Organization
To gear for the European war, Luftwaffe needed a high command equivalent to Army (Oberkommando des Heeres OKH) or Navy (Oberkommando der Marine OKM). Hence In 1939, the Luftwaffe was again reorganized. The credit for the formation of a true Air Force High Command (German: Oberkommando Der Luftwaffe OKL) goes to Colonel General Günther Korten commander of Air Fleet 1 (German: Luftflotte 1) and his Chief of Operations General der Flieger Karl Koller. They both campaigned to carve out a command out of Goring's all compassing Reich Air ministry. The intent was to put Luftwaffe on a true wartime footing, by grouping all the essential military parts of the RLM into a single command. Thus on 5 February 1944, Air Force Command (German: Oberkommando Der Luftwaffe OKL) was created. It included following branches.
- General Staff
- Operational Staff
- All the Weapon's Inspectorate
- Quartermasters Branch
- Signals Service
Other areas such as training, administration, civil defense and technical design remained under RLM's control. The new organization proved to be more efficient and lasted until the end of the war.
OKL like OKH or OKM reported to Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces(German: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht OKW). The OKW was answerable to Hitler for the operation command of the three branches of the armed forces. OKL was divided into forward Echelon (German: 1. Staffel) and rear echelon (German: 2. Staffel). The forward echelon moved with the theater of operations while rear echelon remained almost exclusively in Berlin.
OKL was also the operational branch of the Luftwaffe. It was divided operationally into air fleets at a high level. Initially it was divided into four air fleets(German: Luftflotte) that were formed geographically and were numbered consecutively. Three more Luftflotten were added later on as German territorial expansion grew further. Each Luftflotte was a self contained entity. The leader of each was in charge of overall air operations and Support activities. However a fighter leader (German: Jagdführer) was in charge of all the fighter operations and reported to the Luftflotte Leader.
Each Luftflotte was further divided into air districts (German: Luftgaue) and flying Corps (German: Fliegerkorps). Each Luftgau had 50 to 150 officers led by a Generalmajor. It was responsible for providing administrative and logistical structure as well as resources to each airfield. The fliegerkorps on the other hand were in charge of the operation matters related to flying such as unit deployment, air traffic control, ordnance and maintenance.
Since this structure was making ground support structure available to flying units, the flying units were freed from moving the support staff from one location to another as the unit relocated. Once the unit arrived at its new location, all the airfield staff would come under the control of the commander of that unit.
Read more about this topic: Oberkommando Der Luftwaffe
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