The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by JimmyBlonde

I agree.

There's evidence in the documented behavior of Hitler (losing faith in and complaining about the Luftwaffe after Dunkirk/BoB), Goering (making accusations of cowardice against his own fliers), the reassignments at OKL (Kesselring being shunted to the Med to provide token support for Italian failures) and the attitudes of German airmen (Typified by Adolf Galland's Squadron of Spitfires remarks).

Clearly the reassignment of strategic priorities relating to Operation Sealion was not without some sense of 'loss' attached to it. The fact that Germany was forced, by RAF resistance, to re-evaluate their strategic plan also provides evidence that a defeat occurred and caused a setback which was considered insurmountable in light of other strategic priorities. Then there is the cumulative effect which the loss of resources had on future operations which is hard to estimate in concrete terms but can't be disregarded.

All of that is common knowledge which requires no reference. Some of it is interpretative or subjective but, overall, enough circumstantial evidence is present to make a convincing case for the argument that Germany (and thereby the Luftwaffe) was defeated in the Battle of Britain.

Further supplements to this argument can be found by quoting the Luftwaffe personnel themselves.



Adolph Galland in reference to BoB, clearly he felt that something was at stake during the campaign.



General Werner Kreipe.

And by their operational orders.

The stated aim of Sealion:



Clearly not accomplished.

The stated aim of the Luftwaffe:



Clearly not accomplished.


As far as I am concerned the reality of history weighed against those stated strategic aims is more than enough proof that Germany lost the battle. Whatever back-pedalling the Nazis did to make things look more palatable, or whatever pillow humping the Propagandists of Whitehall did to make their triumph look conclusive, is irrelevant.

To conclude:

When you set out to do something you can either succeed or fail in your endeavor.

Those are the only two possible outcomes.

Being given cause to renege on your original course of action and adopt another indicates a realisation that your original desired outcome can not be achieved which is a failure in it's own right whether in the soundness of your plan or the method in which you implemented it.

Nazi Germany clearly stated their desire to subdue Britain by force and tasked the Luftwaffe with carrying out the initial stages of that plan. A determined attempt was made by the Luftwaffe to do so in which they failed which is proven by the fact that their objectives were not met.

This is, regardless of interpretation, and in any sense of the word, a defeat.

Right. So.....how did they cope with it?

[#402FOX]

Its a sad state of affairs when reading this thread is more fun than the game

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by #402FOX

Its a sad state of affairs when reading this thread is more fun than the game

[JimmyBlonde]

Originally Posted by Snapper

Right. So.....how did they cope with it?

They abandoned their plan to invade England and continued with their other campaigns.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by JimmyBlonde

They abandoned their plan to invade England and continued with their other campaigns.

it was formally never abandoned.. Hitler was still blabbering about invading Great Britain in 1944..

[Al Schlageter]

If "Germany didn't achieve its goals as expected", then Germany lost and GB won, PERIOD.

Germany lost 1,922 aircraft (including 879 fighters, 80 Stukas and 881 bombers). German Luftwaffe losses from August 1940 until March 1941 were 2,840 aircraft. Casualties of the German aircrew were 3,363 KIA, 2,117 WIA and 2,641 taken prisoner.

The Lw never really recovered from these losses.

Germany paid the heavier toll as GB was not knocked out of the war. Damage during the BoB and the Blitz was quickly repaired.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Al Schlageter

If "Germany didn't achieve its goals as expected", then Germany lost and GB won, PERIOD.

that's the tangible evidence I was looking for

Germany lost 1,922 aircraft (including 879 fighters, 80 Stukas and 881 bombers). German Luftwaffe losses from August 1940 until March 1941 were 2,840 aircraft. Casualties of the German aircrew were 3,363 KIA, 2,117 WIA and 2,641 taken prisoner.

Interesting numbers, but I have different ones

From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

GB Strength at the beginning of the conflict:

1,963 serviceable aircraft

Germany strength at the beginning of the conflict:

2,550 serviceable aircraft.

544 aircrew killed 2,698 aircrew killed
422 aircrew wounded
967 captured
638 MIA bodies identified by British Authorities
1,547 aircraft destroyed 1,887 aircraft destroyed


So Germany had more planes and lost slightly more, but in fact it proportionally lost less aircraft. The huge difference in terms of aircrew is because apart for the 109s, all attacking aircraft were multi-crew (the skilled crew members like pilots and navigators lost were in similar numbers of the ones lost by the RAF).

As I mentioned before, it was attrition and it caused similar losses on both ends.

The Lw never really recovered from these losses.

the LW neve recovered from the losses of the Eastern Campaign, not the Battle of Britain. Thanks to replacements they still had pretty much the same number of aircraft when the BoB ended and Barbarossa started.

Germany paid the heavier toll as GB was not knocked out of the war.
Damage during the BoB and the Blitz was quickly repaired.

43000 civilians killed and 46000 wounded is small numbers to you?

[JimmyBlonde]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

the LW neve recovered from the losses of the Eastern Campaign, not the Battle of Britain. Thanks to replacements they still had pretty much the same number of aircraft when the BoB ended and Barbarossa started.



43000 civilians killed and 46000 wounded is small numbers to you?

The losses in terms or aircraft were trivial to the Luftwaffe and RAF alike, both sides had the capacity to produce more aircraft than they had pilots to fly them. The kill figures just make a good score-card for the drones who provide the labour.

The losses in experienced crews were the deciding factor.

Basically the core of Luftwaffe veterans was depleted to a point which subsequent attrition never allowed full recovery from whereas, on the RAF side, they didn't have that many combat veterans to lose. Mainly the RAF lost inexperienced replacements with whom the British bought themselves time where they could probably withdrawn to the north and saved themselves the trouble since the Germans could not make a strategic impact on Britain by air power anyway, nor is it entirely convincing that they could have invaded in light of their entirely inferior naval strength and the logistical demands of such an undertaking.

Also, 43,000 fatalities looks like a big number, well, it is a big number. However, in terms of bombing casualties during WW2, is isn't really that big. Civilian losses during many late war allied raids reached totals like that in less than a week, sometimes even in a single raid. Take Dresden for example, current estimates put the toll from that one night at 25,000 killed. Hamburg, 50,000, Pforzheim, 18,000. In Tokyo the largest casualty figure from a single conventional raid is estimated to have been 88,000 killed in one night during February 1945. (Figures all from Wiki for what it's worth)

Destruction of civilian and industrial property is widely acknowledged as only having a marginal effect on the war effort by both sides, this is a well documented and incontrovertible fact. People can relocate, industry can go underground.

Just look at German aircraft production figures in 1944. The combined weight of the sustained RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns made absolutely no dent in German industrial capacity at all in regards to aircraft production. Figures show that production actually steadily increased during the entire campaign as demand increased. Basically the allied plan to disrupt aircraft production in the Reich by bombing factories was a total failure in terms of their specified objective and it wasn't until ground forces secured those centers that production halted.

The true success of their efforts came from the attrition of resistance and the depletion of strategic resources.

[NedLynch]

Are you guys still at it?

War's over, has been for a long time, remember the dead on all sides and the lives they never had.

Don't try to rewrite history by arguing about what cannot be argued about.


And how did the luftwaffe pilots cope with their defeat? Everyone differently in his own way.

Originally Posted by Snapper

Right. So.....how did they cope with it?

What do you mean with "cope with it"?

I think the Nazi propaganda machine tried to convince the people that the campaign was successful (don't forget that after the failed BoB, there has been the Blitz and after the Blitz frequent incursions of low level attacks if I remember well) so possibly the broad public was not much informed about an eventual defeat or whatever name you want to give it. And soon public attention turned towards other theatres of war. So from the point of view public opinion might not have been much affected apart from those secretly listening to BBC and not taking BBC programme for too much of a propaganda itself.

About the military, I cannot tell.

In terms of planning:
Well, I guess Hitler hoped that wiping the SU off the maps (which was likely his primary goal anyway) would take away one potential ally for GB and hoping to keep GB on their island until he had finished Stalin so a two front war could be avoided (the initial motivation for seeking a decision in the West first). It might have worked if the campaign in Russia would have ended in a German victory (not likely in hindsight imho).

Beowulf: This clip is fantastic. Lol, all the remaining sparrows are so curious and want to see the end of the fight. Lol. Good find