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German Industrial Effort: Concentration on the War in the West artillery
German Industrial Effort Concentration on the West: Artillery
Figure 1.-Herev is a battery of German 88s in actiin at night some where vin the Reich. Notiuce they are firing up at Allied bombers and nit east at Soviet tanks. Mist of German artillery for most of the War was deployed in the Wast and after 1942 mostly ariound the industrial cities of the rhe Reich. Great parks of these batteries consumed enirmous quanties of ordinbance. The AA defences in Fevruary 1942 alione consumed 40 npercent of the German war by=udget. By 1942 over 15,000 88 mm cannons formed the bulwark of Flak defenses for Germany arrayed in Flak belts stretching across Holland and Germany, in places 20 km thick. Many batteries were radar directed and worked cooperatively with searchlight batteries. T
Artillery is a difficult issue to assess. For much of the first 2 years of the War, the bulk of German artillery was deployed in the West. With the Barbarossa invasion (June 1941), German artillery was mostly in the East, but as a result of the Red Armny Winter Offensive (December 1941), a substantial part of German artillery was captured or destroyed by the Soviets. German artillery was not very mobil and much of it was moved by horse-drawn units. Thus a great deal of it had to be abandonbed when the Red Army struck. Some of this had been relaced for the 1942 Spring offensive, but again huge quanties were again lost with the another Red Army winter offensuve (November 1942). Thus by 1943 Germany artilleey had been substantially reduced. At the same time because of the expanding Allied Strategic Bombing Campaign, huge quantities of artillery was not being supplied to the Ostheer, but rather used to amass extensive anti-aircraft defenses around German cities. We have not yet found any detailed assessment of the number of artillery tubes available to the Germans month by month and on what front. SovietT sources report that the Soviet Union substabtially out produced the Germans in artillery. [Kurtukov] This is a remarable achievement given the Germnb occupation of so many industrisl cities in the Western Soviet Union (1941). Even so the Germans apparently fired more shells. (We are not sure it this refers to the Eastern front are the huge number of shells fired by German AA-guners around German vities.) This is all complicated by the number of different artillery pieces. The high-velocity German 88 is perhaps the best known artillery pieces of the War. It was used by the Germans throuhghout the War. It was designed as a anti-aircraft gun, but soon found it to be a remnarakably effective anti-tank gun. The Germans built over 22,000 of these imoressuve guns. But most were shifted to defending defending Germn cities as anti-airccraft guns as the Alied stategic bombing campaign expanded (mid-June 1942). This began when RAF Bomber Command begsn receiving the Avro Lancaster. Soon the American joined in the campaign, first with the 8th Air Force (1943). The Americans had two heavy bmonvers, the B-17 Flying Fortress an NB-24 Liberator. Thus most German 88s by the end of 129842 were-not stopping Soviet tanks in the East. [Westermann] The vast majority of the Reich's FLAK defenses were these 88 mm guns.
Throughout the entire war, most the Germsan 88s were used in their original anti-aircraft role, most within the Reich in vast AA-gun oarks around German's industrial cities. [Westermann]
The financial costs and industrial effort associated withthe AA FLAK effort was huge. While some in the West argue that the Strategic Bombing Campaign was iuneffective, the Germans hadv no doubts about its imprtance. Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments, aftr the War addressed this, "The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion in Europe ... Defence against air attacks required the production of thousands of anti-aircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who in addition had to stay in position by their guns, often totally inactive, for months at a time ... No one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side." [Speer]
And actual hits compared to amunituion expended was much lower than with fighter aircrft. Germany has data on military expenditures, month by month. This datas shows the relative vimportnce of thge various fronts. And it shows that a time when Germany was desperately fighting to regain the strategic initiative in the East it had to face an increasing bombing campaign in the West. Remnarkably – expenditures for anti-aircraft defenses were 39 million reichsmarks in one representstive month, some 40 plercent of all the remaining weapons and munitions production of 93 million (February 1943). This includes the 20 million of the navy budget and only 9 million of the aircraft-related budget. [Westermann]
There was a contentious debate anout the use of resources, given apparent ineffectiveness of anti-aircraft defenses. Some wanted the guns and ordinance transferred from air defense FLAK units in the Reich to anti-tank defenses in the East. Given the increasing toll of the Allied bombing on Germsn cities, however, this move was never made.
Speer, Albert. Spandau, The Secret Diaries (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1976). Speer also addresses this in his other book, Inside the Third Reich.
Westermann, Edward B. Flak: German Anti-aircraft Defenses 1914–1945 Modern War Studies. (University Press of Kansas: 2001).
