Real History and the Better Years of David Irving The [images and captions added by this website] London, March 7, 1974 HITLER’S AIR FORCE By Richard Hough The Rise und Fall of the Luftwaffe: the Life of Luftwaffe Marshal Erhard Milch. By David Irving. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson. £5.95.) A History of Air Power. By Basil Collier. (Weidenfeld ~ Nicolson. £5.95.)
FIELD MARSHAL ERHARD MILCH’S active career was ended in 1945 by a rain of blows on his head from his own baton delivered by an enraged Royal Marine Commando [ Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts ]. David Irving has written an account of the working life (he had no other) of this dedicated Nazi.
Because he created it, and virtuaIly ran it, the book is also a history of Hitler’s Luftwaffe, which had a life span of only 12 years from its illicit birth, through terrifying domination to chaotic destruction. It is unlikely that a more detailed account of the Luftwaffe’s triumphs and tragedies and, above all, of its hysterical politics, will be written. Mr Irving knew Milch as an old man and was given his note-books and diaries.
In ” The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe ,” he reveals him as a man of passionate loyalty to Hitler, a ruthlessly efficient administrator, and a tireless worker. Milch commanded a fighter squadron in the 1914 war, and later reorganised in turn first Lufthansa and then the clandestine air force.
When the air war began to go seriously wrong, Hitler called in this troubleshooter who ordered the bombing of Coventry within days of taking over direct control from Göring , reorganiscd aircraft produclion when it faltered, took charge of the air supply of Germany’s beleaguered armies in Stalingrad, and sorted out the radar crisis. Milch remains an unlikable efficiency expert, brave yet colourless, a dangerous adversary.
Mr Irving’s revelations are interesting, especially to those who have consistently under-estimated the effects of Allied bombing. The German view is in these pages. When at last the jet fighter Me262, ordered in 1940, reached the squadrons in 1944, the fuel shortage was so severe that, like some medieval siege cannon, it had to be towed out by oxen for take-off. Time and again aircraft and secret weapon production were held up by Allied air power.
Milch as a prisoner of war was slipped cyanide by his mother before he was taken away. Unlike his old enemy Göring, whom he did his best to save, he did not have to use it. He was given a life sentence and released after eight years. Basil Collier takes a more orthodox view of the value of bombing. In his concise and well-ordered ” A history of Air Power ,” he reiterates the claim that too much has always been expected of the bomber, from the 1920s to Vietnam.
Ironically it was the piloted bomber that killed the pilotless bomber — the doodlebug-of 1944, the greatest threat of the second world. Both David Irving and Basil Collier underestimate RAF appreciation of this danger and fail to recognise that the sites were being effectively attacked as early as October 1943, eight months before the first launchings.
Free download of David Irving: The Rise & Fall of the Luftwaffe The above item is reproduced without editing other than typographical 2005