Военное обозрение By Dan Zamansky. Translation: Slug_BDMP
Translation of the article “Blutbad in the Air. The air raid camp on the Seelower Höhen”, published in a special issue of the almanac “Seelower Höhen” of the military-historical magazine “Clausewitz Spezial” 2025.
Translator’s Note
This special issue of the Clausewitz magazine is dedicated to the battle for the Seelow Heights and the Halbe pocket. The story of large-scale battles looks very textbook, and regular readers of VO are unlikely to discover anything new. I found the materials interesting, telling about the state of the Wehrmacht in the last days of its existence, about what the Volkssturm was like, and about the actions of the air forces of the parties, which usually remain in the shadows.
Thus, I would like to present to the readers of Military Review a series of three articles:
– Volkssturm;
– Air battle over the Seelow Heights;
– Tank Division “Müncheberg” in the battles on the Oder.
They give a general idea of the force that confronted the Red Army in the spring of 1945.
Common sense dictates that the German command, in view of the threat of a Soviet breakthrough on the Oder, should have thrown everything that could take to the air, including Me 262 jet fighters, into this direction. This made the reality all the more absurd.
In early April 1945, the decisive battle for Berlin was inevitable. To counter this, the German ground forces and aviation had to prepare accordingly and optimize their structure. The highest operational unit of the Luftwaffe was the air force. fleets (Lüftflotte). By this time there were three of them: the Reich Air Fleet, which protected the skies of Germany from air strikes by Western countries, and the 4th and 6th fleets operating on the Eastern Front.
What is strange is that none of these fleets was tasked with concentrating exclusively on the defense of Berlin. Instead, a new Luftwaffekommando Nordost (Luftwaffenkommando Nordost) was organized on the basis of the II Air Corps, reporting directly to the Luftwaffe High Command. The new air force commanded all air forces on the central sector of the eastern front..
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (en.topwar.ru)
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