Too Little, Too Late: Hitler's Jet Fighter

By June 1941, Adolf Hitler had perhaps come to the realization that he was not going to win the war in the west, and by May 1943, he must have known that the war in the east was lost as well, as he had recently lost North Africa, Sicily and Italy were under threat, and the setback at Stalingrad had secured the second major German defeat of World War II in February 1943 on the heels of the stalemate at Moscow in the winter of 1941. In his many meetings with the members of his staff within the High Command, Hitler often spoke of these new “wonder weapons” that German science and technology were developing.

With these new tools, Hitler tried to convince his followers en masse that Germany could turn things around as the war progressed. Among these many revelations was a series of revolutionary new aircraft, one of which would become the first operational jet fighter in history to see active regular combat service, the Messerschmitt Me 262. Propaganda had always been the most successful weapon employed by the National Socialists, reinforcing the hopes of the true believers, while attempting to convince through coercion and enervation those who opposed them; so the continuance of false prophecies and wishful thinking was given new life with every new idea, concept, and development, realistic or not.

Just as with other nations, where institutions of political authority made the determinations on the viability of projects, the Germans were no exception. Reorganization for the procurement and assessment of technological innovations was undertaken in September 1933. The result was the creation of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM). Following Adolf Hitler’s successful appointment as chancellor and with Hermann Göring relinquishing his control of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, German aircraft designers, builders, and scientists—solely focused upon Luftwaffe concerns—could, in essence, simply perform “one-stop shopping” to sell the ideas. The maze of independent departments that had often delayed decisions for years and that had been fraught with interdepartmental and political infighting was now reduced.