Read Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) for Free Online

were much better than most of the men they opposed and, indeed, were generally superior to those in their own High Command. Because of them and their pilots, Germany did not lose control of the air over the eastern front until 1944.
     
TABLE 11: GERMAN ARMY ORDER OF BATTLE, JUNE 22, 1941 (NORTH TO SOUTH) *

Army Group North
Field Marshal Ritter Wilhelm von Leeb
Eighteen Army
Col. Gen. Georg von Kuechler
4th Panzer Group
Col. Gen. Erich Hoepner
Sixteenth Army
Col. Gen. Ernst Busch
Army Group Center
Field Marshal Fedor von Bock
3rd Panzer Group
Col. Gen. Hermann Hoth
Ninth Army
Col. Gen. Adolf Strauss
Fourth Army
Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge
2nd Panzer Group
Col. Gen. Heinz Guderian
Army Group South
Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt
Sixth Army
Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau
1st Panzer Group
Col. Gen. Ewald von Kleist
Seventeenth Army
Col. Gen. Heinrich von Stuelpnagel
Third Rumanian Army
General Dumitrescu
Fourth Rumanian Army
General Ciuperca
Eleventh Army
Col. Gen. Ritter Eugen von Schobert
    * Excluding the Far North sector
    First Air Fleet, the weakest of the three, was commanded by Col. Gen. Alfred Keller, who was also the poorest of the air fleet commanders. A bomber specialist and an ardent Nazi, he was a member of the “Little General Staff” and largely owed his promotion to his influence with Goering. Born in 1882, he was considered an “old eagle,” having joined the Flying Corps before World War I. During the Great War, he commanded the 1st Bomber Wing, where he won the highest decorations and earned the nickname “Bomben-Keller.” After the war he worked in civil aviation and became head of training at the Transport Aviation School at Braunschweig, before returning to the service as a major in the army. He transferred to the Luftwaffe and held several administrative commands (including Luftkreis IV) before being promoted to general of flyers and commander of the 4th Air Division (later IV Air Corps) on March 1, 1939. He served on the western front in 1939 and 1940, and at the advanced age of fifty-eight personally led his squadrons into action against the R.A.F. at Dunkirk. (Keller’s ability may be open to question, but not his courage.) He had taken over 1st Air Fleet in the summer of 1940, after Stumpff went to Norway, but had spent the entire time since then on occupational duty in Poland. He would command 1st Air Fleet until July 28, 1943, when he retired from the service and became leader of the National Socialist Flying Corps (NSFK), which was responsible for giving primary flight instruction to future Luftwaffe pilots. He survived the war. 14
    Both of Keller’s principal subordinates—General of Flyers Helmuth Foerster (CG, I Air Corps) and Col. Wolfgang von Wild (air commander Baltic)—were also new to their posts. Foerster was not originally slated to command I Air Corps at all. Its commander in France and the Battle of Britain was the highly competent Col. Gen. Ulrich Grauert, a World War I flyer who had directed the 1st Air Division in Poland with considerable success. 15 Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, Grauert had been shot down and killed over the Channel coast by the R.A.F. in May, 1941. His successor, Foerster, was a highly decorated World War I aviator. Returning to the service in 1934 as a lieutenant colonel in the Luftwaffe, Foerster was promoted to colonel in March, 1936, and assumed command of the 4th Bomber Wing “General Wever.” He had commanded the Lehr-division in the Polish campaign with great success, as we have seen. Thereafter he had been chief of staff of the 5th Air Fleet (April 15–June 22, 1940) and a member of the German-French Peace Commission and Wehrmacht commander in Serbia. He would lead I Air Corps until October 1, 1942, when he became chief of administration at RLM, a post he held until the end of the war. Foerster was pensioned by the West German government as a lieutenant colonel in 1952. 16
    Wolfgang von Wild had served as a naval cadet in World War I