[Operation
Werewolf: Luftwaffe suicide operations against Allied
bombers in 1945][...]
IN Göring's absence there emerged a crippling
indecisiveness about certain secret Luftwaffe projects.
Back in February [1945], acting on the advice of
Speer and Baumbach, Hitler had agreed to go ahead with
Project Mistletoe, which the air force had long been
planning: 120 piggy-backed planes -- Ju 88s coupled with
Me 109s -- were standing by in East Prussia to bomb the
principal Soviet power stations at last. Göring too
approved, and the fuel was set aside. But in mid-March
Hitler decided to hurl these planes at the bridges across
the Oder and Neisse rivers the moment the major Russian
offensive began. Then he changed his mind; he would use
twenty-six of them against the bridges across the
Vistula, in the Russians' rear. General Koller objected
that the project had originally been designed to wipe out
Stalin's power supplies, and that the remaining
Mistletoes would not suffice for this project. Hitler
hesitated, and was lost -- torn between the immediate
tactical needs of battle and his long-term strategic
objectives, between inevitable defeat and possible
ultimate victory. "Imagine," he told Koller on March 26,
"if the enemy had bombed all our power stations
simultaneously! I'll forego the Vistula bridges -- we can
deal with them later."
"Ribbentrop," Hitler told his foreign minister, who
was also anxious to end the war by diplomacy, "we're
going to win this one by a nose." He mentioned the jet
planes -- in March 1945 Himmler's underground factory at
Nordhausen would in fact assemble five hundred Me 262's
and in April twice as many. The first Type XXI submarines
-- capable of cruising to Japan underwater and at high
speed -- were about to enter service. By late 1945
bombproof underground refineries would be turning out
three hundred thousand tons of synthetic gasoline per
month. "If only," he remarked to Goebbels on March 21,
"Göring had done more to rush the jets into
service!" And he added bitterly, "He's just gone down to
the Obersalzberg again with two trains, to see his
wife."
Göring returned to Berlin keener on peacemaking
than ever. When top civil servant Hans Lammers visited
the Chancellery for the last time on March 27, he found
the Führer very upset about the Reichsmarschall
"attempting to start negotiations with the Allies." Emmy
Göring certainly dropped hints to Görnnert, who
stayed behind with the train, that her husband was
thinking of contacting the Americans, and Göring
confided to Speer that he was sure that the Americans
knew he was on their side. One day, five American airmen
parachuted into the Schorf Heath, and Göring ordered
their captain brought to Carinhall. Perhaps he was
thinking ahead, to ways of establishing links to the
Americans. But this officer had only been a movie
director in Hollywood, and Göring lost interest in
him.
General Koller's diary establishes how concerned
Göring was to end the bloodshed now that Germany
appeared to have lost. "Nobody tells us anything," Koller
complained to Göring on March 28. "We badly need
directives from top level."
The Reichsmarschall agreed. He too is in the
dark. F[ührer] tells him nothing, won't
permit the slightest political step. For instance, a
British diplomat tried to enter into talks with us in
Sweden, but this was flatly forbidden by Hitler.F has prohibited Reichsmarschall to use his own
extensive contacts. . . . F has also rejected every
opening that the foreign minister has reported to
him.
Hitler ordered Göring to attend every war
conference at 4:00 P.M., but he dealt preferentially with
SS Gruppenführer Kammler. "Göring," wrote
Goebbels on April 3, "has to listen day after day without
being able to offer the slightest excuse."
Under pressure from every side, Göring made the
decision to authorize Luftwaffe suicide missions.
Volunteer pilots would ram the Luftwaffe's few remaining
Me 109s into Allied bombers. In mid-March British
code-breakers had already intercepted the message that
Göring ordered all Geschwader commodores to read out
secretly to pilots who had completed fighter
training:
The fateful struggle for the Reich, our
people, and our native soil is at its climax.
Virtually the whole world is fighting against us and
is resolved to destroy us and, in blind hatred, to
exterminate us. With our last and utmost strength we
are standing up to this menacing onslaught. Now as
never before in the history of the German fatherland
we are threatened with final annihilation from which
there can be no revival. This danger can be arrested
only by the utmost preparedness of the supreme German
warrior spirit.Therefore, I turn to you at this decisive moment.
By consciously staking your own lives, save the nation
from extinction! I summon you for an operation from
which you will have only the slenderest chance of
returning. Those of you who respond will be sent back
at once for pilot training. Comrades, you will take
the place of honor beside your most glorious Luftwaffe
warriors. In the hour of supreme danger, you will give
the whole German people hope of victory, and set an
example for all time.
GÖRING.
The first mission, code-named Werewolf, ran into
pragmatic objections. General Koller pointed out that if
the Me 109s were used up on this, all reconnaissance and
conventional-fighter operations would collapse until
Focke-Wulf's new Ta 152 and the Me 262 became available
in large numbers. But Hitler gave the go-ahead. Several
hundred volunteers were given ten days of ideological
training at Stendal, and on April 4, General Pelz, whose
IX Air Corps would control the mission, reported all
ready for Werewolf. "For psychological reasons," Pelz
told the Luftwaffe high command, "we should not delay too
long with the actual operation." Three days later
Werewolf was executed -- one of the most desperate
Luftwaffe operations of the war. The Luftwaffe war diary
confirms that 180 suicide crews took part, escorted into
battle by their less-exalted comrades from JG7 and the
first squadron of KG54(J). Astonished Allied radio
monitors heard patriotic marches flooding the
fighter-control wavelength and a female choir singing the
German national anthem, while anonymous voices exhorted
these 180 pilots to die -- now -- for the Führer and
for Germany. Seventy of them did.
Such was the heroism of which Göring's young
airmen were capable even on the threshold of national
defeat. But there were also acts of a different hue. On
March 30, Messerschmitt ferry-pilot Henry Fay picked up a
brand new Me 262 jet to fly to Neuburg Airbase on the
Danube. He deserted to the Americans and handed the
top-secret plane over in return for a promise of
immediate release to his mother. Fay also revealed to the
Americans where the Me 262 and its fuel were
manufactured, and described its most vulnerable points.
"Aim for the engines," he recommended, "as they catch
fire easily."
AT 5:00 A.M. on April 16, 1945, the final Soviet push
across the Oder began. Sixty more suicide pilots
crash-bombed their planes onto the Oder bridges in a
desperate attempt to save Berlin.
But the decay of defeat had already reached the
highest levels in the capital. Learning that even Speer
had disobeyed orders to destroy bridges within Berlin,
Hitler challenged him to say whether he still believed in
victory.
"I cannot say that I do," the minister replied. But he
agreed without enthusiasm that he still wished that the
war could be won.
"I thank you for saying the best you could," replied
Hitler. "But I can say only this" -- and Göring,
watching, saw the perspiration standing out on his brow
-- "We must hold on until the last hour! No matter how
much Donner and Blitzen! I know we shall come
through."
