Erhard Milch - World War II

World War II

At the outbreak of World War II Milch, now with the rank of general, commanded Luftflotte 5 during the Norwegian campaign. Following the defeat of France, Milch was promoted to field-marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and given the title Air Inspector General. As such, Milch was in charge of the aircraft production. The lack of a long-term strategy and divisive military command structure, led to many mistakes in the operational and technical ability of the Lufwaffe in the war and were key to the continued loss of German air superiority as the war progressed. The frequent and often conflicting changes in operational requirements led to the numerous changes in aircraft specification and designs such that manufacturers like Messerschmitt were unable to focus outright on few aircraft types and most importantly output. The Germans failed to put their production on a war footing, continuing to run factories only for eight hours a day and failing to include women in the workforce. German aircraft production did not rise as steep as the Allied and especially the Soviet ones, who outproduced the Germans in 1942 and 1943. By the summer of 1943 Germany's lack of a truly "four-engined" heavy bomber to retaliate against England was finally addressed by Milch in his August 10th 1943 endorsement for Arado Flugzeugwerke to be the subcontractor for the Heinkel He 177B separately engined heavy bomber design, which only saw three flyable prototypes completed by early 1944. In 1944 Milch sided with Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler in attempting to convince Adolf Hitler to remove Göring from command of the Luftwaffe following the failed invasion of the Soviet Union. When Hitler refused, Göring retaliated by forcing Milch out of his position. For the rest of the war, he worked under Albert Speer. Speer's reforms were able to increase German military output drastically, including aircraft production, but it was too late by then.

Following Hitler’s suicide, Milch attempted to flee Germany, but was captured by Allied forces on the Baltic coast on 4 May 1945. On surrendering he presented his baton to the Commando Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, who was so disgusted by what he had seen when liberating the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp that he broke the baton over Milch's head.