Future of Fallschirmjägers After a Failed Invasion of Crete?

The German invasion of Crete was apparently fairly close and could have easily gone the other way with only a minor point of divergence or two, and if the Allies had won the surviving German airborne troops would almost certainly have all ended up as prisoners of war. So what happens to the idea of fallschirmjägers if the best part of a division of them is lost? Even in our timeline with the victory Hitler became distinctly unenthusiastic about airborne operations thanks to the high casualty rate and decreed that there would be no future ones, they instead being used as regular infantry. Here its become a complete fiasco. Would the fallschirmjägers be able to survive as units or would they be disbanded/at least run down in size do people think or would Göring be able to defend his personal fiefdom? The Heer would certainly use it to press an advantage over his ideas for the Luftwaffe Field Divisions.
 
The key question here is: "would Goering have been able to preserve his personal fiefdom?"
Would Goering have been allowed to continue to field a third army (after the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS)?
OTL Fallschirmjagers were used as shock troops to plug holes in defensive lines in Italy, Crossing of the Rhine and Eastern Front. Because Fallschirmjagers were only light infantry, they suffered heavy casualties.
Late war Luftwaffe Field Divisions were really re-purpposing of Luftwaffe ground personnel after they ran out of airplanes to refuel.
In contrast, by 1945, the RCAF was de-mobilizing air crew because they felt the air war was already won.

WI Goering allowed Fallschirmjagers to shrink back to their original "Special
Forces" (aka. shock troops) role and only commit them to battle in small numbers?

WI Fallschirmjagers adopted a specialized role like partisanjagers?
 

Deleted member 1487

The German invasion of Crete was apparently fairly close and could have easily gone the other way with only a minor point of divergence or two, and if the Allies had won the surviving German airborne troops would almost certainly have all ended up as prisoners of war. So what happens to the idea of fallschirmjägers if the best part of a division of them is lost? Even in our timeline with the victory Hitler became distinctly unenthusiastic about airborne operations thanks to the high casualty rate and decreed that there would be no future ones, they instead being used as regular infantry. Here its become a complete fiasco. Would the fallschirmjägers be able to survive as units or would they be disbanded/at least run down in size do people think or would Göring be able to defend his personal fiefdom? The Heer would certainly use it to press an advantage over his ideas for the Luftwaffe Field Divisions.
Its somewhat of a myth that there were no future airborne drops, because there were at least 7 after Crete, but nothing division scale besides the fiasco that was the Wacht am Rhein offensive.

With a defeat at Crete I think the history of the FJ plays out pretty much the same. Learn from the defeat and use them on a small scale as needed.
 

Driftless

Donor
If Crete were a disaster where the bulk of the Fallschirmjagers were killed or captured, doesn't that put an awful big and near irreplaceable hole in the knowledge of airborne operations for the Germans? Many of those soldiers had taken part in the successes in Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, and France.

Even if the the force were re-populated, the invidual experience & knowledge is lost.
 

Deleted member 1487

If Crete were a disaster where the bulk of the Fallschirmjagers were killed or captured, doesn't that put an awful big and near irreplaceable hole in the knowledge of airborne operations for the Germans? Many of those soldiers had taken part in the successes in Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, and France.

Even if the the force were re-populated, the invidual experience & knowledge is lost.
Yes, but the training establishment survives. They did build up the division prior to having combat exprience after all, but they would take longer to do so.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I think there'd be a wider appreciation of the weaknesses of large drops. You'd still see Pegasus Bridge, but probably not the massive drops of Market-Garden or the like.
 
I think there'd be a wider appreciation of the weaknesses of large drops. You'd still see Pegasus Bridge, but probably not the massive drops of Market-Garden or the like.

Or a greater Reliance on Coup De Main ops like Pegasus Bridge

Imagine if each brigade in the 4 Parachute divisions was tasked with having 1 Reinforced glider company that trained exclusively for those type of ops and then apply that to Market Garden?
 
However, things are still dramatically different. OTL 6,698 Fallschirmager troops were taken out of action, of which 2,640 were wounded (some of whom may have returned to operation later), whereas this time around losses are almost total, so effectively their numbers are reduced by another 7k or so.
 
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WI Luftwaffe pretended to increase Fallschirmjager capabilities by re-building the air-cargo fleet: Ju-252, and other airplanes with rear cargo ramps. Whether thye dropped para-troopers would be irrelevant as long as they were available to re-supply Stalingrad, etc.?
Would Nazi parachute engineers (e.g. Theo Knacke) have been able to perfect Low Altitude Parachute Extraction Systems?
 
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