Goering by Richard Overy

Author:Richard Overy [Overy, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350149113

Chapter 7

The Failure of the Luftwaffe

While Goering attempted to bridge the gap between expectation and reality in the economy he tried simultaneously to fill the role of commander-in-chief of the German air force. This in itself says much about his eventual failure in both enterprises. Most other men found high military command intellectually and physically exhausting enough. But to Goering it was a characteristic of the new breed of German leader to be part soldier, part governor. And it was in his capacity as soldier that he was most anxious to excel because it seemed to him that here true virtue lay. His heroes were the great warrior kings who were both rulers and fighters: Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Napoleon. When he ordered a genealogical tree of the Goering family to be drawn up, its architects happily discovered that its roots could be traced back to the Carolingians, and to Charlemagne himself.1 Goering always preferred to be known by his military tides, General-Feldmarschall or, after 1940, Reichsmarschall rather than Minister-President. The very tide of Marshal of the Reich conjured up the vision of a man who embraced the whole spectrum of public life.

This romantic longing for military distinction was of the highest importance to Goering. Throughout his career he glorified military life. Honour, heroism, obedience were for him the hallmarks of man’s real nature, the criteria of historical and human value. To some extent this merely reflected his own narrow military background and the pervasive traditions of German military life. Yet here, as in other areas of German society, Goering sought to supplant the traditional elite and transcend its values by providing a military leadership that was characteristically national-socialist. For Nazis, military endeavour was a reflection of the spirit of the race, a sign of a healthy people, aware of the historical necessity for struggle and willing to fight for its rewards. Neither Goering nor Hitler was willing to trust such an important aspect of the national ‘re-awakening’ to the conservative and defence-minded Prussian establishment. From the outset the tone of military life under Nazism became more aggressive, while the population was bombarded with propaganda on the virtues of military duty and sacrifice. The revival of German military life became closely associated in the popular mind with the party rather than with the old military elite.

Goering’s role as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe thus served a number of different purposes at the same time. It provided the party with a direct role in military affairs, through building up what was popularly regarded as the ‘Nazi service’; it provided a means of circumventing the traditional military leadership and reducing its influence on strategy; and it gave the Nazis an opportunity of parading the union between party ideology and military life. Goering would have liked to command the army as well, and used the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis of January 1938 as a means to achieving it. Instead Hitler took over the supreme command for himself, leaving Goering free to develop the air force on

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