Branch: Luftwaffe
Born: 30 March 1892 in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
Died: 25 January 1972 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Ranks:
Generalfeldmarschall
19 July 1940
Generaloberst 1 November
1938
General der Flieger 20
April 1936
Generalleutnant 28 March
1935
Generalmajor 24 March
1934
Oberst 28 October 1933
Oberstleutnant
Major
Hauptmann 18 August 1918
Oberleutnant 18 August
1915
Leutnant 18 August 1911
Fähnrich 18 October 1910
Decorations:
Commands:
Other: Personnel
Articles:
Erhard Milch was born on 30 March 1892 and became a German
Generalfeldmarschall who oversaw the development of the Luftwaffe
as part of the re-armament of Germany following World War
I, and served as founding Director of Deutsche Luft Hansa.
Erhard Milch supposedly was one of the few high ranking half-Jews
(or mischling) in the Wehrmacht. Erhard Milch was born in
Wilhelmshaven, the son of Anton Milch, a pharmacist in the
Kaiserliche Marine, and Clara Erhard Milch, née Rosenau.
Erhard Milch enlisted in the German Army in 1910, where he
rose to the rank of Lieutenant in the artillery. He later
transferred to the Luftstreitkräfte and trained as an
aerial observer. Although not a pilot, he was appointed to
command a fighter wing, Jagdgruppe 6, as a Captain in the
waning days of the war.
Erhard Milch resigned from the military in 1920 to pursue
a career in civil aviation, and with squadron mate Gotthard
Sachsenberg, formed a small airline in Danzig under the banner
of Lloyd Luftdienst, Norddeutscher Lloyd's union of regional
German airlines. The airline, which linked Danzig to the Baltic
States was simply called Lloyd Ostflug. In 1923, he became
managing director of its successor company, Danziger Luftpost
when Lloyd Luftdienst merged with its rival firm Aero Union
to form Deutsche Aero Lloyd. From there, Erhard Milch and
Sachsenberg went to work for rival
Junkers
Luftverkehr, where Sachsenberg had been appointed managing
director. Sachsenberg only held the position until 1925, when
Erhard Milch took over from him. It was in this position that
Erhard Milch oversaw the merger of
Junkers
Luftverkehr to his previous firm of Deutscher Aero Lloyd in
1926, making him the first managing director of Deutsche Luft
Hansa.
In 1933, Erhard Milch took up a position as State Secretary
of the newly formed Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Reich Aviation
Ministry - RLM), answering directly to
Hermann
Göring. In this capacity, he was instrumental in
establishing the Luftwaffe, originally responsible for armament
production although
Ernst
Udet was soon making most of the decisions concerning
contracts for military aircraft. He quickly used his position
to settle personal scores with other aviation industry personalities,
including Hugo
Junkers and
Willy
Messerschmitt-specifically, Erhard Milch banned the latter
from submitting a design in the competition to choose a modern
fighter aircraft for the new Luftwaffe. Nevertheless,
Willy
Messerschmitt proved an equal in political manipulation
skills and managed to circumvent Erhard Milch's ban to successfully
submit a design. As the
Willy
Messerschmitt designed
Bayerische
Flugzeugwerke corporate entry, the
Bf
109, proved to be the winner,
Willy
Messerschmitt retained a very high position within the
German aircraft industry, until the failure of the
Me
210 aircraft. Even after that it was not necessarily Erhard
Milch as the leader who did not depose of him, but, put him
in an inferior position. The personal score against
Messerschmitt
is one of the likely reasons that
Willy
Messerschmitt was not allowed to personally acquire the
Bayerische
Flugzeugwerke BFW until July 1938, resulting in the continued
use of the Bf prefix for Messerschmitt aircraft designed before
Willy
Messerschmitt acquisition of the company, hence the Bf-
prefix being the only one used for the
Messerschmitt
Bf 109, as one example, in all official German documents
throughout the entirety of World War II in Europe, dealing
with all pre-July 1938 origin
Messerschmitt
aircraft designs.
In 1935, Erhard Milch's ethnicity came into question because
his father, Anton Milch, was rumoured to be a Jew. This prompted
an investigation by the Gestapo that
Hermann
Göring suppressed by producing an affidavit signed
by Erhard Milch's mother stating that Anton was not really
the father of Erhard and his six siblings, and naming their
true father as Karl Brauer, her deceased uncle. These events
and his being issued a German Blood Certificate, by
Adolf
Hitler, prompted
Hermann
Göring to say famously Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich
(I decide who is a Jew).
At the outbreak of World War II Erhard Milch, now with the
rank of general, commanded Luftflotte 5 during the Norwegian
campaign. Following the defeat of France, Erhard Milch was
promoted to field-marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and given
the title Air Inspector General. Erhard Milch was put in charge
of the production of planes during this time, and his many
mistakes were key to the loss of German air superiority as
the war progressed. Due to changing the designs and aircraft
requirements frequently, manufacturers like
Messerschmitt
were unable to focus on aircraft output: additionally, the
Germans failed to put their production on a war footing, continuing
to run factories only for eight hours a day and failing to
include women in the workforce. German aircraft production
did not rise as steep as the Allied and especially the Soviet
ones, who out produced the Germans in 1942 and 1943. In 1944
Erhard Milch sided with
Joseph
Goebbels and
Heinrich
Himmler in attempting to convince
Adolf
Hitler to remove
Hermann
Göring from command of the Luftwaffe following the
failed invasion of the Soviet Union. When
Adolf
Hitler refused,
Hermann
Göring retaliated by forcing Erhard Milch out of
his position. For the rest of the war, he worked under
Albert
Speer.
Albert
Speer's reforms were able to increase German military
output drastically, including aircraft production, but it
was too late by then.
Following
Adolf
Hitler's suicide, Erhard Milch attempted to flee Germany,
but was captured by Allied forces on the Baltic coast on 4
May 1945. On surrendering he presented his baton to the Commando
Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, who was so disgusted by what
he had seen when liberating the Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp that he broke the baton over Erhard Milch's head.
In 1947, Erhard Milch was tried as a war criminal by a United
States Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. He was convicted of
two counts:
1. War crimes by participating in the ill-treatment and use
for forced labor of prisoners of war and the deportation of
civilians to the same ends
2. Crimes against humanity by participating in the murder,
extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture,
and use for slave labor of civilians who came under German
control, German nationals, and prisoners of war.
Erhard Milch was sentenced to life imprisonment at Landsberg
prison. His sentence was commuted to 15 years imprisonment
in 1951, but he was released in June 1954. He lived out the
remainder of his life at Düsseldorf, where he died in
1972.
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