The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

crashed his aircraft and was killed in June 1936. It was a simple mistake
that did for him: failing to release the lock on the ailerons of his Heinkel 70,
he had crashed almost as soon as he had taken off. It was an unfamiliar
plane to him, and he had been in a rush to get back to Berlin for a funeral.
Yet that fatal mistake had ensured that in a trice the Luftwaffe had lost its
direction and, critically, its unity.
No-one could fill Wever’s void; no individual shared his combination of
military experience, strategic vision and likeability. It was Kesselring who
was asked to take Wever’s place, but although he had served in the army
during the last war, he was seen as primarily a civilian managing director
and was unable to earn the kind of respect Wever had enjoyed. Nor did
Kesselring get on well with Milch. The former tried to increase the power
and authority of the General Staff while the latter did his best to undermine
Kesselring. Within a year, Kesselring had been replaced by General Hans-
Jürgen Stumpff, who was only ever really seen as a stop-gap. In 1939, when
still not quite forty, Oberst Hans Jeschonnek became the fourth Luftwaffe
Chief of Staff in three years.
Only in the newly formed Luftwaffe, where speed of growth was
everything and there was no tradition to complicate matters, could a man be
a major-general at thirty-nine. He had been groomed for the job by Wever,
although the latter had clearly never expected him to succeed quite so soon.
A former fighter pilot during the last war, Jeschonnek was recognized as
having a brilliant mind; yet his apprenticeship under Wever had been far
from complete and he had certainly failed to learn his old boss’s deep
empathy for his colleagues.
Moreover, by 1939, he had fallen out with Milch. Originally Milch’s
principal staff officer, he had developed a close working relationship with
his boss, but, with the death of Wever, Jeschonnek’s ambition as well as
clashes over policy had ensured that friendship had sunk to mutual
contempt. When, in 1938, Jeschonnek had suggested to Milch that he
replace Stumpff as Chief of Staff, Milch had dismissed the notion out of
hand. Göring then went over Milch’s head and promoted the young Chief of
Staff. Milch understandably saw this as a direct blow to his authority –
which it was; Göring did not like anyone becoming too powerful and
threatening his own position.
A further undermining of his authority came when Ernst Udet became
head of the Office of Air Armament, a new office created when Göring