The Last Year of the Lufwaffe, May 1944 to May 1945

PREFACE

So much has been said and written about the Luftwaffe, but all previous accounts charting its path through the whole of the war seem to lose their thrust once they enter the final year. It is as if those writers, having delighted in describing the build - up of the force and its many triumphs, lost heart when the towering edifice began to come tumbling down. This book was written in an attempt to fill that gap, and it is directed particularly at those who already have a good general understanding of the history of the Luftwaffe but who wish to learn more about its demise.

A major problem facing anyone preparing an authoritative work on the Luftwaffe is the paucity of its official documents that survived the war. As the Soviet forces were tightening their grip on Berlin in April 1945, Hermann Göring ordered that all documents held in the archives of the Luftwaffe's historical branch were to be destroyed. In general that order was rigorously carried out, and as a result very few unit war diaries have survived - and those that did are all incomplete. There is a similar shortage of official documents describing air operations. Of the documents that survived, many did so only because they were held by individuals in official positions at the end of the war, who simply kept hold of their unit's records afterwards. The tracking down of such documents has been a " hit - and - miss " business, though deeply rewarding when successful.

In writing this book I was able to draw on material and photographs from several good friends and archives. I am particularly grateful for the use of documents from the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg ; as mentioned above, the collection held there is far from complete but it contains several gems, notably the detailed orders of battle for the entire Luftwaffe assembled at ten - day intervals throughout the war. J. Richard Smith allowed me to use material he collected during his own researches, while Hanfried Schliephake and Tom Willis kindly let me use photographs from their collections. ( ... )

Alfred Price