Birds of Prey

II. The Blue

The Luftwaffe uniform colour was blue-grey. The colour selection was to distinguish the Luftwaffe uniform from the grey-green of the army and Kriegsmarine. ‘The Blue’, unlike state forestry was a ‘new’ Nazi elite. From the outset it was as an institution burdened with internal tensions and riddled with mediocre leadership. A postwar narrative of Luftwaffe history was manufactured by Adolf Galland’s based upon his memories and fantasies. In The First and the Last (1950) Galland effectively rganizatio his political involvement in the Nazi state. He acknowledged Göring as the founder of the Luftwaffe, but was reluctant to discuss the deeper Nazi pedigree. He also recognised that Göring had allocated forty per cent of total rearmament costs to the Luftwaffe, while he was responsible for the Third Reich’s economy.43 His most serious criticism was also toward Göring, as ‘supreme commander’, for surrounding himself with his Great War cronies. Galland claimed they shared a common failing of not understanding modern aviation.44 Where Galland was less forthcoming was how the Luftwaffe had been incubated through the RFA’s paramilitary structure. The Luftwaffe’s rganization, air bases, depots, manpower, structure and ideology were acquired from RFA resources. Galland dropped a hint of this relationship in reference to the Elchwald estate that served as the headquarters for his command. Göring turned over his palatial lodges into Luftwaffe headquarters for the duration of the war. The RFA facilitated the rapid rganization of the Luftwaffe across the estates and bases in East Prussia.

The reasons for Galland’s myth-making are not difficult to deconstruct. Stephan Bungay argued the Luftwaffe was as much political as it was a military rganization.45 He pointed to the Göring and Ernst Udet (1896–1941) relationship, as the champions of the warrior-hero ethos. They introduced the notion of ‘romantic amateurism’ as the ideological glue of the officer corps. Bungay believed this stunted the Luftwaffe’s military development. The Luftwaffe had been raised from a broad cross-section of the population, unlike the army it was recruited nationally rather by state like the army.46 Bungay focusing aircrew noted that by 1939 the officer corps had reached 15,000 comprising of pilots, army officers, and the technical services. In basic training, the Luftwaffe instilled an attitude of common experience and service. During the Spanish Civil War, according to Bungay, the German aces became poisoned by ‘romantic amateurism’. Galland was a typical example of this clique. He was known to have recommended the removal of radios as unnecessary in the cockpit of fighting aeroplanes, in a dubious challenge to modernity.47 Bungay was deeply critical of Göring, Udet, Galland and others but blamed this on traits of the ‘Herrenvolk’ and the temporary loyalty of the pack that followed whoever was leader.48 There was a persuasive argument but not entirely accurate and misunderstood the nature of Nazism. The deteriorating fortunes of war encouraged a rise in the cliques but their loyalty to Hitler never waivered.

Image 4: Reichsmarschall Göring, Lw.Generalmajor Adolf Galland, Lw.Generaloberst Bruno Loerzer and Reichminister Albert Speer, August 1943.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J15189 / Lange, Eitel / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Göring’s military ambitions for the Luftwaffe was more sophisticated and corporate than Bungay could imagine. There are signposting clues in the literature and archives. In the foreword to the 1933 edition of Richthofen’s biography Göring wrote, ‘I was honoured by the confidence shown in me when I was appointed the last commander of the Jagdgeschwader Richthofen. This appointment has bound me forever and I will carry this responsibility in the spirit of Richthofen.’49 During a meeting in 1944, Lw.General of Paratroops Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke confronted Göring over the command of the airborne formations. The reply was unexpected. Göring explained why they must remain under his command: ‘I’m glad that I have them under my own wing in the Luftwaffe so that they are steeped in the spirit of the Luftwaffe … it’s the spirit that counts. In the same way … the French revolutionary army … in Paris simply swept away all the old French guards who’d had years of training.’50 In allied captivity, in 1945, Galland testified to British interrogators that Göring told him in early 1941, ‘In a few months we shall attack Russia … the whole affair was meant to last ten weeks at the most. After that the army was to be reduced to sixty ‘Divisonen[sic]’. But they were to be elite troops to hold the west, and the remainder of the ‘Divisionen’[sic] so released would be used for building an Air Force. Everything was to be put in the Air Force. That was the Führer’s plan.’51 These three anecdotes reveal something about Göring’s concepts of leadership, rganization and fantasies.

The subject of leadership has always raised questions about Göring’s ability. His senior Luftwaffe adjutants were known colloquially as the ‘small general staff’. The most significant member of this clique was Lw.Colonel Bernd von Brauchitsch, nephew of Colonel-General von Brauchitsch, chief of the army until 1941.52 There was no official job description for his post, but under cross-examination before the Nuremburg tribunal, in March 1946, Brauchitsch explained:

I was the first military adjutant of the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe. I held the rank of chief adjutant. I had the job of making the daily arrangements as ordered by the Commander-in-Chief and working out the adjutants’ duty roster. The military position had to be reported daily; military reports and messages only to the extent that they were not communicated by the offices themselves. I had no command function.53

Brauchitsch’s importance to Białowieźa was his role as an intermediary forwarding Göring’s orders to the battalion(s) and in return collating their regular reports. Galland offered his allied interrogators an abrasive opinion of Brauchitsch. On 16 May 1945 he said:

Brauchitsch has been with him [Göring] for four or five years and he had a very bad influence, in that he always concerned himself with politics and didn’t hold himself aloof; as a chief ‘Adjutant’ he should have—the varying information should be condensed, but not selected.54

Image 5: Bernd von Brauchitsch in his cell in Nuremberg prison 1946.

Source: NARA, Hoffmann Collection.

Setting aside Galland’s dislike of Brauchitsch, the evaluation that he was inclined to side with decisions and sift reports was not unusual in Göring’s world. Galland of course was an integral member of the same command structure and his reputation was never really tested over his influence on shaping the fighter command. However, what can be drawn from the observations by the senior echelons of the Luftwaffe was the absence of ‘band of brothers’ style fraternity.

The RFA/Luftwaffe rganization documentation highlights an intensive period of planning around 1935–7 and subsequent annual updates. Evidence of this rganization planning can be found in other scholarship.55 From 1935 apprentice foresters and gamekeepers were required to serve for one year in the army (later the Luftwaffe) before becoming foresters. Older candidates were expected to participate in a three-month military refresher course alongside other Nazi officials.56 Michael Imort has argued this, ‘was all it took to rganization the forest service.’ The Luftwaffe’s rganization and peacetime expansion was based upon a general rganization calendar drawn up by the RFA in the mid-1930s and continually updated to 1940.57 Göring was determined to set in motion plans for the rganization of the Reichsforstbeamte (RFA’s public servants) including all members of the hunt offices to the Luftwaffe. This process behind a rganization calendar issued precise instructions for the transfer of all forestry officials to the Luftwaffe command structure. In 1936 forestry manpower numbered 870,000, and even by 1945 although greatly depleted forestry could still supply conscripts under the general Wehrmacht reserve assessment.58 The RFA’s rganization in the event of war was bound to the Wehrwirtschaftstab (economic warfare staff) of the Luftwaffe with wood and timber both regarded as strategic raw materials. During the war, forestry manpower was rganizat through the Luftwaffe although foresters served in specialist forestry units of the army, navy and Waffen-SS.59 Further evidence of rganizationn rganizationn can be found in the blue-grey uniforms with green insignia that recognised foresters serving in the Luftwaffe.60 From very early on the Luftwaffe was imbued with National Socialist spirit and by August 1944 it numbered between 2.8 and 5 million men, women and youths depending upon on which authority. The largest number of troops were in the ground forces and, in terms of manpower alone, the Luftwaffe constitutes a significant historical entity.61

In meeting Hitler’s expectations, the Luftwaffe departed from the traditional military formation, incorporating the dogma behind ideological warriors. The roots of this rganizationn began in 1929 when Göring informed the Reichstag of the inevitability of a future German air force.62 Once in power, Göring’s first priority was to consolidate political power. As Minister-President of Prussia, Göring ordered the raising of reserve police and volunteer paramilitary units. They combined his military expertise, with paramilitary policing methods, in security actions to crush left-wing political parties and communists. The police flying squad (Polizeiabteilung z.b.v. Wecke), named after its commander was mustered on 23 February 1933, with a force of 14 officers and 400 men. This formation was garrisoned in the Friesenkaserne, in Berlin, and became ‘godfather’ to the first SS detachments sealing that special relationship between the SS, police, and the Luftwaffe.63 Wecke’s first police actions were on 2 March 1933, rounding up communists and Marxists in Berlin. In 1936 this unit was turned into Prussian police regiment General Göring and was then transferred to the Luftwaffe to form a bodyguard. By 1944, this bodyguard had transformed from a regiment to the panzer division Hermann Göring, and by the war’s end was designated an airborne-panzer-corps.64

The social appeal of Luftwaffe recruitment was the proximity to advanced technology, aviation and the sense of speed. Compared to the SS, the Luftwaffe represented a larger and more interesting option for the nobility deeply bound by its class, its racism and elitism. Under Göring’s leadership flying, hunting and highbrow rganizatio offered an extension of the prestige, privilege and stimulus they were socially accustomed to. The list of nobles that joined the Luftwaffe included: Philipp Landgrave of Hesse (Nazi party member 1930), Nikolaus von Below (Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant), Günther Freiher von Maltzhahn (fighter ace and senior officer), Wolfram Freiher von Richthofen (cousin of Manfred, senior field commander), Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weissenfeld (both night fighter aces) and Hans Graf von Sponeck (airborne forces commander). However, like the German hunt, the majority of would-be flyers hailed from the middle-class with strong social values that were based upon professionalism, technocracy and innovation. Even working-class boys saw advantages of technical training and apprenticeship that offered greater opportunities for career advancement.

The proximity to the hunt did not appeal to all flyers. There was a significant group of flyers who rejected the hunt from their entrenched National Socialist ideology. The leading exponent of this group was Hans-Ulrich Rudel. He was a highly decorated flyer who rejected the hunt as a true disciple of Hitler, but was also a guardian of his social class. Göring’s different treatment of Rudel and Galland was influenced by social backgrounds. Both men went to great pains to explain their social backgrounds in their memoirs. Rudel was individualistic, the son of a Lutheran pastor, drank milk, didn’t smoke and spent most of his free time enjoying sports (athletics and skiing).65 Galland’s father was the bailiff of Graf von Westerholt’s estate; a position held by generations and a Huguenot family that left France in 1742. From the age of seven, Galland’s father taught him to shoot and hunt. He was encouraged to fly gliders and enter for the Lufthansa entrance examination.66 Rudel had to wait until he joined the Luftwaffe before he learned to fly. Rudel’s meetings with ‘the chief’ (Göring) were uncomfortable and brief in comparison with his meetings with Hitler. Rudel was the Führer’s favourite and similar characters. Galland recalled hunting a stag in Rominten—a gift bestowed by Göring, ‘it was really a royal beast, the stag of a lifetime.’67 Recently discovered films show Galland at ease in meetings and during meals in the relaxed atmosphere of Göring’s headquarters.68 During a visit to one of Göring’s castles, Rudel came face-to-face with the Reichsmarschall ‘rigged out in German hunting costume and shooting with a bow and arrow.’69 This was a counter-narrative about the ‘other’ Luftwaffe as a Nazi rganization that embraced polycratic persuasions.70 Rudel’s ideas came close to the blood and soil rhetoric of the SS and their 1936, claim to be an anti-Bolshevik combat rganization.71 In this regard, the SS and the Luftwaffe were both sides of the same coin. SS zealotry was drawn from pagan myths of blood and soil, while the Luftwaffe drew on the mystery of the forest and the skies. Both Rudel and Galland remained blindly obedient to Hitler.

III. Raising a social-military order

The Jagdliches Brauchtum symbolised more than a Nazification of the hunt. It was an attempt by Göring to anchor invented traditions to the German past, but looking forward to a new ill-defined military order. Frevert had formulated an honour code. This was a synthesis of cultures both German and Nazi, hunting and military. It was system for social induction and regulation. The most important feature was the honour system. The Waidgerechtigkeit (hunt justice) raised localised courts of honour. This code was grounded in the strict discipline of the laws and regulations of the hunt. The simplicity of the system made it transferable to wider society and shared similar procedures to the later Nazi people’s courts. This was regulation through a moralistic almost Kantian code, for example: unlicenced shooting and feeding game were serious crimes, while shooting game struggling in a metre of snow was regarded as ungentlemanly conduct. Wounded game had to be located and killed before any further hunting. The hunter was cautioned not to shoot from too great a distance in case he missed. The hunter was warned not to dishonour the dead by sitting or standing on the carcass. The game was not to be fed during a crisis like severe winter conditions or drought. The application of this morality code found its way into Luftwaffe etiquette and manuals of discipline. In 1940 Göring formed an honour court over a disagreement that developed during the Norway Campaign, between Stuka pilots and paratroopers. There is no known outcome.

Frevert recommended no alcohol while hunting because it weakened responsibility and raised the bloodlust. This was a reaction to the popularity of the small Jägermeister pocket bottles, dubbed Göring’s Schnapps, which was distilled by Mast-Jägermeister SE (Wolfenbüttel) and distributed from 1935. He also encouraged the Schüsseltreiben (social gatherings) when all hunters dined communally. The single course of Eintopf (stew) with Sauerkraut and pork, was hailed as the noble family dish for the Volksgemeinschaft. Frevert only allowed drinking in the lodge after the days’ hunting. The alcoholic toasts for these gatherings included the communal Horrido. He described the Horrido as being of equal importance to the Nazi party’s Sieg Heil or the army’s Hoorah. During the toasts, a jug of beer was passed around for each member to raise a toast, drink and shout the Horrido. All drinking parties had rules and for the evening a kangaroo court judged party delinquents who were placed before three ‘noble’ judges. The punishments ranged from communal ridicule to fines for serious breaches of etiquette. All monies were given to orphans or to winter aid. Frevert also insisted all hunters, without exception, venerated 3 November as the sacred Hubertustag (St. Hubertus day—patron of hunting).72

The Jagdliches Brauchtum was the ideological glue that sealed the officer corps of both the Blue and the Green within Göring’s court. Frevert advocated a code of conduct for ‘the noble or aristocratic pleasure … the highest form of masculine yearning … culture bearers of the nation.’73 All hunters were to be militarised, regimented and armed; in this context, the Jagdliche Brauchtum contributed to building Göring’s military doctrine.74 A significant part of the book was the adoption of invented culture and traditions that had no precedent in the German hunt. The sole purpose was to instil an esprit du corps through the introduction of ceremonies, the correct use of hunting horns, the application of field signals to raise communications, and the introduction of self-regulated courts of honour. Frevert complained about the social barriers of rural society that had become entrenched in the division between the hunt and agriculture. To reconcile this problem, he plumbed the depths of völkisch idealism in a polemic about capitalism’s destruction of the German way of life and promised the old ways would be restored. He dismissed the existence of any underlying social and cultural differences between the peasant farmer and the elitist hunter hailing both as völkischer Kulturträger (culture bearers of the nation). They would be militarised, regimented and armed; in this context, the Jagdliche Brauchtum was not just an almanack of invented traditions but served as the basic honour code for Göring’s court and organisations.75 This dogma underpinned the ideas for Białowieźa.

This system failed and calamitous consequences. Göring and Udet had been comrades in war and peace. Frevert had recollections of Udet as a regular guest at Rominten who was known for fun and frivolity. Everyone noticed that Göring and Udet used the informal and friendly ‘du’ when greeting and when together. Frevert recalled Udet sketched Göring on a beer mat stalking on his stomach. He drew a large posterior and on each rear cheek was stamped with the German cross and German Hunting Association shield, so as no one in his company could be offended. Göring enjoyed such jokes and thought the sketch was funny. According to Frevert, Udet was known as a great fighter ace but he was a lousy rifleman having missed several stags. Göring would often jibe Udet for his failings. One day a stag was caught in wire and Göring jokingly told him they had ‘wired the stag for Udet to shoot’. Uncertain over whether he should shoot or not Udet hesitated, but just as he pulled the trigger the stag broke free and he missed. Göring was convulsed with laughter. Udet eventually killed the stag with a second shot but the jokes were on him.76 Frevert recalled Udet’s suicide in 1941 was a hard blow for Göring. Before killing himself, Udet had scrawled in red on the headboard of his bed: ‘Reichsmarschall, why have you deserted me?’ Frevert concluded, they had been comrades and hunted together, but Göring convened a court of enquiry with a view to a posthumous court-martial.77

Göring deserted Udet because there were other men, more pliable and willing to do his bidding; men like Walter Frevert and Adolf Galland. In the early years, they worked towards the successful synthesis of The Blue and The Green. They were behind a civil-military institution that synthesised the politics of ecology, the politics of advanced warfare and the politics of racial extermination. Göring’s ideological ambitions were colossal, perhaps limitless, but the merger of ‘The Green’ and ‘The Blue’ served his corporatism. Eventually, this turned into an uncomfortable and wieldy marriage further unsettled by Göring’s notorious lifestyle. With the outbreak of war, the Green estates became operational headquarters for the Blue command system. This placed the hunt within close proximity to headquarters staff, making it more than just a rest and recuperation reward for combat weary troops. The Carinhall hunting estate, forty miles northeast of Berlin, was erected in the Schorfheide, a nationalised nature reserve. This grandiose complex was described by Frank Uekoetter as the most ‘pompous’ and costliest of all Göring’s residences. However, he overlooked how the intermingling of functions, between military headquarters and hunt lodges, skewed the social order of the Luftwaffe command system. Under Göring’s supreme control, patronage was politicised that inturn ramped up the prestige. Diplomacy and politics continued from Carinhall,78 Rominten became the favoured retreat, but Göring’s headquarters train, Robinson became the centre of decision-making in regards to the Białowieźa mission. By April 1945, Göring had destroyed both Carinhall and Rominten.79

1 Erich Gritzbach, Hermann Göring, Werk und Mensch, (München, 1938), pp. 114–116.

2 Robert Gellately (ed), Leon Goldensohn, The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrists Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses, (London, 2006), p. 128.

3 Richard W. Mackay, The Zabern Affair 1913–1914, (Lanhan, 1991).

4 Wolfgang Paul, Hermann Göring: Hitler Paladin or Puppet? trans. Helmut Bögler, (London, 1998) p. 39. See also Stefan Martens, Hermann Göring: “erster Paladin des Führers” und “Zweiter Mann im Reich”, (Paderborn, 1985). Gordon Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945, (Oxford, 1978), p. 40.

5 Richard Overy, Interrogations: Inside the Minds of the Nazi Elite, (London, 2001), pp. 141–152.

6 Peter Uiberall on Göring, in Adam Curtis, ‘The Living Dead’, BBC, 1995.

7 Andreas Gautschi, Der Reichsjägermeiste: Fakten und Legenden um Hermann Göring, (Suderburg, 1999), p. 53.

8 See on this: Stefan Dirscherl, Tier- und Naturschutz im Nationalsozialismus: Gesetzgebung, Ideologie und Praxis, (Göttingen, 2012), and Tier- und Naturschutz im Nationalsozialismus: Gesetzgebung.

9 https://www.academia.edu/43096984/Weidmanns_Heil_a_history_of_Social _Hunting_and_the_German_Middle_Class_1848_1914_ 27 April 2020.

10 Ferdinand von Raesfeld, Das Deutsche Weidwerk: Ein Lehr- und Handbuch der Jagd, (Berlin, 1914).

11 Fritz Röhrig, Wald und Weidwerk: In Geschichte und Gegenwart, (Potsdam, 1933, 1938 and 2003).

12 Ibid., p. 176–178.

13 Ibid., p. 205–209.

14 Ibid., p. 213–215.

15 Nigel H. Jones, Hitler’s Heralds: The Story of the Freikorps 1918–1923, (London, 1987), pp. 124–125.

16 Michael Vale, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe, 1270–1380, (Oxford, 2002), p. 184.

17 Gautschi, Der Reichsjägermeister, p. 44.

18 http://digital.library.wise.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold/Writings Miscellaneous Manuscripts; Lectures; Yale Reports; German notes pp. 938–944. 27 April 2021

19 Ibid.

20 Kurt Mantel, Reichsjagdgesetz, (München, 1934), pp. 23–25.

21 Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power, p. 221.

22 Alan E. Steinweis, Kristallnacht 1938, (Cambridge Mass., 2009), pp. 104–105. See also Susanne Heim & Götz Aly, ‘Staatliche Ordnung und ‘organische Lösung’. Die Rede Hermann Görings ‘über die Judenfrage’ vom 6 Dezember 1938’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung 2, 1993, pp. 378–404.

23 BArch, R3701/2033, Reichforstamt, Forstamt Steegen, SS-Lagers Stutthof 15 August 1941.

24 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, (London, 1989), pp. 137–179.

25 Lutz Heck, Auf Tiersuche in Weiter Welt, (Berlin, 1943), pp. 232–296.

26 http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold, Clifford F. Butcher, ‘Every Farm in Wisconsin to Be a Game Preserve’, The Milwaukee Journal, Sunday, January 5, 1936, p. 2 and p. II, 27 April 2021.

27 Aldo Leopold, ‘Deer and Dauerwald in Germany. I. History’, Journal of Forestry 34, No.4 and 5 (1936), p. 366–7.

28 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almamanac: And Sketches Here and There, (New York, 1949).

29 Walter Frevert, Rominten, (München, 1957), p. 216.

30 Frank Uekoetter, The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany, (Cambridge, 2006), p. 72

31 Heck, Auf Tiersuche in Weiter Welt, pp. 215.

32 Andreas Gautschi, Walter Frevert, Eines Waidmanns Wechsel und Wege, (Melsungen, 2005), see also BArch, Lw. Personalakte, Walter Frevert.

33 Ibid., p. 12

34 Gautschi, Der Reichsjägermeister, pp. 89–92.

35 Walter Frevert, Jagdliches Brauchtum, (Berlin, 1936), pp. 51–69.

36 David Dalby, Lexicon of The Mediaeval German Hunt: A Lexicon of Middle High German Terms (1050–1500) associated with the Chase, Hunting with Bows, Falconry, Trapping and Fowling, (Berlin, 1965), pp. i–v.

37 Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, (London, 1993), p. 521.

38 Frevert, Jagdliches Brauchtun, 1936, p. 68.

39 Gritzbach, Hermann Göring, p. 118.

40 Ibid., p. 33 and 134.

41 Richard Blasé, Die Jägerprüfung, (Melsungen, 1970), p. 17 referred to Frevert and p. 268 Scherping.

42 Eric Hobsbawm/Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1–4, 6, 104.

43 Adolf Galland, The First and the Last: The German Fighter Force in the World War II, (London, 1970), p. 100.

44 Ibid., pp. 13–17, p. 55.

45 Stephan Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain, (London, 2010), p. 80 and p. 188.

46 Ibid. p. 92.

47 Ibid., p. 88.

48 Ibid., p. 82.

49 Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, Der Rote Kampfflieger, (Berlin, 1933), foreword: ‘Manfred von Richthofen zum Gedächtnis – Hermann Göring.’

50 Sönke Neitzel (ed), Tapping Hitler’s Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942–45, trans. Geoffrey Brooks, (Barnsley, 2007), pp. 113–117.

51 TNA, WO208/4170 C.S.D.I.C. (UK), S.R.G.G. 1230(C), Generalleutnant Galland (JV44), Captured Tegernsee 5 May 1945, interrogation on the 17 May 1945.

52 BArch, RL31/3, Kriegstagebuch LWSB, 6 August 1942.

53 The Avalon Project, at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/03-12-46.asp Cross-examination by Dr. Stahmer, 12 March 1946.

54 TNA WO208/4170 C.S.D.I.C. (UK), S.R.G.G. 1228(C), Generalleutnant Galland (JV44), Captured Tegernsee 5 May 1944, interrogation on the 16 May 1945.

55 James Corum, The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940, (Kansas, 1997).

56 Michael Imort, ‘“Forestopia”: the use of the forest landscape in naturalizing National Socialist policies of Volk, race and Lebensraum 1918–1945’, PhD Thesis, Queen’s University, 2000, pp. 485–486.

57 BArch RW 19/936.Wehrwirtsschaftstab, Mobilisation Kalender (Berlin, 26 April 1939). File indicated in the event of war the Reichsforstamt would be mobilised under the Luftwaffe.

58 NARA, RG242, T77/780/5506284-5506484 Wehrmacht Ersatzplan 1945, section 62, Reichsforstamt.

59 NARA, RG242, OKW Wehrwirtschafts- und Rüstungsamt (OKW Wi Ru Amt): T77/100/824182 on RFA manpower and T77/145/880000-50, RFA mobilisation to Economic Warfare Staff.

60 Roger James Bender, The Luftwaffe: Air, Organisation of the Third Reich, (Atglen, 1997).

61 NARA, RG242, T77/780/5506284-568, OKW-WEA, Wehrmacht-Ersatzplan 1945, recorded an all-branches manpower level of 1,966,862 on 1 October 1944, while the Air Ministry (1948), The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (1933 to 1945), London: Pamphlet 248, p. 395, recorded an estimate of 2,304,500 on 15 December 1944, for all branches.

62 Air Ministry, p.4. Air Ministry (A.C.A.S.[I]), The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (1933 to 1945), (London 1948). Thanks to Manny Phelps for the loan of this book.

63 Rudolf Lehmann, The Leibstandarte, trans. Nick Olcott, (Winnipeg, 1987), p.1.

64 This division was eventually designated the Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1 Hermann Göring. For simplification purposes this formation is referred to the Hermann Göring Division throughout the rest of the book.

65 Rudel, Stuka Pilot, pp. 1–9.

66 Galland, First and the Last, pp. 1–9.

67 Ibid., p. 88.

68 https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1002569 27 April 2021.

69 Rudel, Stuka Pilot, p. 118.

70 Ibid., p. 354.

71 Bernd Wegner, Waffen-SS: Organization, Ideology and Function, trans. Ronald Webster, (Oxford, 1990).

72 Ibid., pp. 112–121.

73 Ibid., p. 33 and 134.

74 Ibid., p. 6, and 104.

75 Ibid., p. 6, and 104.

76 Frevert, Rominten (1957), p. 223.

77 Cajus Bekker, The Luftwaffe War Diaries, (London, 1972), p. 401 and p. 295.

78 Volker Knopf, Stefan Martens, Görings Reich. Selbstinszenierungen in Carinhall, (Berlin, 1999).

79 Frank Uekoetter, The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany, (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 101–7.