So let's set the stage for today's deep dive,
because the date is really critical here. It's
early 1945. January 1945, to be exact. Right.
And Germany at this point isn't just cracking.
It is actively collapsing. You have the Red Army
just steamrolling in from the east. The Western
allies are crossing the borders. And the cities
are, well, they're being turned to rubble. by
round -the -clock Allied bombing. It is the absolute
definition of a gutter -demerung scenario. You
know the literal end of the world for the regime.
So logically, you'd assume every single ounce
of German military energy would be focused outward.
Outward, yeah. Stopping the tanks. Stopping the
bombers. Yeah. But looking at the source material
for today's discussion, that is not what was
happening inside the low form. No, not at all.
While the roof was... Quite literally caving
in, the German Air Force decided to start a civil
war. An actual mutiny? Effectively, yes. Who
dat? A mutiny involving the most famous, highly
decorated national heroes of the air war. Against
their own supreme commander, Hermann Göring.
Which is just wild when you think about the context
of the regime. Oh, absolutely. We're talking
about the fighter pilot's revolt today. And I
really want to be clear about the stakes here
for you listening. In the Nazi regime, you don't
just file a complaint with HR. No, you usually
get shot. for looking at a superior officer the
wrong way. Exactly. Yet these guys, men like
Johannes Steinhoff and Günther Lutzow, they walked
into a room to tell the second most powerful
man in Germany that he was incompetent. It's
a fascinating study in sheer desperation. So
our mission today is to unpack exactly how this
happened. We're going to dive into the disaster
of Operation Baseplate that triggered it and
the technical tragedy of the Me 262 jet. And
we were pulling this directly from historical
accounts of the incident, including direct testimonies
from the pilots themselves. Guys like Steinhoff
who were actually in the room. But before we
get to that big confrontation, we have to look
at the personalities involved. Because this wasn't
just a sudden explosion. Right. It was a slow
-motion car crash between Göring and the head
of the fighter arm, Adolf Galland. You really
have to understand the disconnect there. Galland
was a pragmatist. Yeah, he's this cigar -chomping
ace who insists on flying combat missions even
when he's promoted to general. He sees the reality
in the sky. He knows the Allied bombers are just
overwhelming them. And Guring, on the other hand,
is living in a total fantasy world. Completely
detached from reality. By 1945, he is obsessed
with a stolen art collection and heavily popping
pills. But he still maintains the fragile ego
of a dictator. And the source material highlights
one specific thing that really poisoned the well
between him and his pilots. Cowardice accusations.
Yes. It wasn't just a one time insult either.
As the cities burned, Goering just couldn't admit
that the Allies had air superiority. He couldn't
admit that his own strategy had failed. So his
default setting was to blame the men in the cockpits.
Imagine that for a second. You're a young pilot
flying a Messerschmitt against a thousand heavy
bombers in a swarm of escort fighters. You're
watching your friends get shot down every single
day. You land exhausted, covered in sweat and
oil, and the Reich Marshal sends a telegram calling
you a coward because you didn't magically stop
the raid. That is precisely why the bitterness
ran so incredibly deep. The source notes a, quote,
deep feeling of bitterness, unquote, among the
officers. They felt utterly betrayed. They were
risking their lives for a leadership that openly
despised them. But the breaking point, the actual
spark that turned all that bitterness into an
act of rebellion was a specific military operation
on New Year's Day, 1945. Operation Baseplate.
This is the moment the dam finally broke. Now,
in most general history books, this gets maybe
a passing paragraph. They attacked allied airfields
and lost. But our sources show this was so much
more than just a failed attack. It was the absolute
death blow for the German fighter force. Because
Gallen had spent months hoarding planes and fuel
right. Yes, he was desperately hiding them, saving
them up for one massive defensive interception
to hit the bomber streams. And Goering just hijacked
that entire strategic reserve. He took everything
Gallen had scraped together and ordered a low
-level offensive strike on allied airfields in
the low countries. And the result was catastrophic.
Completely. Johanna Steinhoff actually testified
that the fighter reserve's gallon had built up
were, quote, senselessly dissipated, unquote,
in this operation. Senselessly dissipated. Yeah.
But here is the nuance that people often miss.
It wasn't just about losing the airplanes. Germany
was actually still producing plenty of fighter
planes in early 1945. Right. The factories hadn't
moved underground. They had the metal. They had
the machines, but they didn't have the men. Exactly.
Operation Baseplate didn't just lose airframes.
It wiped out the unit leaders. The Commodores.
The guys with five or six years of hard combat
experience. The institutional brain of the entire
Luftwaffe was just wiped out in a single morning.
Because you can build a new plane in a week,
but you cannot build a new squadron leader. When
those veterans were shot down on January 1st,
the training pipeline was already broken. Steinhoff
said the prospects for defense looked, quote,
gloomy, unquote, after this. Gloomy feels like
a massive understatement. They basically lobotomize
their own Air Force. And the pilots are watching
all of this happen in real time. They know the
war is lost, but now they're watching their leadership
actively get their friends killed for what was
essentially a PR stunt. And that radicalizes
them. You have to imagine the atmosphere in those
ready rooms. They aren't just dutiful soldiers
anymore. Right. They're angry professionals watching
amateurs destroy everything they built. Which
brings us to the actual conspiracy. And it really
does feel like a conspiracy. You have a meeting
arranged by Karl Kaller, the chief of staff.
He sets up this massive confrontation at the
Haus der Pfleger in Berlin. On January 19th,
1945, Coller is acting as the middleman here
because he knows the pilots are at an absolute
boiling point. So he arranges for a delegation
of the Jagdwaffe, the fighter force, to meet
with Goering face to face. And the past of characters
that walks into that room is just staggering.
If you're going to commit treason, You definitely
want some heavy hitters with you. Who was there?
It was the who's who of German aces. Winther
Litzow was chosen as the primary spokesman. You
had Anistrout Loft. Eduard Neumann. Gustav Rudel.
And of course, Johannes Steinhoff. These are
men who have diamonds on their night's crosses.
Their faces were literally on postcards. And
that celebrity status is the only reason they
even got in the door. If a regular major tried
to request this meeting, he'd be court -martialed
before he cleared his throat. They were heavily
banking on their status as national heroes to
protect them from the Gestapo. So they walk into
the Haus der Flieger. The mood must have been
incredibly tense. What did they actually say?
Did they just start yelling at him? Actually,
it was very structured, which probably made it
infinitely more infuriating for Guring. According
to Collor's account, Litzow read from a highly
prepared list of grievances. What was the first
point? They addressed the personal insult immediately.
They flat out rejected the charge of cowardice.
They basically looked him in the eye and said,
stop calling us cowards while you sit safely
in Berlin. A very bold start. And then they went
straight for the throat. They formally stated
a, quote, lack of confidence, unquote, in the
high command. Specifically regarding armament
and personnel policy. Right. And lack of confidence
is polite military speak for telling your boss
he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. It's
essentially a demand for him to step down. Precisely.
And they double down by bringing up Adolf Galland.
Remember, Guring had already fired Galland by
this point for constantly disagreeing with him.
So the mutineers tell Guring that the fighter
force stands behind Galland, quote, virtually
to a man, unquote. That is a direct challenge
to Guring's supreme authority. They're openly
saying we prefer the guy you just fired to you.
But the most substantive part of the argument,
and the part that is really fascinating from
a historical perspective, was about the technology.
The Mi 262. The world's first operational jet
fighter. We really need to pause on this for
a second, because the Mi 262 is legendary. But
why was an airplane central to a mutiny? It represents
what we might call the ultimate expert paradox.
The pilots knew exactly what this machine was
capable of. It could fly over 500 miles per hour.
It was an absolute shark in the air. It could
slash through allied bomber formations so fast
that the American escorts couldn't even track
it, let alone shoot it down. Speed is life in
aerial combat. Speed is everything. And Steinhoff
told Guring that the fighter force could still,
quote, relieve the country by putting at least
a temporary halt to the bomb horror, unquote,
even at that late stage in 1945. Yes. They truly
believe that if they use the jets correctly,
they could inflict such incredibly heavy losses
on the bombers that the allies would be forced
to pause the raids. But there was a massive catch.
They weren't allowed to use them as fighters.
Which defies all logic. Why build a jet fighter
and not let it fight? Because Hitler and by extension,
Goering had this total obsession with revenge
weapons. They didn't want a defensive interceptor.
They wanted a blitz bomber. A fast bomber. to
hit the allied troops advancing on the ground.
So they took this incredibly sleek aerodynamic
shark. And they literally bolted bomb racks onto
the bottom of it. Which completely ruins the
physics of the aircraft. You add massive drag.
You add weight. But even worse than that, to
drop a bomb with any kind of accuracy, you have
to fly low and slow. So you take a machine engineered
specifically for the stratosphere in high speed.
And you force it to fly down in the mud. where
every single GI with an anti -aircraft gun can
take a pot shot at it. It's maddening. The pilots
are basically screaming at him saying you're
using a scalpel to chop wood. And getting their
best pilot slaughtered while doing it? Their
demand to Guring was explicit. They demanded
that all Mi -262s be released immediately, strictly
for fighter operations. Stop the blitz bomber
nonsense and let us actually shoot down the heavy
bombers. They also demanded that the reserve
bomber units be put under the command of experienced
fighters. officer. Which is just another massive
slap in the face to Guring. They were essentially
saying the bomber commanders are useless and
we need to take over the air war completely.
Okay, so just picture the scene in that room.
You have Guring, this authoritarian, who is entirely
used to total unquestioning obedience. Standing
there listening to his own subordinates absolutely
dismantle his leadership style, his strategy,
and his technical decisions. How long did he
actually last before exploding? Not long at all.
Steinhoff's written account is pretty chilling.
He wrote, quote, At this time, there was no holding
Guring, unquote. He just completely lost it.
He snapped. You have to remember, his authoritarian
nature had already been forced to swallow so
much. perceived insubordination from Galland
over the months. And now he's trapped in a room
with a half dozen Gallands. He shouted. He threatened
them. In fact, the source material notes that
he explicitly wanted to execute them. He wanted
to put Steinhoff and Lutzow in front of a firing
squad. He wanted them dead. So why didn't he?
This is the Third Reich. People disappear for
much less. Public relations. Seriously. The regime
is falling and they're worried about PR. Seriously.
As the source explicitly states, each man was
a national hero. Right. You can't just take the
literal face of your recruitment posters and
shoot them without explaining why to the public.
It would have completely destroyed whatever tiny
shred of morale was left in the military. He
needed time to build a formal legal case against
them. But he also couldn't just let them walk
out and go back to command their units. No. He
had to break the group apart immediately. And
the punishments he handed out were... Well, they
were incredibly petty, but effective. Let's run
through those. What exactly happened to Litzow
since he was the spokesman? Banished. Goering
sent him down to Italy to sit behind a desk.
And he did the same for Rudel and Neumann. Basically
telling them to get out of his sight and go push
papers in a theater that barely mattered anymore.
And what about Trotloft? Fired from combat operations
entirely and sent to run a flying school. Which
is just a massive insult for a frontline combat
leader. Go teach teenagers how to taxi. But Steinhoff,
his punishment really seems to show how much
he got under Guring's skin. It feels deeply personal.
What was the order against Steinhoff? Guring
officially banned him from all airfields. He
grounded one of his top fighter aces. Worse than
grounded. He banned him from even stepping foot
onto any airfield facility. And he strictly forbade
him from contacting any of the other mutineers.
He wanted Steinhoff totally isolated, silent
and removed from the war. It really highlights
the total disintegration of reality at the top
of the command chain. The revolt wasn't crushed
by a better strategic counter argument. It was
crushed by pure ego. Goering would rather lose
the war his way than let the actual experts try
to save it their way. But, and here's the really
fascinating twist in the story, it doesn't end
with them just sitting at desks in Italy. No,
because the noise from this confrontation was
so loud that it actually reached the Fuhrer bunker.
Hitler found out about the mutiny. He did. And
usually when Hitler gets involved in a dispute
between a general and a field marshal, people
just disappear. But surprisingly, Hitler intervened
in a way that deeply humiliated Goering. He realized
that sidelining Galland and the top aces while
the German cities were burning to the ground
was completely insane. So he didn't reinstate
Galland as general of fighters, but he did do
something else. What was the order? He explicitly
ordered Guring to allow Galen to form his own
entirely independent elite unit. Jagverband 44,
the famous JV -44, often called the Squadron
of Experts, and the supreme irony of this entire
saga. In this new unit, Galen and the other mutineers,
including Steinhoff, ended up flying the Mi -262.
The very plane they had just risked execution
arguing about. Yes, and they flew it exactly
how they wanted to, as a pure fighter. No bombs
attached. Just heavy cannons and unguided rockets.
So did they win the argument in the end? In a
tragic micro sense, yes they did. They got their
jets. They got to fly them as dedicated interceptors.
And we were actually shooting down bombers in
those final weeks with this incredible technology.
But strategically, no. It was far too late. The,
quote, senseless dissipation of Operation Baseplate
had already happened. The damage was done. Exactly.
They were just a tiny, isolated island of competence
and a massive sea of defeat. They were winning
dogfights over airfields that were literally
being overrun by allied tanks an hour later.
It paints such a bleak, incredible picture. You
have these guys, the absolute best in the world
at what they do. finally getting the tool they
begged for. Finally using it the correct way.
But doing it in the middle of an apocalypse that
they had absolutely no power to stop. It brings
us right back to that expert paradox. Yep. The
entire regime's system was designed from the
ground up to reward blind loyalty over actual
competence. And by the time the system finally
broke down enough to let that competence shine
through, like we saw with JV -44, the war was
already entirely lost. It really challenges that
old lingering myth of the German military as
this perfectly oiled monolithic machine. Oh,
absolutely. This incident proves it was just
a chaotic snake pit at the top. The revolt shows
us that in those final days, the Luftwaffe's
top talent was fighting their own high command
just as viciously as they were fighting the Allies.
And they ended up losing both of those wars.
Yes. They lost the argument with Guring. They
were banished, humiliated, and threatened with
death. And they lost the air war because the
fatal decisions had already been made years prior.
So as we wrap up this deep dive, I really want
to leave you with a thought about that gloomy
prospect Steinhoff mentioned. It's the great
historical what if. Right. We look at the Mi
-262 today and think, wow, what an incredible
piece of technology. And the pilots truly believed
it could have halted the bomb horror. But let's
ask the harder question here. What if Guring
had actually listened to them? What if they hadn't
wasted all those vital reserves on baseplate?
And what if they had unleashed those jets as
pure fighters six months earlier, like the experts
requested? What if it fundamentally changed that
gloom prospect of the air war? or was the senseless
dissipation of forces already too far gone to
ever reverse? It's something that really makes
you reevaluate the timelines of those final months.
Absolutely. It's a complex piece of history,
but definitely one worth understanding. Something
for you to explore on your own. Thank you for
joining us for this deep dive. We'll catch you
on the next one.