Luftflotte 4: Lifeline of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad

A Junkers Ju52 being offloaded at Stalingrad.
Photo sourced from www.stalingrad.net.

One of the US Air Force's proudest moments in postwar history was the Berlin Airlift, a massive undertaking in which the Soviet-besieged city of West Berlin was supplied solely by air for over a year. A similar feat was attempted during the war by the German Luftwaffe in order to supply the surrounded Sixth Army at Stalingrad.

In 1940, with the British Expeditionary Forces and the remnants of the French army fleeing to the coast near Dunkirk, Hitler ordered the advancing forces stopped. This was partly because they had outrun their supply lines, but also because Herman Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe, promised Hitler that he would demolish the enemy using nothing but air power. Needless to say, it didn't work nearly as well as Goering had hoped.

You would think Hitler would have lost faith in Goering after that, but no. In November of 1942, Goering made a promise to Hitler that using Junkers Ju 52s from Luftflotte 4 he could supply the surrounded Sixth Army with enough resources to drive back the Soviets. This worked in that it allowed the Sixth Army to hold on longer than was expected, but because of increased Soviet air superiority and the fact that the Soviets were capturing the airstrips near Stalingrad meant that the airlift was overall a disaster. The last plane left Stalingrad on January 24, 1943, and the Sixth Army surrendered ten days later.

The toll on Luftflotte 4 was tremendous, with one-third of the entire fleet of Ju-52s on the Eastern Front destroyed. Nevertheless, one good  thing came from this airlift. About 42,000 wounded troops were evacuated and were spared the harsh prisoner of war camps that awaited the remnants of the Sixth Army. Until next time take care, and thanks for reading.

(Facts and figures sourced from "World War II" by H.P Willmott, Robin Cross, and Charles Messenger as well as Wikipedia on Hans-Georg von Seidel, the Luftwaffe head of logistics during this operation.)