Paul Deichmann

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Paul Deichmann
Generalleutnant Paul Deichmann.jpg
Paul Deichmann II.jpg
Lieutenant General Deichmann (picture and signature)
Birth date 27 August 1898(1898-08-27)
Place of birth Fulda, Regierungsbezirk Kassel, Province of Hesse-Nassau, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Death date 10 January 1981 (aged 82)
Place of death Hamburg, West Germany
Allegiance  German Empire
 Weimar Republic
 National Socialist Germany
 West Germany
Service/branch Iron Cross of the Luftstreitkräfte.png Imperial German Army
Freikorps Flag.jpg Freikorps
War Ensign of the Reichswehr, 1919 - 1935.png Reichswehr
Luftwaffe eagle.jpg Luftwaffe
Bundeswehr cross.png Bundeswehr
Years of service 1916–1945
Rank General der Flieger
Commands held Commanding General of the I. Fliegerkorps
Commander-in-Chief of Luftwaffe Command 4
Battles/wars World War I
World War II
Awards Iron Cross
Hanseatic Cross
Wound Badge
Baltic Cross
German Cross in Gold
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Air University Award
Relations ∞ Else Migge (b. 16 January 1902), wife and mother
Colonel Georg Migge (1896–1988), brother-in-law, DKiG
Rose-Marie (daughter)
Other work Researcher, author, lecturer

Paul Deichmann (27 August 1898 – 10 January 1981) was a German officer of the Imperial German Army, the Freikorps, the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht, finally General der Flieger of the Luftwaffe and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in WWII. He must not be confused with Colonel Paul Hermann Ludwig Deichmann (1890–1980).

Life

Paul Deichmann’s Luftwaffe rapier, model 1938 for generals, as a personal gift from Hermann Göring as Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe.
Flag for the commanding general of a Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps (1937–1945)
The heart of the Karlsruhe project: Major General Hermann Plocher (left), then deputy chief of staff of the Bundesluftwaffe and former assistant project control officer. Plocher authored three monographs that remain the standard narrative operational histories of the Luftwaffe’s air war against the Soviet Union. General der Flieger Paul Deichmann, retired (center), who served as control officer until the close of the Karlsruhe office, encouraged other Luftwaffe veterans to participate and personally wrote several monographs. USAF project officer Colonel Wendell Hammer (right) was instrumental in improving relations among American, West German, and British military and historical establishments and was awarded the Legion of Merit. This photo was taken at a formal dinner in Karlsruhe, West Germany, on 10 June 1957. The ceremony marked the conclusion of four years of Air University (AU) sponsorship of the GAF monograph project and the completion of the major portion of the studies, although work continued in Karlsruhe on a more limited scale for another year. Nearly all surviving German key contributors were present, as were members of the air attaché’s office and the US Army Europe Historical Division. In commemoration of four years of German-American cooperation, each German contributor received a personal letter from the AU commander and presents. Lieutenant General Josef Kammhuber, Inspekteur der Luftwaffe, received a specially bound monograph from Dr. Albert Simpson, the longtime chief of the United States Air Force Historical Division and architect of the Karlsruhe project, as “a token of friendship between the USAF and the GAF and symbol of the several years of cooperative historical activity."

Deichmann was born in Fuldain 1898 and was educated at the cadet corps. He entered the German Imperial Army as a Fähnrich in the Füsilier-Regiment „Königin“ (Schleswig-Holsteinisches) Nr. 86 (86th Regiment of Fusiliers ) on 29 March 1916, and was commissioned a Leutnant a week prior to his eighteenth birthday. In the following August, he began training with the Luftstreitkräfte as an observer, and continued this duty to the end of World War I. After the end of the war, Deichmann joined a Freikorps fighting in Courland and was accepted into the Reichswehr in May 1920.

Chronology

Paul Deichmann V.jpg
  • With the 3rd Replacement-MG-Company of the IX. Army-Corps (20 Oct 1916-19 Dec 1916)
  • Platoon-Leader in the 86th Fusilier-Regiment (20 Dec 1916-17 Jul 1917)
  • Detached to the Gun Factory in Spandau (06 Apr 1917-04 May 1917)
  • Detached to Army-Flight-Park 2 (18 Jul 1917-09 Aug 1917)
  • Observer-Training with the 10th Flying-Replacement-Battalion (10 Aug 1917-15 Sep 1917)
  • Training with the Flying-Radio-Operator-Instruction-Battalion (Fliegerfunker-Lehrabteilung) in Stolp (16 Sep 1917-29 Oct 1917)
  • Training at the Signals-School Cologne (30 Oct 1917-20 Dec 1917)
  • Training at the Artillery-Flying-School 2 (21 Dec 1917-27 Jan 1918)
  • Detached to Army-Flight-Park 4 (28 Jan 1918-25 Feb 1918)
  • Observer with the 8th Flying-Battalion (26 Feb 1918-04 Dec 1918)
  • Detached First-Flying-School Breslau (05 Dec 1918-05 Jan 1919)
  • Placed to the Disposal of the 86th Fusilier-Regiment (06 Jan 1919-29 Jan 1919)
  • Observer with the 427th Flying-Battalion (30 Jan 1919-09 Feb 1919)
  • Observer with the Flying-Squadron Libau (10 Feb 1919-20 Mar 1919)
  • Observer with the 433rd Flying-Battalion (21 Mar 1919-30 Jul 1919)
  • Observer with Army-Flight-Park Kurland (31 Jul 1919-18 Sep 1919)
  • With the Air-Base Stolp, Detached to the 2nd Troop-Flying-Squadron (19 Sep 1919-04 May 1920)
  • With the 2nd Motor-Transport-Column (05 May 1920-30 Sep 1920)
  • Platoon-Leader in the 3rd Infantry-Regiment (01 Oct 1920-30 Sep 1923)
  • Battalion-Adjutant in the 3rd Infantry-Regiment (01 Oct 1923-09 Jan 1925)
  • Company-Officer in the 3rd Infantry-Regiment (10 Jan 1925-30 Nov 1925)
  • Detached for Training as Photographic-Officer to Military-District-Photographic-Office I (27 Jan 1925-03 Feb 1925)
  • Detached to the Photographic-Office of the 3rd Division and to the Technical College in Charlottenburg (05 Feb 1925-18 Feb 1925)
  • Detached to Officers-Weapons-School-Course Dresden (01 Apr 1925-15 Aug 1925)
  • Photographic-Officer with the Staff of the 1st Division (01 Dec 1925-31 Oct 1928)
  • Retired (31 Oct 1928); this was necessary under the rules of the Treaty of Versailles forbidding military flight training.
  • Pilot-Preparation-Course at the Transport-Flying-School Berlin-Staaken, Pilot-Training in Lipezk, USSR, Advisor in the RWM/T 2 V(L) (01 Nov 1928-31 Mar 1931)
  • Reactivated to Army Service as Platoon-Leader in the 1st Infantry-Regiment (01 Apr 1931-30 Sep 1931)
  • Subsidiary-Leadership-Training (Führergehilfen-Ausbildung) with the Staff of the 1st Division (01 Oct 1931-30 Sep 1933)
  • General-Staff-Training at the Armed Forces Academy (Wehrmachts-Akademie), and Officer with Special Duties in the RLM (01 Oct 1933-30 Sep 1934)
  • Transferred to Luftwaffe Service (01 Apr 1934)
  • Advisor in Air-Command-Office I, RLM (camouflaged Luftwaffe General Staff) (01 Oct 1934-30 Sep 1935)
  • Group-Director LA I in the Luftwaffe General Staff (01 Oct 1935-28 Feb 1937)
    • At the same time, Chief of the Command-Office or Chef der Führungs-Abteilung im RLM (01 Oct 1936-28 Feb 1937)
  • Chief of the Command-Department (Chef der Führungs-Abteilung) in the Luftwaffe General Staff (01 Mar 1937-30 Sep 1937)
  • Commander of II. Group of the 253rd Bomber-Wing ‘General Wever’ (Kampfgeschwader 253) and at the same time, Air-Base Commandant Gotha (01 Oct 1937-15 Jan 1939)
  • Detached to the RLM (16 Jan 1939-31 Jan 1939)
  • Chief Of Staff of the Chief of Training Affairs of the Luftwaffe, RLM (01 Feb 1939-19 Jun 1940)
  • Chief Of Staff of the II. Flying-Corps (20 Jun 1940-24 Aug 1942)
  • Chief of the General Staff of the 2nd Air Fleet (Luftflotte 2) and the Commander-in-Chief South (25 Aug 1942-25 Jun 1943)
  • Commander of the 1st Flying-Division (26 Jun 1943-07 Nov 1943)
  • Commanding General of the I. Flying-Corps (08 Nov 1943-03 Apr 1945)
  • Commander of the 18th Flying-Division (04 Apr 1945-26 Apr 1945)
  • Commander-in-Chief of Luftwaffe-Command 4 (27 Apr 1945-15 Jun 1945)
  • In US Captivity (15 Jun 1945-22 Dec 1947)

WWII commands

  • 1939 to 1940 Chief of Staff to the Chief of Air Force Training
  • 1940 to 1942 Chief of Staff of the II. Flying Corps
  • 1942 to 1943 Chief of the General Staff of the 2nd Air Fleet and the Commander-in-Chief South (Oberbefehlshaber Süd), both under Albert Kesselring
  • 1943 Commander of the 1st Aviation / Flying Division
  • 1943 to 1944 Commanding General of the I. Flying Corps
  • 1945 Commander-in-Chief of Luftwaffe Command 4

Post-WWII

Deichmann was released as a POW on 22 December 1947, having already completed his first writings for the Operational History (German) Section of the Historical Division of the United States Army. From 1952 to 1958, he was the control officer and therefore head of the "German Air Force Monograph Project" (GAF Monograph Project) of the USAF Historical Division in Karlsruhe (also known as the "Karlsruhe Document Collection").

  • Deichmann, Paul: Control Officer, GAF Monograph Project, 1952–58
  • Kammhuber, Josef: Chief of Staff, Bundesluftwaffe, 1956–62, contributor to GAF Monograph Project, 1953–56
  • Plocher, Hermann: Deputy Chief of Staff, Bundesluftwaffe, 1957–58, assistant Control Officer, GAF Monograph Project, 1953–57
  • Prof. Dr. Suchenwirth, Richard: German language editor and contributor, GAF Monograph Project, 1953–58

Deichmann was then appointed head of a historical study group (Studiengruppe) at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr (FüAkBw), the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College, where he also gave numerous lectures. It had been planned, for Deichmann to return to active duty, but it seems he served with the academy as a well-paid retired general.

The Air Force Karlsruhe historical office finally closed on 30 June 1958. Drafts of 42 studies had been completed, the extra being expanded chapters of other monographs [...] Army translators and Air Force staffers translated roughly 7,000 pages by spring 1958, but 14,000 pages remained. The head of the Air Force’s Research Studies Institute (RSI) deemed 5,300 of the remaining untranslated pages “of immediate and primary interest to the USAF.” Because it was more expensive to translate the remaining studies in the United States, the RSI contracted two translators to handle the work in Germany. The Historical Division hoped that two other translators who worked at Maxwell would be available to speed the work, but personnel cuts at RSI made this impossible. Therefore, the Air Force Historical Division had only two translators, Helmut Heitman and Patricia Klammerth, working on the manuscripts, both of whom were still employees of the Army Historical Division in Europe. Working on a part-time basis, they completed 40 of 42 translation drafts by November 1962. [...] A few remained interested in the project during the 1960s, including Halder, Deichmann, Plocher, and General Johannes Steinhoff, the chief of staff of the West German air force and later chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ilitary Committee. Steinhoff initially believed that the monographs were meant for dissemination as USAF studies at American military staff schools. He “was astonished to find that ARNO Press, NYC [[[New York City]]], was publishing all the studies for the general public,” which began in 1968. [...] A critical factor in the search for contributors was the personal prestige of retired General der Flieger Paul Deichmann and, to an even greater extent, Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring. One of the few airmen of any country to command an entire theater during the war—the Mediterranean—Kesselring held enormous credibility with former Luftwaffe officers. His well-publicized and controversial efforts to rehabilitate the reputation of the German military, no doubt, made him a persuasive person to bring other veterans around to the notion of helping the Americans. The growing distance from the years of American bombing raids against Germany, coupled with the intensification of the Cold War, made it easier to work for the former enemy. [...]
A series of visits by USAF officers and staff to Karlsruhe and, more importantly, by Germans to the United States further solidified the relationship. American generals and civilian officials from AU frequently toured the Karlsruhe offices, held conferences with German contributors, and went on short sightseeing trips around Europe. Often the Americans sought to “pick the brains” of the Germans on topics of future warfare and did not want to dwell on the monograph project. The handful of German visits to the United States, on the other hand, did not usually include tours of central Alabama and seemed to have made a much greater impression on all involved. The first, by Deichmann in July 1954, was primarily a research trip to quickly identify and catalog useful documents in American holdings in Washington, DC, and at Maxwell AFB. The occasion also allowed Deichmann and Hammer to hold roundtable discussions with groups from the AU headquarters staff, Air Command and Staff College (ACSC), and AWC and its air evaluation staff, which was the body that wrote USAF doctrine. The warm reception Deichmann received was a thrill. “It means a great deal to people like himself to be treated as a respected member of the military flying profession,” Hammer later wrote. The general did not hesitate to inform the other German contributors of his visit. The Karlsruhe project also prompted the beginning of a speaking series by German officers at USAF staff schools. As with so many other good ideas, Nye was the first to point out this potentially important, non-historical payoff of the project. Hammer selected General der Flieger Egon Doerstling to speak at AWC because of the general’s command of English and his experiences during the war. [...] More visits to the United States followed, including one by General Kammhuber, in his new official capacity as head of the Bundesluftwaffe, and Deichmann to Washington, DC, and AU. The project staff was never thrilled to lose authors to the Bundesluftwaffe because it slowed composition. Finding replacement contributors was always difficult and time-consuming. Kammhuber was the first to leave during the summer of 1956, but his two drafts were fairly complete. Walter Grabmann left the following spring, as did Plocher, who became the deputy chief of staff of the Bundesluftwaffe. Plocher worked as Deichmann’s assistant and also penned over 2,000 pages on the Soviet Union air war. His resignation from the project, which was postponed several times by West German government delays, partly accounts for the lack of coverage of 1944 and 1945 in the monographs. Harry Fletcher, the project’s final editor, identified another side effect of the impending departures: “Of course some of the studies were pretty superficial, and I wondered [if] the author in such cases simply ‘called it a day’ or decided to work for the emerging [West German Air Force].”
Fall 1956 saw Kammhuber and Deichmann, who was still the German control officer of the project, in daily telephone conversations as the two ironed out the details of a German air university. According to Hammer, Strauss and members of the Bundestag tentatively agreed to the proposal in December. Plocher, who was still with the project but slated to serve under Kammhuber as the deputy chief of staff of the Bundesluftwaffe, weighed in that same month. [...] Budgetary restraints and likely the clout of the German army killed Kammhuber and Deichmann’s air university initiative for good in May 1957. The plan was to set up the organization within the Luftwaffe’s planned southern regional command. Strauss and Kammhuber wanted Deichmann to return to active duty; he agreed on the condition that he take command of this organization. Deichmann told Hammer that his insistence partly stemmed from his desire to be able to dispatch some of his Bundesluftwaffe personnel to help complete the monograph project in Karlsruhe. [...] While the parent organization of the proposed German air university went “on ice,” the Army-backed joint general staff school proposal moved forward. This setup had the advantage of being cheaper than running separate service schools. It was also intended to educate officers in a joint environment, thereby better preparing them for joint operations. The Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, or German Armed Forces Staff College, was established on 15 May 1957. [...] Deichmann became the director of a study group at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr after the monograph project’s German office closed. In April 1959 he requested educational materials from AU for use at his new job. Deichmann continued to exchange letters with Simpson and others at the Air Force Historical Division during the 1960s. In 1963 he became the first foreigner to receive the AU award for “outstanding contributions to the United States Air Force’s officer education program.” In a 1964 letter to Simpson,[1] Deichmann lamented that the USAF was more interested in the Luftwaffe’s history than the Luftwaffe was. The studies in Alabama were, in his estimation, the most complete history of the German air force in World War II. In none of his letters to the Air Force Historical Division did Deichmann hint at continued work on the Karlsruhe monographs after the Americans left in summer 1958. Copies of the studies reside in German archives, as does the original Karlsruhe document collection, which the Americans returned to West Germany in January 1967.[2]

Death

General der Flieger (ret.) Paul Deichmann died on 10 January 1981 in Hamburg.

Promotions

  • 29 March 1916 Fähnrich (Officer Cadet)
  • 20 August 1916 Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant)
  • 1 April 1925 Oberleutnant (1st Lieutenant)
  • 1 April 1933 Hauptmann (Captain)
  • 1 Augugust 1936 Major
  • 1 January 1938 Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel)
  • 1 August 1940 Oberst (Colonel)
  • 1 August 1942 Generalmajor (Major General)
  • 20 May 1944 Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General)
  • 20 April 1945 General der Flieger

Awards and decorations

Works (excerpt)

  • Luftwaffe Methods in the Selection of Offensive Weapons (together with Luftwaffe General-Ingenieur Dipl.-Ing. Ernst A. Marquard)
    • Deichmann describes prewar and wartime operational problems, such as the need for weapons that could disperse the tightly packed American bomber boxes, prompting the Luftwaffe to rearm its aircraft—in this case with mortars, rockets, and even tow cables. Importantly, he frames weapons procurement as a technological, political, supply, and timing challenge. Putting the right bomb on target required having a responsive weapons development team (if the bomb type was not already in inventory) and getting munitions to the right unit at the right time.
  • Die Ausbildung der deutschen Luftwaffe bis zum Kriegsbeginn, Studiengruppe Luftwaffe, US-Historical Division, Karlsruhe
  • Kampf um die Luftüberlegenheit im Feldzug gegen Frankreich, Studiengruppe Luftwaffe, US-Historical Division, Karlsruhe
  • Unterstützung des Heeres durch die deutsche Luftwaffe, Studiengruppe Luftwaffe, US-Historical Division, Karlsruhe
  • The System of Target Selection Applied by the German Air Force in World War II, USAF Historical Studies No. 186, USAF Historical Division, 1956
  • Der Chef im Hintergrund. Ein Leben als Soldat von der preußischen Armee bis zur Bundeswehr, Stalling, Oldenburg/München/Hamburg 1979
  • Spearhead for Blitzkrieg – Luftwaffe Operations in Support of the Army, 1939–1945, Ivy Book, New York 1996

Gallery

  • Paul Deichmann III.jpg
  • Paul Deichmann IV.jpg
  • Oberst Georg Migge (1896–1988).png
  • Else Deichmann, geb. Migge.png

References

  1. ↑ Dr. Albert F. Simpson was the Chief of the USAF Historical Division from 1951 to 1969.
  2. ↑ Ryan Shaughnessy: No Sense in Dwelling on the Past? The Fate of the US Air Force’s German Air Force Monograph Project, 1952–69, Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 2011 (Archive)
  3. ↑ Rangliste des Deutschen Reichsheeres, 1927, p. 176
  4. ↑ Deichmann, Paul (Generalleutnant)
  5. ↑ Deichmann, Paul
  6. ↑ Fellgiebel 2000, p. 159.
  7. ↑ According to Scherzer as commander of the 1. Flieger-Division.
  8. ↑ Cajus Bekker: Angriffshöhe 4000. Ein Kriegstagebuch der deutschen Luftwaffe. 8th edition, Wilhem Heyne Verlag, München 1976, ISBN 978-3-453-00296-8, S. 9.
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