Arming the Luftwaffe: The German Aviation Industry in World War II (edition 2011)

This book is a dream come true for loggies who love European air power in WWII. For the casual reader, however, the book's narrow focus makes it a slow read.

Uziel clearly knows his topic. He has selected useful data to support the account, as well as good photographs to relieve the dense economics. It presupposes some knowledge of the war's course, inevitably, as the whole book concentrates on a single aspect of the events. That said, Uziel discusses a lot of topics impinging on aircraft production, including the use of slave labor, materials, concealed workshops, and more.

I wouldn't recommend this to a general reader, but to military history buffs who want a new perspective on WWII, its short length definitely rewards the reader. ( )

Daniel Uziel's book is a terra firma view of Luftwaffe aircraft production during WWII. No dogfights or Battle of Britain in these pages.

The most interesting areas revolved around shortages of materials, skilled labor and the inevitable decline in quality control and production numbers as the war moved along.
Compared with the trajectory of events shaping the future of Germany, you can see where this will end. This author's research is specialized. An excellent sidebar to WWII history. ( )

This book is a fascinating look at the production and logistics of the Luftwaffe leading up to and during WWII. There are countless books on the battles and personalities of the air war but by taking a detached, academic approach to the subject matter, Uziel is able to explain and outline what made the Luftwaffe the force it was and how Germany was able to not only keep up production during the Allied bomber campaign but to innovate so many features of modern aviation technology taken for granted today.

Uziel spends a large amount of time describing the process of production of German aircraft. From the early years of proper factories to the darker days near the end where slave labor in underground shelters churned out planes, the overview and inspection of the German industrial machine is well-thought out, well-organized, and insightful. Uziel makes great use of primary sources and first hand accounts. The author does a good break-down of the economics and the impact of wartime on production.

This is an interesting book but might not be an easy read for all. It is much drier than the typical WWII history book and deals with seemingly more mundane things such as logistics, economics, design, and production. The color and flair added by historical participants in the war is not present, making this a very academic look at the less "glamorous" side of the war. It is, however, well-written, informative, and original in its approach to a different side to WWII. ( )

Arming the Luftwaffe: the German Aviation Industry in World War II by Daniel Uziel offers a fascinating investigation of a very specific aspect of World War II. Written in a dry dense academic style, Uziel explores a sector of war often overlooked: logistics. Inspired by a blindly worshipful museum exhibit on the achievements of the Ernst Heinkel, in Rostock, Germany, Arming the Luftwaffe offers itself as a historical corrective. The 2002 exhibit mentioned "Heinkel's association with the Nazi regime" but "it was not in the forefront." This caused outrage and debate. This reaction is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the 1995 Smithsonian exhibit on the Enola Gay.

Uziel uses the archives from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and Yad Vashem, among other sources, to chronicle the rise and fall of the Nazi-era German aircraft industry. With the flamboyant former World War I ace Hermann Goering at the helm, the Luftwaffe would become one of Germany's biggest employers. Uziel asserts the complicated nature of aircraft development and assembly makes the industry comparable to Silicon Valley computer companies. In its heyday, the various aircraft firms created a corporate culture complete with health spas, living quarters, and firm-based health insurance. It also helped workers develop specialist knowledge for aircraft assembly.

A pivotal event was Big Week (February 20 - 25, 1944), an Allied air offensive specifically targeting the Germany aircraft industry. This spurred the concept of dispersal. Instead of a centrally located plant, various sub-plants would be scattered around the countryside or even underground. Uziel's discussion of the underground plants associated with the V-1 and V-2 rockets should be of interest to anyone who has read Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Along with dispersal, the labor issue became more pressing as Nazi Germany became more desperate. The war crisis created a labor crisis. With most of the men gone to fight, the aircraft industry used the next easily available pool of labor: concentration camp inmates. This caused security and training complications, along with the fact very few inmates were capable of the skilled labor required for aircraft production. At one point, Germany was actually shipping in slave labor back from the concentration camps.

Uziel explores the logistics, bureaucracy, and political ramifications of the aircraft industry's devolution from cutting edge industry to slave labor employer. He discusses life on the factory floor and looks at the "People's Fighter," the He-16,2 as an example of a late-war program. This book isn't for everybody, since it is written in dry academic prose; but for the specialist, it is a treasure trove of information and analysis.

Out of 10: 8.1, or 9.5 for World War II buffs, Pynchon fans (specifically Gravity's Rainbow), and those interested in the history of engineering, wartime logistics, and the Holocaust

http://www.cclapcenter.com/2012/09/book_review_arming_the_luftwaf.html

http://driftlessareareview.com/2012/09/07/cclap-fridays-arming-the-luftwaffe-by-... ( )

Arming the Luftwaffe is an excellent account of the German aviation industry during World War II. Aircraft factories during the Second World War evolved from artisanal workshops producing dozens of aircraft a month into mass production facilities producing hundreds of warplanes a week. (This phenomenon was not confined to Nazi Germany, of course.)
All the factors that effected German aircraft production are thoroughly covered: shortages of skilled workers and vital materials, Allied bombing and sabotage, Nazi politics, competition between companies, and the enormity of producing enough aircraft for immediate needs, while at the same time developing and putting into production new aircraft.
This isn’t a quick and easy read, although I can’t fault the author. Combine economic history and Nazi politics, and you get a complicated story. Since the Nazis lost, there aren’t many first-person accounts to provide enlightening anecdotes. The one exception is the very readable chapter on German aviation workers, which quotes extensively from memoirs by these workers, Germans, foreigners and slaves alike. In this chapter, the author shows that he can make a more interesting story when he has the material with which to work .
There is a full chapter case study on the development and production of the Heinkel He 162, and there is much information on the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and on the Heinkel He 177 programs. The book is well-footnoted and has an extensive bibliography and detailed index.
Although lacking the excitement of the pilot memoirs and operational histories I generally read, this is an interesting and very useful book on military aviation in World War II. ( )