Hunter staff
The Jägerstab was founded by the German Reich Aviation Ministry and the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production (RMfRuK) based on the model of the Kessler staff and was a management body within German air armaments. It was formed on March 1, 1944, initially for a limited period of six months, in order to substantially increase the production of fighter aircraft under the conditions of the Total War "without bureaucratic inhibitions through direct issuing of orders" . It also served to organize the decentralization and the U-relocation in the area of the air force after an effective air defense of the locations could no longer be guaranteed. On August 1, the staff was nominally dissolved, while at the same time an armaments staff, largely identical in terms of personnel, continued its tasks.
The hunting staff was headed by Karl Saur , the head of the technical office at RMfRuK. SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler was one of the most important members of the Jägerstab . At the same time, Kammler was, among other things, head of Office Group C "Construction" of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office .
The establishment of the Jägerstab led to the further amalgamation of the aviation industry with the entire armaments industry (started with the main committee for airframe construction , then main committee for aircraft construction ) in the armaments ministry ( Speer ) as the replacement of the general aviation master .
Personnel composition
Persons related to Jägerstab:
- Minister Albert Speer
- State Secretary Karl Saur
- Field Marshal General Erhard Milch
- Government architect Franz Xaver Dorsch
- SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler
- Walter Schlempp and Heinrich Lübke
- Fritz Schmelter (Ministry of Armaments)
- Karl Frydag ( Henschel & Son )
- William Werner ( Auto Union )
- Hans Heyne (Deputy Chairman of the Board of AEG )
- Wilhelm Schaaf ( BMW ) Member of the Board of Management, head of a "Main Motor Vehicles Committee", responsible for deliveries on the Jägerstab
Planning and underground relocations
The following bunkered so-called hunter factories (each 30 m high; 300/400 m long; 90 m wide; up to 6 floors with 600,000 m² production area) were planned:
- Kaufering near Augsburg ("Ringeltaube" armaments project for Messerschmitt)
- Winery I in the Mühldorfer Hart near Mühldorf am Inn
- Vaihingen an der Enz near Stuttgart
- Glesch an der Erft (Bergheim / North Rhine-Westphalia)
- Space north of Prague
U-relocation in the mountain tunnel:
- REIMAHG Plant A "Salmon" near Großeutersdorf , Thuringia for the construction of the Messerschmitt 262
- REIMAHG Plant E "Schneehase" near Großkamsdorf , Thuringia for the production of aircraft engines - BMW 003 jet engines for the Me 262 were to be built. Due to delivery bottlenecks, it was necessary to switch to the somewhat less powerful Jumo 004 engines.
- REIMAHG Plant F "Pikrit" near Krölpa , Thuringia for the production of small aircraft parts
important underground research and production facilities:
- Research and development center " Upper Bavarian Research Institute " of Messerschmitt AG , U-relocation "Cerusit"
- Messerschmitt AG underground production facility near St. Georgen an der Gusen , " Bergkristall " relocation
- Messerschmitt AG underground production facility near Eschenlohe , U-relocation "Ente"
Armaments staff at the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition (Speer)
Erhard Milch was appointed Speer's deputy (RfRuK) on September 21, 1944 at the latest.
See also
literature
- Horst Boog , Detlef Vogel, Gerhard Krebs : The German Reich on the Defensive - Strategic Air War in Europe, War in the West and in East Asia 1943. Volume 7 of the series The German Reich in the Second World War. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2001, 831 pages, ISBN 3421055076 .
- Olaf Groehler : History of the Air War 1910 to 1980. Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1981
- Albert Speer: Order of March 1, 1944 on the establishment of the Jägerstab. In: Dietrich Eichholtz & Wolfgang Schumann , ed .: Anatomy of War. New documents on the role of German monopoly capital in the implementation of the Second World War. VEB German publishing house of the sciences. Berlin 1969. (With register of persons, companies, institutions, geographical names, as well as some illustrations) Doc. 244, p. 443 ff.