Who would have been more competent in leading the Luftwaffe during the WW2?

My opinion below:

First, I would like to point out that Goering was not incompetent. That’s not to say that he did not make mistakes. Goering was an experienced fighter pilot who had taken over Manfred von Richtofen’s unit after the death of the latter. His military judgment was often good, but he had a problem, one which dogged all senior German officers—Adolf the Idiot Hitler. He was also a fat, drug-addicted buffoon, of course, and a dedicated Nazi for many, many years.

Of the available commanders, I have the most respect for Adolf Galland. He was his own man, and spoke his mind. He argued with Goering and Hitler publicly on more than one occasion, even a couple of shouting matches—when he felt the welfare of his men or the prospective success of his mission was at stake. He was the head of the Luftwaffe Fighter Command from November, 1941. In that capacity, he showed his real worth as a commander. He fought for the men of his command, and not just the pilots. One of the idiot Hitler’s obsessions was a “never retreat, never surrender” attitude, which in the case of the Jagdflieger meant sending all fighters out against every bomber raid. Galland pointed out that his men needed time to re-group, and to get some rest, and that the same applied to the ground crews. He used every trick he could manage to evade that stupidity. He called for increased fighter production (denied), retiring the Me 410 (a favorite of Hitler —denied), opposed mounting a one ton cannon in fighters (a crucial success), and promoted the Me 262 as a defense fighter (denied until late in the war—although the prototype flew in March, 1943, the insistence that it be used as a bomber delayed its entry into active service until late 1944, which was a good thing for allied bombers). On one occasion, Goering fired him, and then reinstated him a few weeks later, apologizing to him publicly.

Galland began flying gliders in the 1920s, and got his pilot’s license in 1932. He was a life-long aviator who knew the trade thoroughly, as well as the aircraft production industry. He was a good administrative officer (which he hated) and an excellent operational planner. In February, 1942, the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—under nearly constant attack by RAF Bomber Command and Coastal Command, sortied from Brest and ran up the Channel with destroyer and E-boat escorts. Churchill speculated in his history of the Second World War that the Luftwaffe kept 20 fighters overhead at all times. Galland, however, states that he kept 50 fighters overhead at all times, with meticulous planning which allowed fighters to land and re-fuel and re-arm farther up the French coast. It was a brilliantly planned and executed operation, which shot down almost 50 British aircraft. Damaged by mines in the Channel, the KM flotilla suffered no damage from air attack.

By January, 1945, Goering could take no more. There was a so-called fighter pilot’s revolt, with senior pilots criticizing Goering and the High command. Galland was placed under house arrest, and removed from his post. Eventually cleared of conspiracy charges, he formed a squadron of jets and returned to attacking Allied bombers, what he really always wanted to do.

I personally believe that there was no other German officer better qualified for the command than Galland. Goering was merely competent—and he was bullied and his plans distorted by Hitler, to whom he would never stand up. Galland never backed down, especially when the welfare of his men was concerned. Really, the Allies were lucky that Galland was never given the command.


 

Deleted member 1487

No, Goering was an idiot. He was little more than a pirate that led a relatively small unit of fighters and ran the Luftwaffe with the same mentality inbetween gorging himself on sugar, taking bribes, and buying up jewels and gaudy clothes. Galland certainly was a step up, but also another tactician promoted well above his competence. The only viable option on the table was Walter Wever pre-war and during the war the only one with competence after him was Gunther Korten, killed in the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Günther_Korten

Have Wever not die in the dumb plane crash in 1936 and things go VERY differently for the Luftwaffe and Goering, while the nominal commander of the LW, is kept in check.
 
Agreed over Wever, but working with who was there in the 1940 - 1942 timeframe, that is Hitler could have fired him after the non-success of the Battle of Britain, or after the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne. I'd opt for Milch - superb, organisational skills did a 'Beaverbrook' on German aircraft industry, if it was after the BoB the LW would have been in better shape for the Russian Campaign. I would couple him (not in the Biblical sense) will Albert Kesselring - experienced Luftflotte commander, and able strategist (as OTL events proved). The combination would have made a formidable team.
 
Have Wever not die in the dumb plane crash in 1936 and things go VERY differently for the Luftwaffe and Goering, while the nominal commander of the LW, is kept in check.
Guess you mean fortunate plane crash?
Well, it is a dumb crash in that it is so random. For AHistory it means that any thing Can butterfly it, fortunate for speculations as well.
 

Deleted member 1487

Agreed over Wever, but working with who was there in the 1940 - 1942 timeframe, that is Hitler could have fired him after the non-success of the Battle of Britain, or after the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne. I'd opt for Milch - superb, organisational skills did a 'Beaverbrook' on German aircraft industry, if it was after the BoB the LW would have been in better shape for the Russian Campaign. I would couple him (not in the Biblical sense) will Albert Kesselring - experienced Luftflotte commander, and able strategist (as OTL events proved). The combination would have made a formidable team.
They were teamed up in 1937 and did not get along at all, Kesselring quit the CoS position after fighting with Milch too much. Wever was rather unique in that he could manage the personalities of both Goering and Milch, which is why his death was such a problem for the Luftwaffe; soon after Goering, who did not like Milch either, and who really ran the Luftwaffe and was telling enough people that he was the real minister of aviation, not just the special secretary, got him largely marginalized in favor of Udet. Udet of course ended up committing suicide in 1941 after badly screwing up the Luftwaffe and Milch took over again. The Luftwaffe was at it's pinnacle of efficiency under Wever's management, balancing Goering and Milch, keeping Udet out of any decision making position, keeping Jeschonnek where he belonged as operations chief (he was not really equipped to handled the non-combat aspects of being CoS), and Richthofen in the Development Branch. After his death there was really no one to manage Goering and Milch, despite their competencies in doing the CoS job; Udet would get promoted to handle technology and production to sideline Milch the moment Wever was out of the picture even if there were another competence CoS thanks to Goering's dislike of Milch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kesselring#Between_the_wars
Following the death of Generalleutnant Walther Wever in an air crash, Kesselring became Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe on 3 June 1936. In that post, Kesselring oversaw the expansion of the Luftwaffe, the acquisition of new aircraft types such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Junkers Ju 87, and the development of paratroops.[21]

Kesselring's main operational task during this time was the support of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War. However, his tenure was marred by personal and professional conflicts with his superior, General der Flieger Erhard Milch, and Kesselring asked to be relieved.[21] The head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, acquiesced and Kesselring became the commander of Air District III in Dresden. On 1 October 1938, he was promoted to General der Flieger (air general) and became commander of Luftflotte 1, based in Berlin.[25

Guess you mean fortunate plane crash?
Well, it is a dumb crash in that it is so random. For AHistory it means that any thing Can butterfly it, fortunate for speculations as well.
Fortunate for world history; in that case it is worse that it didn't come sooner and include Hitler; in terms of the Luftwaffe it was extremely unfortunate for their development. Dumb in the sense that Wever was in a hurry and didn't release the aileron locks on the plane before take off and crashed as a result.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Agreed over Wever, but working with who was there in the 1940 - 1942 timeframe, that is Hitler could have fired him after the non-success of the Battle of Britain, or after the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne. I'd opt for Milch - superb, organisational skills did a 'Beaverbrook' on German aircraft industry, if it was after the BoB the LW would have been in better shape for the Russian Campaign. I would couple him (not in the Biblical sense) will Albert Kesselring - experienced Luftflotte commander, and able strategist (as OTL events proved). The combination would have made a formidable team.

Milch had a Jewish father. Without Goering to shield him ("I will decide who is Jewish in the Air Ministry") he'll be lucky to survive, never mind inherit the top job. Given the war the Luftwaffe needs to fight after 1942 or so Galland would probably be best.
 

Deleted member 1487

Milch had a Jewish father. Without Goering to shield him ("I will decide who is Jewish in the Air Ministry") he'll be lucky to survive, never mind inherit the top job. Given the war the Luftwaffe needs to fight after 1942 or so Galland would probably be best.
Goering was just the one to shield him, he was too valuable and connected for anyone to ever get rid of. He had been bribing Hitler and Goering pre-war, so if not Goering than someone else would have helped create the story that he was 'aryan-ized' with, that his mother had cuckolded his Jewish father with an 'aryan' man.
As the head of Lufthansa pre-war he was also way too skilled to allow any purging of him, so he would have been fine withotu Goering. Galland was way too junior in 1942 and completely unfit for the role, as he had no staff training. Hans Jeschonnek, the guy that actually was CoS at that time, was FAR more senior and fit for the role. If you really needed an actual replacement for Goering, say due to his death, then it would have been Milch (by 1942 he was Aryanized) as commander and state secretary for aviation (taking over both of Goering's positions that he was the secretary for) and in the course of that probably replacing Jeschonnek, the CoS of the Luftwaffe, with someone more competent and of his choosing. Of course at that point it was too late to really matter and the damage was done anyway.

What about Hugo Sperrle?
Potentially, but Ritter von Greim would probably have been further up the food chain for political reliability. That is if Hitler decided Milch for some reason was unsuitable, which I doubt even with the aryanization issue.

or Helmuth Wilberg?
Wilberg was half Jewish, so while he SHOULD have been commander from the very start and effectively had been pre-Hitler during the shadow Luftwaffe days of the 1920s-early 30s, due to his extreme level of air command experience in WW1 relative to any other serving officer, he was a 'mischling' so couldn't have a senior role, though he did continue to serve for the rest of his life without any problems, just in a training role. Milch could hide behind his mother's proven infidelity to his Jewish father to claim he was actually the product of the affair (not clear if that was true or not, but she was co-habitating with this other guy, so it is possible), but Wilberg's mom was fully Jewish, so no escaping his maternity.

The only reason I know about all of this is because I was researching a TL about this exact topic, who would replace Goering, so I got into a lot of the biographical issues of the personalities of the Luftwaffe thanks to E.R. Hooton's books on the Luftwaffe and James Corum's "Creating the Operational Air War", which has a lot of excellent information about all of these guys and their relation to the formation of the Luftwaffe (politics played a huge role, including the jewishness of the senior officers, which in the Nazi state had an important role to play).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, it is a dumb crash in that it is so random...

Wever was flying an He-70 Blitz, an aircraft he was NOT familiar with. And he didn't do the pre-flight checks. Upon takeoff the aircraft began to tilt. Instead of correcting it continued to do so until it crashed. Investigation of the wreckage showed that the aileron locks had NOT been released prior to takeoff, so there was no aileron control at all to correct the tilt.

This could have been so easily avoided...
 
Calling Goering "not incompetent" is lots of praise. Lots. And lots.

Galland was good as a fighter pilot and as a commander of a Jagdgeschwader, and probably he could make do with a Fliegerkorps, but I wouldn't give him a Luftflotte, let alone an entire arm of the nation's armed forces.

That said, I'll second Wever and Kesselring - obviously. Jeschonnek would very likely not be on par with either of those, but still many rungs above Galland.

Note the point that in order to run an entire air force you don't need to have been a fighter ace - actually it's likely to be more harm than good.
 
Note the point that in order to run an entire air force you don't need to have been a fighter ace - actually it's likely to be more harm than good.

Apart from Kammhuber, the post-war Luftwaffe seems to have been largely Steinhof and Rall, fighter pilots.
 
Whenever I think of what it's like to be head of an air force, I think of Cyril Newall. Winning isn't anything.
 

Deleted member 1487

Apart from Kammhuber, the post-war Luftwaffe seems to have been largely Steinhof and Rall, fighter pilots.
Largely NATO and the US did not want to be dealing with hardcore Nazis, who were the guys largely at the very top. Plus they were old and the surviving pilots that were respected by the US/Europeans were the high scoring fighter aces; the bomber pilots didn't make it through the war in many cases and it seems the US/UK had plenty of their own to listen to and didn't need Luftwaffe experience there...other than Rudel's input on designing the A-10.
Plus the post-war Luftwaffe was largely an appendage of US/UK air forces and to this day remains a pure tactical air force for army support, so being a fighter pilot in that context makes sense, as the modern Luftwaffe was and is just fighters and fighter bombers.
 
Top