Air fleet 6

Air fleet 6
active	May 5, 1943 to May 8, 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	air force
Type	Higher command authority
commander
Commander	see under leadership

The Luftflotte 6 (Lfl. 6) was an air fleet of the Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht , set up on May 5, 1943 , which was used in the Second World War and existed until the surrender.

history

The Luftflotte 6 emerged on May 5, 1943 from the Luftwaffenkommando Ost formed in April 1942 with headquarters in Smolensk and was responsible for the central section of the Eastern Front . In June 1943 she launched attacks against the Soviet armaments industry and the like. a. flown in Gorky , Saratov and Yaroslavl . At the Citadel operation in July 1943, it supported the attack forces of Army Group Center in the Orel area with almost 1,000 aircraft , reinforced by donations from Air Fleet 1 .

Due to the counterattacks by the Red Army, it moved its headquarters to Minsk in September 1943 , and later to Priluki . In the run-up to Operation Bagration , the Soviet Air Force already had air superiority. The severe restriction of aerial reconnaissance was an essential factor in the success of the surprise.

After the Red Army's Vistula-Oder operation in early 1945, the air fleet supplied the trapped troops and the like. a. in Breslau from the air and flew missions to destroy the Oder bridges. Although it still had numerous aircraft, the air fleet was hardly operational in the last months of the war due to a lack of fuel. When the German combat area was split up in April, Luftflotte 6 became responsible for the southern area.

guide

Standard of the Commander in Chief of an Air Fleet

Chiefs of the Air Fleet 6

Commander in chief	from	to
Colonel General Robert Ritter von Greim	May 5, 1943	April 24, 1945
Colonel General Otto Deßloch	April 26, 1945	May 8, 1945

Chiefs of the General Staff of the Air Fleet 6

Chief of the General Staff	from	to
Major General Friedrich Kless	May 5, 1943	May 8, 1945

Subordinate major associations

July 1943 ( Citadel Company )	1st Air Division 4th Aviation Division 12th Flak Division 18th Flak Division 10th Flak Brigade
June 1944 ( Operation Bagration )	IV. Air Corps 1st Air Division 4th Aviation Division Pilot 1 Hunting section leader 6 II. Flak Corps
Late April 1945	Air Force Command 4 Air Force Command VIII Air Force Command East Prussia Air Force Command West 3rd Aviation Division Pilot 200 Fighter pilot East Prussia I. Flak Corps

literature

• Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 14. The Land Forces. Name associations. The air force. Flying bandages. Flak deployment in the Reich 1943–1945 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1980, ISBN 3-7648-1111-0 .

Web links

• German Luftflotte 1939–1945 (18 pages) (PDF; 154 kB)

Remarks

1. ↑ After Goering was ousted, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force.