Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany) - History

History

The Ministry was formed in April 1933 from the Reich Commissariat for Aviation (Reichskommissariat für die Luftfahrt), which had been established two months earlier with Göring at its head. In this early phase the Ministry was little more than Göring's personal staff. One of its first actions was to requisition control of all patents and companies of Hugo Junkers, the German aeronautical engineer. These included all rights to the Junkers Ju 52 aircraft.

Defence Minister General Werner von Blomberg decided that the importance of aviation was such that it should no longer be subordinate to the German Army (Heer). In May 1933 he transferred the army's Department of Military Aviation (the Luftschutzamt), to the Ministry. This is often considered the birth of the Luftwaffe. The Ministry was now much larger, consisting of two large departments: the military Luftschutzamt (LA) and the civilian Allgemeines Luftamt (LB). Erhard Milch, the former head of Deutsche Luft Hansa, was placed in direct control of the LA, in his function as State Secretary for Aviation.

In September 1933, a reorganization was undertaken to reduce duplication of effort between departments. The primary changes were to move the staffing and technical development organizations out of the LB, and make them full departments on their own. The result was a collection of six: Luftkommandoamt (LA), Allgemeines Luftamt (LB), Technisches Amt (LC, but more often referred to as the C-amt) in charge of all research and development, Luftwaffenverwaltungsamt (LD) for construction, Luftwaffenpersonalamt (LP) for training and staffing, and the Zentralabteilung (ZA), central command. In 1934, an additional department was added, the Luftzeugmeister (LZM) in charge of logistics.

With the rapid growth off the Luftwaffe following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Ministry grew so large that Göring was no longer able to maintain control. This period was marked by an increasing inability to deliver the new aircraft designs that were desperately needed, as well as continued shortages of aircraft and engines. In 1943 Albert Speer took over from Milch, and things immediately improved. Production reached their highest levels in 1943 and 1944, and though Speer introduced the same measures of self-regulation that he had introduced in other areas of industry, and tried to take credit for the so-called Armaments Miracle, contemporary German statistics show that the real reason for increased production were measures and investments made by Milch and his staff in 1941 and 1942. Though German aircraft production had finally caught up with the Allies in 1944, the RLM never overcame the shortage of raw materials and fuel supply, lack of experienced pilots and deficits in technology and know-how that had handicapped it since the beginning of the war.

The Ministry building was one of the few public edifices in central Berlin to have survived the severe Allied bombings in 1944-45.