Talk:Erhard Milch

Ability

"Milch was put in charge of the production of planes during this time, and his many mistakes were key to the loss of German air superiority as the war progressed" - This is an utterly outrageous claim. Milch was by far the most competent man in the Luftwaffe, and when he was given control over production in 1942, he accomplished huge increases in both fighter and bomber production. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Msbradbury (talk • contribs) 05:05, 30 October 2008

I just read the citation listed for this claim, and I don't believe the cited website says anything like this! (It does, however, support the later claim that Goering forced him to step down, which is currently tagged, "citation needed.") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.152.4.223 (talk) 23:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

General Milch and General Udet were not great friends. There was intense rivialry in the Reich Aeronautics Ministry as Milch thought he was a superior organizer then Udet. Before Udet shot himself he wrote in lipstick on the headboard of his bed, " Man of steel you lied to me", this is in reference to Goring. and "Milch you Bastard".--4.224.132.169 13:43, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)Terry Thompson

I don't think it is fair to blame Milch for the loss of German air superiority during the war. The culprit was Udet, who was "Reichsluftzeugmeister", and in this position responsible for mistakes in the production process. Udet became RLZM in 1936. In 1937, the jet plane was ready for production. Wonder how the war had ended if Germany had started it in 1939 with Me 262 instead of Me 109! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.173.150.253 (talk • contribs) 02:43, 22 January 2007

It has long been established that the Me 262 was far from ready for production in 1937. In any event those who have made the claim to the contrary, blamed the failure to deploy this ostensibly `ready` plane on Hitler's insistence that Me 262 be employed as a bomber as well as a fighter which through design off-gear, rather than any muddling by either Udet or Milch. When ultimately deployed the Me 262 proved poorly mnouverable, mechanically irreliable in the extreme, an insatiable fuel guzzler and exhorbitantly expensive to boot. It should therefore be classified along with the rest the Reich's near-defeat `Miracle weapons` as a rouge white elephant. It is however correct that the frequent changes in orders which kept industry more retooling than producing, were the fault of the bungling Udet not Milch's. 88.153.95.29 09:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Your comments that the Me 262 was a "rouge white elephant" are ridiculous. If built in proper numbers, the plane would have allowed Germany to "take back the skies." TL36 (talk) 23:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Guys it's "rogue" not "rouge" (that's the French word for "red".)Historian932 (talk) 12:24, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

"Rebdorf prison" does not appear to be a real place - not appearing on any non-wikipedia google hits (Except a kid's research paper that appears plagarized from Wiki anyways - anybody have any idea where he was really sent? Sherurcij 06:18, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Statement under World War II says as Air Inspector General Milch made "many mistakes".....In reality he was the dynamo of the Luftwaffe (see Irving, "The Life of Field Marshall Erhard Milch."Focal Point, 1973) In the 20's Milch built Lufthansa from a group of small local companies to an international airline; he was instrumental in building the Luftwaffe in the early amd mid 30's (Irving); he was an early advocate of 4 engine bombers (overturned by Hitler; he was an early advocate of using the ME-262 jet fighter in a defensive role against Allied bomber raids but Hitler stopped producton (Speer, "Inside the 3rd Reich", p 362.) In brief, Milch was the brains of the Luftwaffe, but Goring (who was corrupt and a drug user (Speer, p322-323) was jealous of him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.243.41 (talk • contribs) 15:29, 2 October 2009 (moved from article text)

Jewish parent

This article states that Milch's father was Jewish. However, Louis L. Snyder, in his Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, states that Milch's mother was the Jewish parent. Any citations to prove that this article is in fact the correct version? -- Necrothesp 18:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no disputing that Milch's father was Jewish. Snyder as well as Robert Wistrich claimes that Milch's mother Clara nee' Rosenau was also geneologically Jewish which would make Erhard Milch a `full Jew` according to Nazi race lawesSoz101 17:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The name Rosenau suggests Jewish ancestry? What a rubbish. The name just suggests that her name-giving ancestors came form a village, town or region with that name (like Preuss from Preussen/Prussia, Hess from Hessen/Hessia, Sachs from Sachsen/Saxony). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.221.65.25 (talk) 11:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

even a very german family name wouldnt exclude the possibility of being jewish in the Nazi sense. Many convered jews changed their names to stereotypical german ones to blend in.--Tresckow (talk) 12:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes but the above poster isn't making that argument, rather he is merely pointing out that a surname that is thought to be Jewish isn't always necessarily so, consider Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg for example.Historian932 (talk) 04:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/erhard_milch.htm

However, the career of Milch was threatened in 1935 when rumours began to be spread that his father, Anton, was a Jew. The Gestapo investigated this rumour, which was only quashed when Goering produced an affidavit from Milch's mother that the father of Milch was not Anton Milch but her uncle, Karl Brauer. This led to Milch being issued with a German Blood Certificate.--Wonderman91 (talk) 11:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

1.129.111.236 (talk) 02:20, 4 May 2018 (UTC)Jewish descent is through the mother, it is matrilinear! Jews do not regard someone whose father only was Jewish as being Jewish. Milch was therefore Jewish. Nonetheless, the Nazis were concerned with loyalty. The second member of the SS, Emile Maurice, was known to be Jewish but he demonstrated loyalty when the NSDAP was being formed and was therefore accepted as a loyal German.

I disagree: nazis were concerned with ancestry except in rare cases of usefulness or personal relationship. Many Jews whose parents had converted to Christianity would have claimed loyalty as indeed would many Jews who had not converted. Loyalty was insufficient to earn one reclassification. Maurice, btw, was only like 1/8th Jewish through a great-grandfather which would have been problematic for SS membership without his personal friendship with hitler. Frankly, it is pretty offensive comment implying that Jews who proved loyalty were accepted; I don't know if you meant it that way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.37.99.86 (talk) 08:39, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

1933-1939

In This Section There is no reference or source of the information in that Goering was responsible of pushing the evident that Erhard Milch's father is another one . and that's why it should be quoted with need citation or removed. --Hiens 11:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC) In fact, there is no reference at all for any of the statements in this section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.104.115.49 (talk) 00:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

English syntax

In the Section 1933-1939, the sentence "Even after that it was not necessarily Milch as the leader who did not depose of him, but, put him in an inferior position" is unclear. It should probably be "depose him" and not "depose of him", but even after making this change there are English syntax problems. I did not make any changes, since the changes should be made by someone that knows what is the intended meaning of this sentence.--User:Mateat 18:28, Aug 13, 2008 (UTC)

That sentence *still* needs fixing. Someone do this, please, otherwise I'm inclined to remove it altogether as it's not at all clear what it's supposed to mean. Alfietucker (talk) 07:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please remove the horrible statement "one of the only"? He was either "the only", or "One of the few". Which is it? Wikipedia is no place for the shockingly vague slang expression "one of the only".203.184.41.226 (talk) 21:07, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I've just added a copy-editing tag for the 1933-1939 section, as on a second look I see that section's actually riddled with poorly written sentences, some of them hard or impossible to understand. Hope there's an editor out there who has relevant sources who can fix this! Alfietucker (talk) 00:17, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Her uncle?

"In 1935, Milch's ethnicity came into question because his father, Anton Milch, was a Jew. This prompted an investigation by the Gestapo that Göring quelled by producing an affidavit signed by Milch's mother stating that Anton was not really the father of Erhard and his siblings, and naming their true father as Karl Brauer, her uncle."

Is this correct? Wasn't there supposed to be written "his (Milch's) uncle". Now it looks like Milch's mother has admitted to incest.89.77.142.3 (talk) 19:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is quite correct. Salmanazar (talk) 13:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this article needs greater discussion of how Milch came to serve Hitler in general; merely mentioning that he was "one of few high ranking Jewish officers in the Wehrmacht" (or however it's phrased exactly) doesn't do justice to what most people (I think) would react to with shock (the fact that there *were* high-ranking officers of Jewish descent in the German armed forces during World War Two). Historian932 (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

In response to Historian932, your comment makes clear you are more concerned with what people may think regarding what is written, than whether it is accurate or not.Pgg804 (talk) 11:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

And your comment "makes clear" that you're more interested in trivial critiques than improving the article--nothing I said (or implied) involved doing any kind of injustice to factual veracity, just that the fact of a high-ranking German officer during World War Two of Jewish descent is not something to be mentioned only briefly in passing since the overwhelming impression (you're free to disagree) is that such a thing would have been "impossible".

Writing interesting history is not just a recitation of facts, it's also addressing preconceptions and introducing new perspectives (backed by sources).Historian932 (talk) 12:30, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

150,000 Jews fought for Hitler in the Wehrmacht

Quentin Tarantino could make a movie about the thousands of Jews who fought for Germany in WWII, including Generals of Hitler´s Army, as demonstrated by the last book of American historian Bryan Mark Rigg which estimates in over 150,000 the Jews fighting in the German Army in WWII.--79.146.211.6 (talk) 04:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I think "Inglorious Basterds" is as close as you're going to get from him on that topic. :-) Historian932 (talk) 03:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

You can always count on wikpedia to put the best face possible on an inconvenient fact (Jewish members of the Luftwaffe and Jewish "NAZIS"). The person who dug into Milch's mothers background that found she was Christian, would have also found she had converted to Christianity from Judaism (which was more common in Germany than many other countries). Indeed, the name Rosenau sounds very Jewish, even to a German.Pgg804 (talk) 11:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The following statement in the introduction is utterly false and should be removed: "Erhard Milch was one of the few high ranking Mischling (people of partial Jewish background) in the Wehrmacht." There were in fact many

The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe

Incorrectly attributed to Milch. The book is by David Irving. I was excited to hear about it in this article so I went on Amazon looking for this autobiography only to find that it was actually written by that Hitler-fancying crackpot fascist. Don't think I'll waste my money on anything written by such an unreliable source (not that an autobiography is always reliable historically, but one reads those for different reasons). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.12.54.210 (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

It was written before Irving went nuts, and is well-worth reading. 203.217.37.31 (talk) 03:14, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Understanding

Is this the reason there is a copyedit tag on the '1933-1939' section, para 1 ? "Even after that it was not necessarily Milch as the leader who did not depose of him, but, put him in an inferior position", because I don't understand it.

RASAM (talk) 14:51, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Possible additions

I think if someone could find the references (I remember reading them many years ago but don't remember where) to Goering saying (in reference to Milch) "In Germany I decide who is a Jew!", and that Milch actually ordered winter coats for Luftwaffe ground crews in preparation for Operation Barbarossa (one of the common critiques of the Axis invasion [a poor one, in my opinion] being that they didn't prepare properly for the Russian winter). Historian932 (talk) 12:39, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Milch being inefficient

I intended to write that "The ineffective clause in the lede seems to be an interpretation of the "lack of longterm strategy" sentence in the main text. This sentence itself seems to be an overboard interpretation of the essay it cites. This essay says nothing like that. Or maybe the original sources are lost."

In all of the publications I've read, most notably Tooze's book and German Aircraft Industry and Production, 1933-1945 by Ferenc A. Vajda, Peter Dancey, not one author says Milch is inefficient, if not free of errors. The problems like overlapping command structures, changes of responsibilities, changes of aircraft models..etc existed, but largely due to the nature of the Third Reich's administration system, changing situations at the front and Hitler's desperate search for wonder weapons...etc rather than Milch's nature as a manager. So I've changed the content a bit to make it more balanced, but this still requires further editing because it's such a complex problem, especially regarding Milch's responsibilities in the use of slave labour.Deamonpen (talk) 09:47, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• De nieuwe generaal-veldmaarschalken van de Luftwaffe.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:06, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

.

The Blood Certificate Named Hermann von Bier as Milch's Father

I've noticed a small but important discrepancy. The page states that Milch's mother signed an affidavit naming Karl Brauer as the father of her child:

>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. If true, that would mean that Milch's mother, Clara, committed not only adultery but also incest.

It is not clear what his mother signed. All of the publicly available documents named a deceased minor aristocrat who had been friendly with the Milch family, Hermann von Bier, as Erhard's biological father. Page 17 of the USAF version of Command and Leadership in the Luftwaffe by Richard Suchenwirth states that von Bier was the man listed on the blood certificate:

https://www.afhra.af.mil/Portals/16/documents/Studies/151-200/AFD-090521-037.pdf

A severely incestuous family tree would have been looked down upon by almost all Germans. This is not something that would have been put on a public document.

The incest story only became known after David Irving interviewed Milch & looked through his family papers. Irving came to the conclusion that Anton Milch was not his biological father as he (supposedly) was absent when Clara became pregnant. Irving also found references to an incestuous background in Milch's private diary.

On page 372 of Irving's book The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe, a (supposed) segment of Milch's diary is published:

>'Kempner grills me about father... I turned it all over in my mind, then answered in line with my original official papers. Should I have disclosed the truth, shameful as it is, about C to him? But now Kempner will exploit all this'

The issue with claiming that Milch's mother signed an affidavit naming Carl Brauer as his father is that all of the primary documents name a different man - von Bier - as the father and the only proof we have that such a letter might have existed comes from David Irving (who is prone to publishing sensationalistic things).

It'd be fascinating to see a collage of Anton Milch, Hermann von Bier, and Carl Brauer side-by-side with Milch to compare their faces. Dani'sAccount98 (talk) 22:59, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Assault by baton

This incident was filmed. Peter Ustinov saw the footage soon afterwards in London, at a military screening. He describes it in his autobiography ‘Dear Me’, Chapter 11. 203.217.37.31 (talk) 03:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)