Erhard Milch

In 1935, rumours began to circulate that Milch's father was a Jew. The Gestapo began an investigation which was halted by Hermann Göring, the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, who produced an affidavit by Milch's mother that his true father was her uncle, Karl Brauer. Milch was then issued with a German Blood Certificate.^[2] If true, that would mean that Milch's mother, Clara, committed not only adultery but also incest.

Author and Holocaust denier David Irving claimed in his book The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch, that Milch asked him not to reveal the truth about his parentage, so although Irving states that Erhard's father was not Anton Milch and concentrates on his wealthy great-uncle Karl Brauer (who died in 1906), he does not actually name Brauer as his father.^[3] However, Irving, who claimed to have had access to the Field Marshal's private diary and papers, says the rumours about Milch's parentage began to spread in the autumn of 1933, and that Erhard Milch personally obtained a signed statement by his putative father Anton that he was not the father of Clara's children. Furthermore, Irving claimed that Clara Milch had already written to her son-in-law Fritz Herrmann in March 1933 explaining the circumstances of her marriage, and that Göring had initiated his own investigation that identified his real father. During the Nuremberg trials 1946, Milch was again questioned about his alleged Jewish father and Göring's role in the matter by Chief United States Prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson.^[4]

World War I and interwar career

Milch enlisted in the

On 5 May 1933, Milch took up a position as

In 1935 doubts about the ethnic origin of Erhard Milch began when rumors circulated that his father Anton Milch was Jewish. The Gestapo began an investigation but it was stopped by Göring, who forced Erhard's mother to sign a document that Anton was not the true father of Erhard and his brothers but that it was her uncle Karl Brauer. Those events and the later extension of the "Certificate of German Blood" were the background to Göring's statement, "I decide who is a Jew in the airforce". However, many believe that he was merely quoting Karl Lueger, the former mayor of Vienna. ^{[citation needed]}

World War II

In a reorganization of 1 February 1939, Milch, now with the rank of

Milch cancelled production of the ineffective and dangerous

He 177 and put them back in development. Under his direction, aircraft production focused on mass production of the tested and tried models. Output doubled in the summer of 1943 in comparison with the winter of 1941–1942. Adam Tooze wrote "For the first time, the German aircraft industry was able to achieve substantial economies of scale. The resources pumped into the Luftwaffe in 1940–41 were now concentrated in mass assembly".^[14] To achieve this level of mass production, the Armaments Ministries and the industry cooperated with the SS to procure labour from concentration camps. Due to Milch's connections with the SS, the Luftwaffe had an advantage in obtaining slave labour.^[14] To increase the quantity, Milch also made some sacrifices in quality, notable in the case of the Bf 109. When the US Air Force began to directly challenge the fighter forces of the Luftwaffe, the cost of Milch's decisions was shown. The handling of the Bf 109 G was so bad that they became, in the words of Tooze, "little more than death traps".^[15]

On 10 August 1943, Milch finally addressed Germany's lack of a truly "four-engined"

SS, the task force played a key role in the exploitation of slave labour for the benefit of the German aircraft industry and the Luftwaffe.^[17]

When the agitation among the legions of foreign workers in his factories threatened production, Milch was able to refer to his association with Himmler

I spoke to Himmler recently about this, and told him his main task must be to see to the protection of German industry if unrest breaks out among this foreign scum.

If, for instance, there is a mutiny at X, an officer with a couple of men, or a lieutenant with thirty troops, must appear in the factory and let fly with their machine-guns into the mob. The object is to lay out as many people as possible, if mutinies break out. This is the order I have issued, even if the people are our own foreign workers.

Every tenth man is to be picked out, and every tenth man will be shot in front of the rest.[18]

In 1944 Milch sided with Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister and Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS, in attempting to convince Adolf Hitler to remove Göring from command of the Luftwaffe. When Hitler refused, Göring retaliated by forcing Milch out of his positions as State Secretary and Generalluftzeugmeister on 20 June 1944, and as Luftwaffe Inspector General in January 1945.^[19] From August 1944, he worked under Speer in the Rüstungsstab (Armaments Staff) but was sidelined and achieved little. He was injured in a car accident in the fall of 1944 and hospitalized for several weeks. Finally placed into the Führerreserve in March 1945, he was not reassigned.^[20]

Milch was apprehended by Allied forces on the Baltic coast on 4 May 1945. On surrendering to No. 6 Commando, he presented his field-marshals' baton to Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, who was so disgusted and angered by the atrocities he had seen when liberating the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp that he proceeded to beat Milch over the head with the Field Marshal's baton until it broke.^[21]

Trial and conviction at Nuremberg

Main article: Milch Trial

Milch was tried as a war criminal in 1947 by a United States

Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

. He was convicted on two counts:

1. War crimes, by participating in the ill-treatment and use of the forced labour of prisoners of war
   (POWs) and the deportation of civilians to the same ends.
2. slave labour
   of civilians who came under German control, German nationals and prisoners of war.

Milch was sentenced to

commuted to 15 years imprisonment in 1951, and he was paroled in June 1954. He lived out the remainder of his life in Düsseldorf

, where he died in 1972 as the last living Luftwaffe field marshal.

Popular culture

In the 1969 film Battle of Britain, Milch was portrayed by German actor Dietrich Frauboes.

American actor Robert Vaughn portrayed Milch in the 1982 television film, Inside the Third Reich.

Awards

• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 4 May 1940 as Generaloberst and chief of Luftflotte 5 and Befehlshaber Nord (commander-in-chief north).^[22]
• Grand Cross with Swords of the Order of the White Rose of Finland on 30 March 1942 as Generalfeldmarschall.^[23]

References

Citations

1. ^ Bunyan, Anita (21 March 2003). "Half-shadows of the Reich". Times Higher Education. A review of Rigg 2002.
2. ^ P. Kaplan, Fighter Aces of the RAF in the Battle of Britain, p132.
3. ^ The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe. The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch p.VII & p2-3
4. ^ Irving p340.
5. ^ Franks, Bailey & Guest 1993, p. 32, Irving Milch p7-10.
6. ISBN 9781787206755
   .
7. ISSN 0362-4331
   . Retrieved 10 August 2019.
8. ^ Boog 1994, p. 499–503.
9. ^ Angolia 1976, p. 351–7.
10. ISBN 978-0670038268
    .
11. ^ Suchenwirth 2017, p. 65.
12. ^ "Erhard Milch". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014.
13. ^ "Trials of the War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Volume II: The Milch Case, p. 374" (PDF). United States Printing Office. 1950. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
14. ^ ^{a b} Tooze 2007, p. 715.
15. ^ Tooze 2007, p. 584.
16. ^ Griehl & Dressel 1998, p. 162.
17. ^ Buggeln 2014, p. 46.
18. ISBN 9780316432382
    .
19. ^ Brett-Smith 1976, p. 122.
20. ^ Faber 1977, p. 58.
21. ISBN 1593600127
    .
22. ^ Scherzer 2007, p. 545.
23. ^ Matikkala 2017, p. 516.

Bibliography

• Angolia, John R. (1976). For Führer and Fatherland: Military Awards of the Third Reich. R. James Bender. pp. 351–7.
  ISBN 978-0912138145
  .
• Boog, Horst (1994). "Milch, Erhard". Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German). Vol. 17. pp. 499–503.
• Brett-Smith, Richard (1976). Hitler's Generals. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press.
  ISBN 0-89141-044-9
  .
• Buggeln, Marc (2014). Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps.
  ISBN 9780198707974
  .
• Faber, Harold (1977). Luftwaffe: A History. New York: Times Books.
  ISBN 0-8129-0725-6
  .
• Franks, Norman L. R.; Bailey, Frank W.; Guest, Russell (1993). Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918. London: Grub Street.
  ISBN 0948817739
  .
• Griehl, Manfred; Dressel, Joachim (1998). Heinkel He 177-277-274. Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife Publishing.
  ISBN 1-85310-364-0
  .
• Matikkala, Antti (2017). Kunnian ruletti: Korkeimmat ulkomaalaisille 1941–1944 annetut suomalaiset kunniamerkit [The Roulette of Honour: The Highest Finnish Orders to Foreigners 1941–1944] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
  ISBN 978-952-222-847-5
  .
• ISBN 978-0700613588
  .
• Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag.
  ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2
  .

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Erhard Milch in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Military offices
Preceded by none	Commander of Luftflotte 5 12 April 1940 – 10 May 1940	Succeeded by Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Stumpff