Josef Kammhuber, XII air corps commander, the creator of night Reich air defence has made fatal mistake 24th of June 1943 - he said Hitler the truth.

Due to Kammhuber’s insistence by the summer 1943 his “Himmelbelt” zones were covering territory from the north of Jutland to the Mediterranean, he had five Geschwaders (about 400 of twin-engine fighters) under his command, and sixth was forming up. But he was not going to stop on this. Intelligence reports about plans of allies (especially US) to re-equip bombers aviation with huge amount of four-engine bombers made him think German night air defence will be useless against such power.

Unfortunatelly, solution he saw was in great increase of thr hardware instead of new tactics, when each fighter will not be hardly linked to the only one “Himmelbelt” zone.

He demanded to increas night fighters amount from 6 to 18 Geschwader, to cover all the German territory. Besides, he wanted to replace very expensive existing radar stations with more modern ones, new onboard radars supposed to have wider tracking range.

All this was leading to the great shift in all the German electric and electronic industry. Goering was convinced by the Kammhubers plans and partially has approved them, when 24th of June 1943 has came, the day to meet Fuehrer.

The main point of Kammhubers plan was information, provided by the Vermaht’s intelligence HQ (Ic), that US industry produces 5000 bombers every month. Till that day these data were taken without any doubts.

Hitler just denied this information and refused to beleive it is true. He said: “Its ridiculous! If this info is correct, I need to take all the reserves from the Eastern frontline and to use them for the air defence only! But this info is wrong! And I’m not going to deal with this anymore!”

Hitler was indisputable, night fighters were doing quite well that time, so he put tons of angry on Goering and Keitel (Vermaht commander). Goering went out of Hitlers room red-faced and angry as well.

It was the end of Kammhuber’s career. Soon he was replaced on his position of XII air corps commander by the general-major Joseph Beppo Schmidt (Schmidt was the chief of staff for Luftwaffe HQ intelligence). Till the middle of November 1943 Kammhuber was staying on his “General of the Night Fighters” position, but then was retired from there as well.

The person to create all the Germany night air defence was sent to see service in Norvegy.

Source: Cajus Bekker “The Luftwaffe War Diaries”