National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

94 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t u ry do C t r i n e s a n d em p l o y m e n t - nat i o n a l ex p e r i e n C e s
with nothing but the passive acknowledgement of foreign publications on the theory
of air war. Lieutenant Colonel Hilmer Freiherr v. Bülow, the advisor for aviation
matters at the “Truppenamt” (Troop Office), which actually assumed the tasks of
the forbidden “Major General Staff” within the Army Command, was responsible
for this task. Therefore it does not come as a surprise that Bülow’s “Richtlinien für
die Führung des operativen Luftkriegs” (Guidelines on the conduct of operational
air war), presented in 1926, did not include his own ideas, but only reflected already
published thinking on this subject, like, for example, the ideas of Douhet or Mitchell.
According to these guidelines, the new opportunities provided by “operational air
war” made it possible to take “the war deep down inside the political, moral, economic
and military sources of power” of an enemy state, whereby the German term
“operativ” (operational) must not simply be equated with “strategisch” (strategic).
Conducting air attacks on the enemy’s large cities, industrial centers, armaments
industry and the food basis of the enemy, friendly air forces were supposed to try to
destroy “the enemy’s morale and his will to continue the war“. 22
Erhard Milch, the Lufthansa chief executive and later Field Marshal of the Air
Force, remembered – ex post – that already in April 1932, on the occasion of a dinner
hosted by the prominent National Socialist and well-known World War I fighter
pilot, Hermann Göring, the leader of the NSDAP party, Adolf Hitler, had been talking
about General Douhet’s ideas, “which attracted attention in specialist circles at
that time”. Milch said that Hitler’s interest was focused on the bomb war as the best
means to deter an adversary and that he maintained that Germany needed to have “a
strong Wehrmacht, with Air Force and Army being equally important (a completely
new idea at that time), if it wanted to free itself from the devastating shackles of the
Treaty of Versailles”. 23
On 28 April 1933 the National Socialist government under Reich Chancellor
Adolf Hitler set up a Reich Aviation Ministry, appointing Hermann Göring the Reich
Aviation Minister. Milch became the state secretary. For him, Dr. Robert Knauss, the
Lufthansa company director, wrote a memorandum entitled “Die deutsche Luftflotte”
(The German Air Fleet), which Milch approved and submitted to Göring. It contained
an armaments conception for the German Air Force, but also reflected the
author’s deliberations on the air war of the future. 24 According to Knauss, Germany
would inevitably have to face a two-front war against Poland and France to regain
its position as a great power in Europe. He therefore demanded a swift build-up of a
22 Cited in Klaus A. Maier, Totaler Krieg und operativer Luftkrieg, in: Klaus A. Maier/Horst Rohde/
Bernd Stegemann/Hans Umbreit, Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem europäischen Kontinent.
Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.) (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 2).
Stuttgart 1979, p. 44.
23 Cited in David Irving, Die Tragödie der Deutschen Luftwaffe. Aus den Akten und Erinnerungen von
Feldmarschall Milch. Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Wien 1970, p. 54.
24 Cf. Bernhard Heimann/Joachim Schunke, Eine geheime Denkschrift zur Luftkriegskonzeption, in
Zeitschrift für Militärgeschichte 3 (1964), p. 72-86.