were being sacrificed for a criminal regime that despised humanity, nearly all fought on to protect their homeland and their families.

Neil Page

Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 of Stab./JG 53 force-landed at San Lorenzo, Italy. Note the ‘saw-tooth’ camouflage finish on the wings, a feature of mid-1943 Erla production.

Author: Neil Page

Publisher: Steve O’Hara

Published by: Tempest Books, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR. Tel. 01507 529529

Typeset by: Burda Druck India Pvt. Ltd.

ISBN: 978-1-911703-06-8

© 2023 Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is of course impossible to compile a publication such as ‘Luftwaffe Fighters’ without a lot of help! Thanks to the following for assistance with photographs, first-person accounts, correspondence and support; the incredibly generous Jean-Louis Roba and Paul Stipdonk, Erik Mombeek, Jean-Yves Lorant, Dr Jochen Prien, David E. Brown, Philippe Saintes, Kurt Braatz of 296 Verlag, Peter Taghon, Dr Hans Krensler and Johannes Matthews. Thanks to the guys at Flugzeug Classic (especially Markus and Peter) and Avions magazines (Christophe and Michel) Thank you for saying ‘no problem’. And thank you Steve and Dan for letting me do this...

To the veterans; Ernst Schröder, Hans Weik, Karl-Heinz von den Steinen, Günther Ehrlich, Friedrich-Wilhelm ‘Timo’ Schenk, Jules Meimberg and Willi Unger. Thank you. A ‘special’ thank you to Del Davis for decals, photos, support

and more! And to Jim, RIP. All personal accounts translated by Neil Page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neil Page has lived and worked in Germany. He has a BA (Hons) degree in Modern Languages and a passion for translating little-known first-person accounts collected from a wide range of sources. His Day Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe was published in two volumes by Casemate in 2020 and he has translated the unit histories of JG 2, JG 4 and JG 300 along with many accounts featured in the ten editions of the Luftwaffe Gallery series. Several of these have been reproduced here with permission. Neil Page spent eight years at London Gatwick airport in flight dispatch with a major European airline and is a prolific blogger and aircraft modeller. His website FalkeEins – the Luftwaffe Blog has garnered well over five million page views over the past 12 years.

‘Angst, Blut und Tod’

Morale, Fighting Spirit, Combat Fatigue and Death in the Jagdwaffe

It is difficult if not impossible to ‘generalise’ about questions of morale in the Jagdwaffe. The individual’s situation to a large extent determined his own morale. Most if not all of the personal accounts here are from men who were brought up under National Socialism which inevitably coloured their views of their own situation and of the enemy. However, it is self-evident that, from the training schools to the frontline, serious injury and violent death were ever-present factors in the lives of pilots and aircrews.

Although generally viewed as the time of ‘easy victories’, pilot losses on the opening day of the invasion in the West –May 10, 1940 – were huge. In fact anything between 650 and 1,000 Luftwaffe aircraft were lost in a matter of weeks over France and the Low countries before the French capitulation. Included in the total losses were around 165 Bf 109s shot down and a further 50 or so lost in accidents. The ‘Battle of Britain’ would provide an even greater test for the men of the Jagdwaffe.

Kanalkrankheit – Channel Sickness

The Luftwaffe’s task in the summer of 1940 was very different from the one planned for it in the 1930s –a tactical role supporting an army became a strategic campaign against another very well-armed and prepared air force. And while the Bf 109 Emil may have been fractionally superior to the Spitfire Mk I and Hurricane in terms of speed of climb and dive and had heavier firepower, tactically

the advantage lay with the RAF fighters.

Large formations of Luftwaffe bombers had to be covered by an escort; this limited fighter vs fighter combat when it might otherwise have proven favourable to the Bf 109s. Oblt. Johannes Steinhoff’s 4./JG 52 was one Staffel ordered to fly close-escort missions, trying to keep close to the slow German bombers on missions over England to ‘better’ protect them. Steinhoff’s comments in his memoirs are telling: “Our directives read: ‘Stay at any price with the bombers, do not take up the battle with the Spitfires. Do not be lured into combat even if you are in an ideal firing position.’ This was something that made us young fighter pilots start to despair … our protégés dragged themselves along at walking pace.”

Such tactics meant foregoing one of the Messerschmitt 109’s major advantages – its speed. Used correctly, the Jagdwaffe might have beaten Fighter Command. By September 5, the Luftwaffe was on the way to ‘statistically’ winning the battle – in spite of the Luftwaffe’s many failings – and yet this advantage was uselessly thrown away. The fighter pilots felt this keenly and unsurprisingly morale began to drop.

Günther Rall noted: “By ordering us to fly as close escorts our Gruppe was effectively offered up on a plate to the most efficient and determined aerial opponents the Luftwaffe had yet come up against.”

Attrition was wearing down the fighter pilots just as much as the RAF and continued losses risked

jeopardizing the planned assault on the Soviet Union. But unless the British government surrendered – an unlikely scenario – the Luftwaffe would continue to lose men and machines to little purpose. As the summer of 1940 wore on these factors all contributed to mounting cases of what was becoming termed Kanalkrankheit – Channel Sickness – better known now as combat fatigue. As Ulrich Steinhilper noted: “Although most of us were still not outwardly showing major signs of nerves, by late August arguments were becoming more frequent, tempers frayed quicker… The strain of unrelenting front-line flying was beginning to show.”

It was at this point that, in the view of most historians, the Luftwaffe made a fatal error –attention was turned away from Fighter Command’s airfields towards London. Dissatisfaction with the perceived below-par performance of ‘his’ fighters led to Göring ordering one Staffel from each fighter Geschwader to be equipped with an ETC carrier rack for the carriage of 250kg bombs, enabling Jabo-Einsätze (fighterbomber sorties) to henceforth be flown against England.

The fact that each Gruppe had to designate such a Staffel would anger Galland, overwhelmed by his experiences: “I remember the helpless rage that seized me when I was ordered to have a third of my Gruppe transformed to fill the Jabo role. For months, we had been trying to lighten our aircraft to give them maximum manoeuvrability and now instead of supplementary

fuel (or drop) tanks we were being sent bombs!”

Among the fighter pilots there was a growing realization that they had been assigned an impossible task over England –they were never going to ‘saturate’ the defences. Lt Jules Meimberg of 4./JG 2 noted: “...It was not until today (September 7, 1940) that I grasped just how big a city London is. Brussels, Paris, even Berlin are tiny in comparison. What sort of effect could we hope to achieve with a few hundred bombs on a metropolis like this, aside from inflicting a few scratches…?”

In one leading fighter Geschwader, JG 53, the ‘atmosphere’ among the pilots was described as ‘depressed’. The longer the campaign was drawn out, the more obvious became the signs of exhaustion. Every day was a strain on the nerves and would potentially end in the same struggle – readiness, waiting, fear – fear of ditching at sea, fear of death and injury heightened by the continual loss of comrades, fear of combat itself. Readiness began as early as dawn, “breakfast was choked down without enthusiasm” and then the waiting for mission orders began.

Relaxation and pastimes were impossible – hanging over everything

was the imminent sortie. The thoughts of most fighter pilots turned to this; “their imaginations replaying for them an endless series of terrible scenes from the air battles they had experienced”. (Prien, Pik As – Geschichte des Jagdgeschwaders 53)

The hard-fought ‘draw’ that was the Battle of Britain was followed by tremendous defeats in Russia (Stalingrad) and North Africa. Even today our view of these campaigns is coloured by German ‘propaganda’ – the opening months of both a military ‘walk in the park’. The fact is literally hundreds of Luftwaffe fighters were being lost every month – among them even the ‘great’ aces. During September 1942 the ‘Star of Africa’ Marseille was killed bailing out of a new Bf 109 G. In some respects Marseille’s death could be said to mark a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ for the Jagdwaffe.

The last photos of Marseille show him largely exhausted by tensions and disappearances. ‘Comrade’ was no empty word in the Luftwaffe and Marseille had been diminished by the loss of so many of his. Unsurprisingly, thoughts of death –the manner of it and its sudden and random nature, even from the most unexpected quarters– were never far from the minds of some pilots.

A tragic incident

On January 13, 1943 the pilots of 5./JG 26 were scrambled from Abbeville-Drucat behind WilhelmFerdinand ‘Wutz’ Galland (one of the four Galland brothers). Uffz. Josef Dobnig (later to fly with JG 51 and JV 44) could see a dogfight had developed at around 1,500m altitude over the coast. Four Spitfires were circling above, lurking. Although they were some distance from him they rolled down in Dobnig’s direction to attack. The 5.Staffel pilot immediately plunged vertically down at full throttle and top speed and then pulled up to climb in a wide left turn, all the while looking for a second German fighter in order to attempt to form a combat Rotte.

Suddenly ahead and to the left, a Spitfire appeared which was followed by an Me 109. Simultaneously, another German fighter came from the side. From the aircraft number Dobnig immediately recognized it as that of his Staffelkapitän, Galland, who had come out of a turn to get into a position behind both of them to open fire. From the rear, and at high speed, it was not easy to distinguish the Spitfire and Me 109 apart. This would lead to disaster. Dobnig saw Galland unleash a short burst which struck the aircraft in front of him— the Me 109! He recorded: “Since our machine gun belts were filled alternately with ball, explosive, and incendiary rounds, I could clearly see the tracer trails of Galland’s burst slamming into the Me 109 ... The fuselage Balkenkreuz was clearly visible as the Me 109 plunged earthwards, spinning slowly, the pilot now swinging under the white shroud of his parachute.

“At least he had been able to bail out. Not a word was said over the radio. Once back on the ground Oblt. Galland looked me directly in the eyes, and said, ‘Dobnig, you will confirm that I downed a Spitfire!’ That was an order. That evening my comrades informed me

On August 17, 1943 ‘Wutz’ Galland led II./JG 26 as Kommandeur against a B-17 box raiding Schweinfurt-Regensburg but was shot down by P-47s and crashed near Liège.

that some Frenchmen had found the parachuted German pilot – his legs were shot up and he was dead! Either drowned or suffocated, he had been found lying in the swampy marshes of the Somme estuary north-west of Abbeville.

“He was a fighter pilot of our neighbouring 6. Staffel, and had been identified as Uffz. Johann Irlinger, from Bavaria. I knew him very well by sight. My unfortunate comrade was dead – another young life which had been sacrificed in this war… Oblt. Galland never uttered a word to me regarding this tragic incident.”

Hptm. Hans-Hermann Schmidt, flying in the Far North with the Eismeer (Arctic Sea) Geschwader and Staffelkapitän of 9./JG 5 recalled a sortie he flew in early 1944: “My Me 109 had been readied for a weather recce although it was way past its 100-hour check and overdue in the workshop. When a sudden order to get airborne came through I nonetheless climbed up into the cockpit and settled at the controls. No point in complaining – after all, the only one risking anything in this crate was myself! Uffz. Amend, my Katschmarek, was experiencing engine trouble and turned for home shortly after takeoff so I flew on alone. It wasn’t going to run on rails today.

“Black Arctic sea, stormy weather, several intermediate cloud layers, temperature about 10 degrees below zero. A few miles north of Waina-Guba on the Fischer Peninsula, out over the storm-tossed Barents Sea, a single engine fighter hove into view – a MiG 3. We circled each other warily; a dogfight out here, without witnesses, without any clear mission order, would serve no purpose whatsoever. The Russian had other ideas.

“After sizing each other up, we were quickly embroiled in hardfought combat, twisting and turning below the clouds, where my opponent held a distinct advantage. I was in trouble but

pulled my very daring trick with the half roll inverted even though we were pretty low for stunts like that. The MiG was smoking by now and I looked on as the pilot jumped clear and watched him swing in his chute over the cold raging sea. I banked around him and caught his eyes staring at me, wide open with fear. I saluted him and turned away to the south.

“Ahead of me lay a 40km flight over the sea and it was only then that I realised my machine was running more and more roughly – engine failure was on the cards! I throttled right back as my crate limped homewards – now came the punishment for that worthless victory! Soaking wet with sweat I managed to nurse my sick ship back over the airfield. The image of the pale frozen Russian boy was still with me. Usually you didn’t see the other man sitting in the cockpit, you just shot down the machine – this was different, not impersonal.

“It was because of this that the long flight home with a coughing and spluttering engine over this frightful sea stayed with me for a long time. Sometimes, before going to sleep, I could see his horrified staring eyes and wondered how

would it be for me? I didn’t fight to rid my minds-eye of these images, but faced up to them. Would I too end up floating under a chute down into the dark depths of the Arctic Ocean – or would I plummet into the ground to be spirited to Nirvana in the flash of an exploding fireball, the body of a thriving, feeling, living human being transformed in fractions of seconds to a grisly charred piece of meat (like a spit roast) in the burning debris? Alone in the tundra?

“Nearly two months later I got myself shot down in the deep snow of the Fischer peninsula – now ‘it’ was behind me, I had survived ‘it’, and ahead of me lay new challenges. Also behind me was my flying career – I had been a pilot for four years to the day exactly.”

The gradual loss of comrades and fellow pilots – whether ‘aces’, ‘old hands’ or ‘Nachwuchs’ – is well described by Uffz. Alfons Schertl (II./JG 51 and III./SG 4) writing as Peter Henn in a memoir entitled The Last Battle. Henn/ Schertl was fortunate to survive. As a pilot in 6./ JG 51 in Italy, then in SG 4 on the Eastern front, Schertl was twice seriously wounded and in April 1945 underwent an amputation. As early as 1943,

An unidentified Bf 109 G-6 displaying the Eismeer Geschwader emblem on the cowling. Note the scribble-pattern camouflage scheme developed for sorties over the frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle.

Henn perceived the full tragedy of his situation; “there were only three solutions left: death, injury or captivity”. He described the frightening numerical superiority of the Allies in Italy and gave no credit to his unit’s elderly Bf 109 Gustavs, which he considered slow, heavy, and practically obsolescent. He took the loss of his friend and mentor Herbert very hard. Herbert Puschmann (57 victories), was KIA in February 1944 leading 6./ JG 51 near Civitavecchia, Italy. The Knight’s Cross was awarded posthumously.

Henn wrote: “Poor old Herbert, he won’t be coming back… He must have got it in the head through the windscreen. He waded in with lowered head right into the bursts of the tail gunner. He can’t have felt anything. He went down with his crate until the end and it must have exploded into a thousand pieces when it hit the ground, they won’t even find anything of him to bury.

“It’s enough to drive you mad if you dwell on it. Herbert was our most skilled pilot. Taciturn by nature, a native of Breslau he was the link between the old and new generation of aviators. I remember once I went to see him after our first missions in Sicily; ‘...don’t talk rubbish’, he said ‘you don’t know what fear is, I’ve sweated more often with fright in my cockpit than you’ve ever done in your life’.”

And there were inevitably similar stories in every front unit.

Hopeless odds

By late 1943 the Luftwaffe had lost most of its original complement of fighter pilots. In the first six months of 1944, losses amounted to some 1,100 fighter pilots, which was about 60% of the number at the start of the year. The killing of so many good pilots left most Gruppen with just a handful of ‘super-aces’ and a small number of experienced but not yet expert

pilots. The vast majority however had comparatively little flying experience. These latter had been desperately pressed into service without sufficient training. As Uffz. Eduard Isken, a 56-victory ace in 7./JG 77 put it; “...there were essentially two types of pilot. In the first category were those who were already relatively experienced. They would reveal nothing about how to engage in combat or shoot. We were in the second – just kids who had to try and acquire the experience. This is why my first successes happened relatively late on, after I had flown and observed a lot.”

The ‘old hands’ must have appreciated – having perhaps already made a couple of parachute jumps or recovered from injury, nerves more or less ‘shot’ – the desperate nature of their position, at least better than the others. Oblt. Wolfgang Ernst was Staffelkapitän of 9./JG 77 during the spring of 1944 in Romania and flew

Hauptmann ‘Puschi’ Puschmann of 6./JG 51 (left, with spoon and bowl) during a meal break in Italy. Puschmann, much appreciated by his comrades, was killed in February 1944 near Civitavecchia. His loss was a terrible blow to morale.

many sorties against the US 15th AF bomber fleets attacking the Ploesti oil fields: “I have often asked myself why we continued to fly against hopeless odds. We knew everything was lost. At Mizil (Romania, during the spring of 1944) when the loudspeaker blared out that bomber formations were incoming the first thing most of us did was make a dash for the latrines – with stomachs churning. It was impossible to keep control of your bowels. After the war I studied psychology because I wanted to find an answer to this question –why did we continue to do it...?”

The fact was that these young fighter pilots mostly looked up to their (usually) decorated leaders who, as mentioned, had already ‘proved’ themselves in combat –Ernst himself was only 25 years old, but referred to as ‘Der Alte’, or ‘old man’ by his only slightly younger comrades. These pilots were a wellmotivated ‘elite’ and ambitious and still in the hunt for medals.

During the 1930s joining the Luftwaffe was the dream of thousands of young men (even non-Germans). As in any air force there were steep requirements to meet before a young man could become a member of the flying personnel. As in any air force the aviator was therefore part of an elite, not only physically but also intellectually (the most ‘stupid’ or the most ‘excited’ would kill themselves in training). In prewar Germany flying was therefore a privilege, made possible by the advent of the National Socialists. This implied, according to pre-war criteria, that the aviator had certain duties, including serving – and dying – for one’s country.

Decorations continued to play a role. Ernst had been awarded the German Cross in Gold –usual precursor to the Knight’s Cross. On April 4, 1944, Ernst claimed a B-24 shot down for his 26th victory and the following day claimed two more Viermots (four-engine bombers). He may

have expected the Knight’s Cross. Transferred to the Normandy ‘invasion’ front when his 9./JG 77 was re-designated as 4./JG 1 Ernst was shot down and wounded on one of his first combat sorties in the West. Four years of hardfought combat for what? It cannot have been easy to write all that off.

A ‘foretaste of the coffin’

The ‘carnage’ continued and accelerated. The Luftwaffe lost another 15% of its entire fighter pilot complement in both July and August 1944. Production and service deliveries only barely kept up with losses.

During the autumn of 1944 the Bf 109 G-14/AS fighters of I./ JG 300 were based in Borkheide, an isolated village some 30 miles or so south of Berlin. The ‘airfield’ was an open expanse of what the pilots described as a ‘heathland’ of sandy soil, grassy tufts and felled pine fir stumps. It was surrounded by pines on three sides, in theory difficult to spot from the air –and by marauding P-51s. The pilots and ground crews ‘lived’ in underground log bunkers – a “foretaste of the coffin” according to one pilot – and spent most of their days at cockpit readiness.

Ofhr.

Friedrich-Wilhelm

Schenk (2. Staffel) told this writer how many young pilots had already ‘accepted’ their fate and the hopelessness of their situations; “Borkheide, autumn 1944. The order to go to cockpit readiness had come through 20 minutes previously. A deathly silence descended over the field. The pilots found themselves alone with their thoughts, seated at the controls of their Messerschmitts... Our life expectancy was no more than two hours. Two hours during which our lives hung in the balance; we were on a knife edge. We would now either survive to see the dawn of another day or were about to die a horribly violent death.

“If you have never lived through that type of situation you could only with difficulty comprehend its intensity – it was a suffocating feeling of powerlessness, inner turmoil, intense fear and silent resignation. Above our heads the sky was unashamedly blue. Two mechanics stood on the wing leading edge of each machine, ready to wind up the heavy inertia starter crank for the Daimler-Benz engine. They spoke in low voices if they spoke at all. To break the tension someone uttered a word of encouragement or cracked an unnecessary joke.

Oblt. Wolfgang Ernst, Staffelkapitän of 9./JG 77 during the spring of 1944 in Romania.

“Then, a Kettenkrad ran down the line of aircraft carrying our Adjutant Oblt. Noschinski, or the Technical Officer, Oblt. Dudak, or our ‘Doc’, staff-surgeon Dr Ditgens, or the Communications Officer Lt. Käppeler. There was a word for each pilot, the offer of a cup of coffee, mineral water or some cake. Could they refuse anything to men who they perhaps would never see alive again, who perhaps had only two hours to live?”

Under constant threat and not expecting to live long, exactly what motivated a 19- or 20-year old with a small number of hours on the Bf 109 to climb up into his cockpit and get airborne, knowing full well that his lack of airmanship and combat experience was wholly inadequate and that survival beyond a handful of sorties was increasingly unlikely? A sense of duty, comradeship, simple courage or a simple desire to fly, despair or hope?

Hans Halbey of JG 1 recalled a conversation with his Gruppenkommandeur Hptm. Erich Woitke during 1944: “I don’t remember a drop in fighting morale until well into 1944. Of course the overwhelming air superiority of the opposite side, and directly related to that, our increasingly heavy losses, weighed very heavily on us. It was easy to become indifferent, even apathetic, to one’s own possible fate – tomorrow, the day after tomorrow? In the evenings we drank to relieve the mental strain. But as a consequence of our upbringing and training in both the Hitlerjugend and the Wehrmacht, we still believed in a possible victory right into 1944.

“For many of us, however, things were particularly difficult by late 1944 and I myself was affected; during my time in hospital in Chartres, an SS officer had told me what was happening to the mentally and physically handicapped – ‘extermination of unworthy life’ he called it and described it so cynically that I didn’t want to believe him at first

and was then horrified. But I could not and was not allowed to talk to anyone about it.

“When I rejoined my Gruppe after my convalescence I had a conversation with my Kommandeur and certain that he was not for one moment a ‘Nazi’ – not that they were referred to as ‘Nazis’ back then – I told him what I had heard and reproached him for keeping us young pilots in the dark about what was going on. His reply –as I recall it – shed much light on what we were experiencing at the time. ‘Look, Halbey,’ he said, ‘if I’d have told you about things like that and then one evening you’d spilled the beans after a few drinks and it had got out, then you’d have been for it. I’d have copped it too. Besides, if I tell you everything I know.’ – and we, including Woitke himself, knew nothing about the mass murders of Jews – ‘then I remove at a stroke your motivation to continue fighting and dying for Führer und Vaterland. How could you fly and fight if you knew you were doing it for a criminal?’ So even without any real knowledge of what was being done to certain sections of the population, it was for many of us only cold compulsion and the impossibility of running away from it that kept us fighting.”

What Halbey refers to as ‘cold compulsion’ is probably best described as ‘enforcement’. It was not so much formal military discipline but rather pure raw ‘coercion’ backed up by the constant threat of court martial. Woitke’s statement very graphically illustrates the intolerable stress that especially the older and more mature Luftwaffe officers experienced in the closing stages of the war, in particular when they – as in Woitke’s case – had gone through all sorts of injustices at the hands of the very authority that sent them into battle every day. As Don Caldwell has pointed out, some observed military discipline as rigorously as possible and stuck to it rigidly even as POWs.

Alcohol and stimulant use

As noted by Halbey, alcohol and stimulant use in the Luftwaffe increased sharply as the general war situation deteriorated. As a ‘coping’ mechanism Pervitin (an amphetamine) was widely available, but generally reserved for those bomber or recce crews flying long distances. Although rarely mentioned anywhere else, alcohol consumption to excess often crops up in the memoirs and personal accounts of Luftwaffe fighter pilots.

In a study of the personal characteristics of a group of German fighter aces, German psychologist Skawran noted that in the list of favoured pastimes enjoyed by Luftwaffe personnel, alcohol came top. Alcohol intake to excess appears to have been commonplace across all ranks. The memoirs of highly decorated unit leaders differ little in this respect from those of sergeants, NCOs or Corporals.

Drinking and boozing to excess could in fact take place in all conceivable situations; in periods of extremely tough front line service just as in times of rest and refit. Some men were drinking to overcome their fear, others to suppress the stress for a short while or the sadness caused by the loss of a close friend. Or out of sheer boredom. It was not just dreadful losses that would provide an excuse for a drink – it was victories, birthdays, bad flights, good flights, promotions, or a transfer by train rather than by aircraft. Bad weather could also be a good reason to head for the Kasino.

Heinz Knoke in his book I Flew For The Führer (‘Die Grosse Jagd’ in German, or ‘The Big Hunt’) was one of the first to describe several incidents of boozing to excess: “When the Kommandeur had gone I fetched a bottle of Cognac from the cupboard. Two hours later I got a second bottle... the alcohol helped us forget the past few weeks.”

In his memoir, the picture that Steinhoff paints of his leaving

party as Kommodore in late 1944 speaks for itself: “It stank like a pub and the beer bottles were lined up in batteries on the table. Lützow (former inspector of fighter pilots) lay sprawled outstretched in a chair and painted shapes with his index finger in the spilled liquor on the table top.”

And Dickfeld in Footsteps of the Hunter: “We got tanked yesterday as we do every night. Female companions? We have neither the

time nor the desire. The ‘cat’ in the morning is almost normal ( the ‘cat’ = der Kater. Slang expression for ‘hangover’ ). Last night they came again, replenishment for the fallen, wounded and missing of the previous day.”

Hubert Heckmann recalled the last months in II./JG 1: “The Staffeln comprise mostly former multi-engine (bomber and transport) pilots retrained on fighters or new young pilots just out

of training school. The atmosphere was no longer homely, there was little or no sense of comradeship as earlier – but there was an awful lot of drinking.”

Karl-Heinz Böttner of III./JG 77 confirmed that around 1944 a kind of split took place. Veterans like him had become the surviving ‘Alte Hase’. And they saw young pilots from schools with little training coming in –the so-called ‘Nachwuchs’ or ‘new growth’: “In the beginning, one got to know one or the other, went to drink with them in the mess... then they didn’t come back after their first war flight. We learned to stop seeing them. It hurt too much to see them disappear so quickly. So we kept to ourselves, as veterans…”

Contemporary standards of responsible drinking should not perhaps be applied to the behaviour of all-male groups 70 years ago, under constant threat and not expecting to live long. Phrases like ‘nervous exhaustion’ may have been euphemisms for some of the spells at the Luftwaffe rest home at Bad Wiessee where people were sent for ‘R&R’ but may have been there to ‘dry out’. The subject is thus both a delicate and intricate one. As author Nick Beale put it recently: “No one thought in units-per-week then. Nor were there any pills for posttraumatic stress syndrome, even if such a thing was recognised, which I doubt it was.”

What was going through the mind of the 19 year-old Jagdflieger ‘Nachwuchs’ Manfred Leisebein as he arrived at JG 52 to be assigned to 3.Staffel during December 1944?

“The invasion of Germany was ongoing – the Americans had already taken Aachen. We young fighter pilots were largely of the opinion that the Allies would be satisfied with having reached the western borders of Germany. The official propaganda proclamations promised exactly this. At the same time we believed that the situation on the Eastern Front had

Aces of JG 53 seen at Maldegem. Harder, Wilcke, Müller and Götz drinking tea. As one put it, “...when I’m asked what I did in the war, I can only say –we sat around and waited for something to happen.”

Two views of the JG 53 ‘games’ room in Gela, Sicily, February 1942. Pilots Fiebelkorn and Sauer playing chess. The lifejackets suggest they are at 30-minute readiness or Bereitschaft. Although not visible here, portraits of their fallen comrades were hung on the walls.