Hitler's Air Defences

By Stephen Wynn

The first Allied bombing raid on Berlin during the course of the Second World War, took place on 7 June 1940, when a French naval aircraft dropped 8 bombs on the German capital, but the first British raid on German soil took place on the night of 10/11 May 1940, when RAF aircraft attacked Dortmund. Initially, Nazi Germany hadn't given much thought about its aerial defences. being attacked in its 'own back yard' wasn't something that was anticipated to be an issue. Germany had been on the offensive from the beginning of the war and Hitler believed that the Luftwaffe was the much stronger air force. In addition, from 1939-1942, the Allied policy of aerial attacks on German soil was to hit targets with a distinct military purpose, such as munitions factories, airfields etc. This meant that the Germany military could focus where they placed their anti-aircraft batteries and had a very good idea of how many they would need. However, Germany's defensive capabilities were forced to improve as Allied raids on towns and cities increased in size and frequency. Fighter aircraft were included as part of anti-aircraft defences and flak units mastered the art of keeping attacking Allied aircraft at a specific height. This made it more difficult for them to identify their specific targets, and easier for German fighter aircraft to shoot them down before they could jettison their bomb loads. With the Allied tactic of ‘area bombing’, Germany's anti-aircraft capabilities became harder to maintain as demand increased. The longer the war went on, along with the increased Allied bombing raids, sometimes involving more than 1,000 bomber aircraft, so the worth and effectiveness of German air-defences dwindled.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526740274

Stephen Wynn

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

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Introduction

To provide a fair and unbiased picture of Hitler’s air defences and their effectiveness during the Second World War, consideration must be given to what they had to contend with, which differed significantly throughout the course of the war. In the early months there was no real need for anything too sophisticated in the way of air defences because Germany wasn’t fighting the war on her own soil. Immediately after the Luftwaffe’s Blitzkrieg attacks on neighbouring Poland – between September 1939 and April 1940 – nothing really happened in a fighting sense.

The Second World War began because of the Third Reich’s invasion of Poland, which directly led to both France and Great Britain declaring war. But then there was nothing. Rather than all three nations ‘having at each other’ straight away, it was some seven months before any significant land or air action took place between the warring factions. History has recorded this period of time as the ‘Phoney War’. It is a phrase that was supposedly coined by the American senator, William Edgar Borah, who was anti-war and also against American resources being used to support any Western democracies in the war, particularly France and Great Britain.

In Germany the ‘Phoney War’ was referred to as the ‘Sitzkrieg’ which translates as ‘The Sitting War’. It would have been an ideal time for either Britain or France to have attacked Germany as her defences, particularly her air defences, were basically non-existent, but for some inexplicable reason no such attack was forthcoming.

As the war started in earnest, it became apparent that the initial German approach was somewhat tentative. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, part of their invasion plan involved the Luftwaffe and the shock effect of Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber attacks, many of which were indiscriminate in their targets. In total Germany deployed more than 1,200 aircraft in her invasion of Poland.

Compare that to Germany’s first attack on mainland Britain, which came in the shape of a Luftwaffe raid on the Firth of Forth in Scotland on 16 October 1939, where their pilots were under strict orders to be selective in what they attacked so as to minimise the chance of inflicting civilian casualties. On 18 December 1939, RAF Bomber Command sent its Wellington bombers to attack targets in the Heligoland Bight, a bay which is part of the southern part of the German Bight at the mouth of the River Elbe. The bomber crews were under strict instructions not to attack civilian living quarters, merchant shipping or any land-based sites. It was as if by only attacking military targets and avoiding civilian casualties, each side was not only holding back from all-out war, but both Britain and Germany were giving themselves room to manoeuvre in the hope that they could come to some form of agreement before they reached a point of no return.

By May 1940 it was abundantly clear that there would be no peace between Britain and Germany. On its first night raid against mainland Germany over the Ruhr industrial area, the RAF deployed 99 bomber aircraft, 98 of which made it back to their bases in England. This revealed how ineffective German air defences were at that time; whether that ineffectiveness was down to there not being enough air defence units, or the poor quality of those who manned them is unclear. It is likely to have been the former.

The effectiveness of German anti-aircraft batteries increased as the number of Royal Air Force and United States Air Force air attacks on mainland Germany multiplied. Nowhere was this displayed with better effect than the Allied raid on Schweinfurt on 14 October 1943, which was carried out by American Flying Fortresses and Liberators of the USAAF. The efficiency that day of the German anti-aircraft units was devastating.

As the war continued different factors became involved in the effectiveness of German air defences. Since the Americans had entered the war on the side of the Allies, Germany was being attacked day and night. Daytime attacks made it easier for the German anti-aircraft units, whilst night-time attacks handed the advantage back to the attacking Allied aircraft. Bombing raids that struck targets deep into Germany meant aircraft being in the air longer, providing more opportunity for the anti-aircraft units to shoot them down.

By the end of 1943, the air supremacy that the Allies had been enjoying over Germany had been lost. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers had been utilised to form a stronger defensive network of early detection systems, coupled with a web of heavy anti-aircraft batteries. As the war continued, so did the advancements in aircraft tactics, navigation systems, and the munitions used, whilst at the same time Germany was finding it harder to produce and replace much needed military hardware and the personnel required to defend the nation.

Hitler’s air defences had been effective to a point in defending Germany, especially in the early part of the war. But with America’s intervention from 7 December 1941, Germany ended up having to endure air attacks 24 hours a day. From 30 May 1942, she also had to endure the staggering power of the ‘Thousand-bomber raids’. No matter how many anti-aircraft units Germany could deploy, and how accurate their gunners were, they were never going to be effective enough to be able to defend their homeland properly. Committed Nazi or proud German, no level of commitment could have held at bay what the RAF and the USAAF were collectively capable of delivering.

In addition, the anti-aircraft batteries and Flak Corps, which had been developed and manufactured by Nazi Germany, were also used in many of the countries which she occupied during the war. Added to this is the fact that in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, beginning from the Nazi’s rise to power in 1933, war had always been part of their agenda, it was a case of when rather than if. The only way war would have been avoided was if Britain had continued to acquiesce to Germany’s military actions and demands as she began asserting her military strength.

The Second World War did not just happen, it was planned by Nazi Germany, because September 1939 was the time when Hitler believed that they were not only ready to go to war, but capable of winning it. In all of the planning for war, Hitler appears to have made a basic and fundamental mistake by taking the final outcome of the war as a forgone conclusion. In his planning, little or no consideration was given to the possibility that there would be a time where Germany would have to defend herself from air attack from her enemies. Because of this glaring oversight the equipment that was needed to defend Germany wasn’t in place at the beginning of the war, certainly not in the amounts that were needed.

Hitler had only planned for an offensive war and had given little consideration to Germany’s own defences. This was a massive mistake. The other mistake was in not targeting Allied air production which had allowed them to build large numbers of aircraft, both bombers and fighters, which eventually led to the ‘Thousand-bomber raids’ on German cities and factories that had helped build and maintain the German war effort. The first of these raids, code named Operation Millennium, took place on the night of 30/31 May 1942, when the city of Cologne was bombed. The purpose of the raid was an attempt by the Allies to make Germany surrender, or at least cause severe damage to German morale, both within the military and the civilian population.

What Hitler could not have known was that the attack on Cologne was also a major turning point in the war for Britain. Prior to this, and mainly throughout 1941, Bomber Command’s reputation, and that of the man in charge of it, Sir Arthur Travers Harris, were at an all-time low. The poor performance of its aircraft, especially its bombing accuracy, had led to calls for Harris’s unit to be split up and its aircraft and men deployed to other theatres of war. If Harris ‘got it right’ with the raid on Cologne, not only was he likely to keep his unit, but also convince the War Cabinet that Bomber Command was worth enlarging in size. But before any of this could be achieved, Harris first needed to find sufficient aircraft for the proposed raid. He ended up with 1,160 aircraft, of which 113 were used to attack airfields where the Luftwaffe’s night fighters operated.

The belief was that with so many aircraft in the skies over Cologne, it would reduce the time of the overall raid, which it did, from four hours to ninety minutes. This was an advantage in two ways for Bomber Command, because it meant that it was more difficult for Germany’s anti-aircraft batteries to be able to focus on specific targets, and with the raid time reduced Allied bombers spent less time in the air.

The raid, which saw more than twice the number of British bombers dispatched than ever before, dropped 1,455 tons of bombs, two thirds of them incendiaries. The destruction and devastation caused by the subsequent fires and explosions was immense. Some 40,000 homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed, and more than 20,000 of the city’s population were killed. Out of all the properties that were damaged, only one had a military significance – the barracks of the men who served on the anti-aircraft units.

Of the 43 bombers that were lost on the raid, only 16 were brought down by the German defensive flak units, which in real terms was not a very high success rate, but then having to deal with so many enemy aircraft in the one raid, their job was certainly not an easy one.

The original target for the raid was Germany’s second largest city, Hamburg. One of the main attractions for the raid taking place there was that it was a port city, where on average somewhere in the region of 100 submarines were built each year. But because of inclement weather throughout Germany for the three days leading up to the raid, it was decided to attack Cologne instead, with the decision only being taken as late as lunchtime on the day of the raid.

CHAPTER 1

The Flak Corps

The responsibility for German air defence, along with important areas of occupied countries, came under the control of the chief of the Luftwaffe. Each unit had anti-aircraft artillery pieces, searchlights and barrage balloons. Each of these units, or Flakgruppen, as they were called, had good liaison and communications with their local air raid warning centre, as well as the fighter interceptor units. Each Flakgruppen did not necessarily have the same manpower or equipment; these two elements were dependent on the role that they were expected to play in the overall defence strategy.

Most heavy Flak batteries consisted of four to six heavy guns, which more often than not were 88mm artillery pieces. They were usually also equipped with at least two light 20mm guns for protecting the battery from an infantry attack. Light Flak batteries had a different configuration of weapons, usually around a dozen 37mm or 20mm guns. Depending on the purpose of the unit and what it was actually in place to protect, would determine exactly where it would be located. Some would be at ground level in a fixed position, whilst others would be on top of the buildings or factories that they were in place to protect.

The Germans had put a lot of thought into their deployment of anti-aircraft batteries. There certainly wasn’t any rigidity involved, in fact quite the opposite. The main tactic was flexibility. Part of this included having some of their artillery pieces on flat railway carriages, so that they could be moved to where they were needed in double quick time. The other aspect of their tactics which displayed a lot of intelligence was to move their anti-aircraft batteries from one position to another, whilst still being in a position to protect the location they were guarding. Part of the reason behind this was undoubtedly for self-preservation, as the Germans would have been well aware that reconnaissance photographs were taken of their locations during air raids, providing British and American planners with valuable information about how and where the German defences were. This allowed them to be targeted, as well providing the planners with information on potentially easy routes their aircraft could take to their target on the next raid. If the defended locations were of significance, they would be repeatedly attacked until they were put out of action.

The thought process did not end there. When it came to opening fire on RAF and USAAF bombers, the methods used would differ depending on whether it was a daytime or night-time raid. Their tactics changed all the time. Sometimes they would wait until an Allied bomber was caught in a searchlight beam before opening fire. Sometimes, once the anti-aircraft units could hear the sound of the bombers’ engines they would open fire in the general direction of where the noise was coming from. Sometimes, just one artillery piece would open fire, whilst on other occasions the entire battery would open up.

The Flak corps (Flakkorps) surprisingly did not exist before the beginning of the Second World War, and when they were eventually formed on 3 October 1939, only two units, Flak Corps I and Flak Corps II, existed. They had three main purposes: anti-aircraft, anti-tank and operations that required heavy fire support.

Flak corps varied in their makeup and included different numbers of anti-aircraft regiments, brigades or divisions. Somewhat remarkably these units remained the only two that were formed, until the latter stages of the war. Flak Corps III was not formed until February 1944 and was deployed in different locations throughout Europe. They took part in trying to hold the Allies at bay during the Normandy landings, where they deployed some 12,000 men, who between them manned twenty-seven heavy batteries and twenty-six light batteries.

Flak Corps IV came into being in July 1944, in support of Germany Army Group O, as they fought to try and halt the Allies in their advance across Europe. The Flak corps were highly respected by Allied intelligence, who in 1943 wrote the following brief report about them.

The Flak Corps is a wartime organisation and constitutes an operational reserve of the commander in chief of the German Air Force. It combines great mobility with heavy fire power. It can be employed in conjunction with spearheads