By Eric Vandenbroeck and
co-workers
Russia, Germany, and Poland 1917-1945
Part Eight
From Berlin, the memo
came:
Between 4 o’clock and
5 o’clock this morning, French Aerial forces . . . have thrown hundreds of tons
of explosive, incendiary, and poison bombs on the cities of Köln, Bonn,
Koblenz, Bingen, Mainz, Worms, Mannheim, and Speyer. Damage to persons and
buildings is incalculable; thousands of citizens, aged people, women, and
children have been killed or lie dying. The German government has ordered its
Independent Air Force to act in reprisal.1
This passage appears
in a 1925 science fiction novel called The Command of the Air, written by
Giulio Douhet. Douhet, an
Italian general who was also one of the foremost airpower strategists of the
interwar period, speculated that future warfare would be determined entirely in
the air through the strategic bombing of civilians.2 In Douhet’s
fictional account of a future war between France and Germany, intense and
brutal air warfare provided a decisive conclusion to the conflict in only
forty-eight hours. He wrote, “Airpower makes it possible not only to make
high-explosive bombing raids over any sector of the enemy’s territory but also
to ravage his whole country by chemical and bacteriological warfare.” He also
argued that the shortness of the conflict rendered its means - the mass gassing
of women and children -moral.
Even as gases
deployed during the First World War grew more effective, dispersal methods
lagged. In the early phases of chemical usage, German chemical battalions had
simply waited for a wind of the requisite strength and direction and opened
valves on large gas canisters. As the war progressed, both sides used
gas-filled artillery shells, which came with their own technical issues. Toward
the end of the war, seeking a better deployment method, the Allies filled train
cars with chemical agents, accelerated the train toward the front at top speed,
and then opened the chemical valves as the train decelerated, creating a cloud
would drift across the German lines.3 All of these methods were imprecise and
risked endangering one’s own troops.
Veterans of the
chemical battalions in the First World War believed that there was great
potential in deploying chemical agents by air. British scientists at their
Porton Down research facility had tested chemical “aero-bombs” in 1918, but
they were not used during the war. And, according to internal reports, the Red
Army had used chemical weapons in conjunction with aviation at least once
during the Russian Civil War.4 Soviet intelligence also recorded that the
Germans had begun developing a phosgene air bomb in 1918, but it was never
deployed in combat.5 Chemical aviation, as Soviet and German theorists termed
it, seemed to be the future of warfare. However, whether chemical weapons could
be effectively used in conjunction with mobile, offensive operations, or
strategic bombing remained to be seen. This was an area assigned high priority
by General Seeckt, who hoped to learn whether
chemical aviation would work in conjunction with a future war of movement or
not.6
The theoretical basis
for chemical aviation came from several sources,7 including in the United
States, where findings were (more or less) public.8 General Amos Fries, the
second head of the US Chemical Warfare Service, had written in a book in 1920
in which he argued that chemical weapons “will be used in the future by the Air
Service, and probably on a large scale.”9 The following year, Army Air Force
General Billy Mitchellk, the United States’ best-known and most
influential proponent of airpower between the wars, had testified before
Congress that “the combination of chemical weapons and aircraft could
effectively ‘kill every inhabitant of New York City.”10 He followed up this
pronouncement with a public display. On September 23, 1923, Mitchell organized
a trial attack against the derelict USS Alabama using white phosphorus bombs.11
In a 1925 article,
“Chemical Air Force Experiences,” which appeared in the Soviet military journal
Voina i Tekhnika, Fishman wrote glowingly of “the
American bombing experiment on the battleship Alabama.”12 He noted that the
Americans had dropped a phosphorus bomb combined with a lachrymatory agent,
noting that “its effect was such that the ‘experts’ could not board the ship
for up to 45 minutes after the bombing of the ship without gas masks.”13 He
concluded his article with the note that “modern chemical weapons provide
tremendous power when fully utilized with effective aviation.”14 Under the
terms of Versailles, the Reichswehr was barred from pursuing chemical weapons
research or manufacturing and allowed only limited facilities for a gas mask
and respiratory equipment production. Its official chemical weapons program in
1925 was very small, comprising three facilities at Spandau, Kummersdorf, and a Gasschutzschule
(poison gas defense school) near Berlin.15 As a result, the Reichswehr relied
upon an underground network of corporate and university partners for banned
research and development.16 At the beginning of 1925, the Waffenamt
organized this network by forming a “Council of Scientific Workers” on chemical
defense.17 This group included senior faculty from five universities, two
government bureaus, and a corporate representative from Auergesellschaft,
a firm specializing in the procurement and production of poisonous chemicals
and radioactive materials.18 When not assisting the German military in illegal
rearmament activities, the unconventional Auer firm became well known as a
purveyor of a radioactive toothpaste called Doramad
guaranteed to make customers’ teeth sparkle. In 1934, the Reich would force
Auer’s Jewish owner to sell the firm to chemical conglomerate Degussa, the
company that later produced their patented Zyklon B pesticide for the gas
chambers of the Holocaust. Auer would use slave labor to procure uranium sheets
for Germany’s atomic bomb program in this new corporate structure.19
In February 1925, as
part of this reorganization of the illegal German chemical weapons program, Seeckt, Stresemann, and Interior Minister Schiele agreed to
an Institut für Gasanalyse
in Germany’s elite technical university, the Technische
Hochschule zu Berlin.20 Its first head was Haber’s
protégé and Council of Scientific Workers member Fritz Wirth, a biology
professor. Ostensibly, Wirth’s work was to focus on civilian defense. With
government funding, he maintained a laboratory where he focused on “degassing
[living] tissue”, treating those who had
been exposed to poisonous agents.21 But other academic teams worked on purely
offensive technologies. One university research laboratory was assigned to
develop a new variant of mustard gas suitable for “spraying purposes” and thus
useful in strategic bombing.22 A third laboratory, managed by the head of the
Pharmacology Department at the University of Würzburg, worked on trying to
synthesize new poison gas agents.23 Despite this network, the Reichswehr still
could not perform essential tests at home. To remedy that deficit, the
Reichswehr sought to relocate its chemical weapons research to the Soviet
Union.
The effort already
underway to do exactly that, the chemical weapons facility at Bersol, was not going well. By 1925, Bersol
produced superphosphates (a fertilizing agent) and small quantities of the
asphyxiating agent phosgene.24 The Soviets had anticipated half a million
shells a year, a figure nowhere near reality. Frustrated by the slow progress
at the facility, Soviet representatives dispatched Vladimir Ipatieff, former
head of their chemical weapons program, back to Bersol.
He reported to Moscow that the plant appeared unsafe and totally unfit for mass
production of chemical agents.25 The Reichswehr began their own investigation
and soon concluded that Stolzenberg had been lying to them about matters at the
plant.26
The other corporate
venture, the aviation plant at Fili, was in even worse shape, temporarily
shutting down production. In the early spring of 1925, Junkers claimed Fili
would either require additional contracts for its financial solvency or be
forced to close.27 Neither the Reichswehr, which had purchased aircraft from
the Fokker Company in the Netherlands, nor the Soviet Air Force was willing to
make additional purchases from Fili. As a result, in March, Junkers AG’s
managing director Gotthard Sachsenberg ordered Fili
to shut down production and reduce staff at Fili by 98 percent, keeping only a
skeleton crew of thirty on-site.28
The failure of Fili
and the struggles of Bersol shifted Soviet-German
cooperation in a new direction. There was clearly a sense of urgency for the
Germans as the corporate ventures fell apart—the entire vision of partnership
with the Soviet Union seemed to be at risk should the existing enterprises collapse
without any substitute form of partnership. As noted, the Soviets had offered
the Reichswehr use of an airbase near Lipetsk in 1924. In 1925, Seeckt decided to move forward with this venture.
For Seeckt, a flight school in Russia was part of his
multidirectional program to rebuild German airpower despite Versailles. At the
end of the First World War, the Reichswehr had attempted to retain at least the
nucleus of a future air force, despite the Versailles ban on aircraft. Seeckt saw that the Reichswehr retained the services, in
one capacity or another, of 200 pilots. Of these, 180 were army aviators, and
20 were naval aviators.29 Quite a few of these officers were assigned to
cavalry units, alongside general staff officers hidden throughout the ranks of
the Reichswehr. As noted, Helmuth Wilberg was assigned to supervise this
network of flyers.
Outside of the
Reichswehr, other measures were taken with an eye toward the revival of a
future German air force. The Reichswehr patronized aerial sports groups as one
means of developing a reserve of pilots.30 These clubs, flying unpowered
gliders, taught the very basics of flight to a new generation of young men. In
addition, Wilberg took advantage of airlines and mail services, arranging
contracts for former pilots with mail and passenger companies in Europe and
South America. In 1925, the Reichswehr’s exploitation of these civil aviation
opportunities remained rudimentary, however.31
In any case, such
measures proved insufficient for Seeckt’s vision.
Almost all the pilots embedded in the Reichswehr were First World War veterans,
already in their thirties or forties. Younger pilots were therefore needed for
a future conflict that might be a decade away. Efforts to expand the glider and
civilian aviation programs in Germany in the 1920s proved too difficult. Future
Luftwaffe General Wilhelm Speidel, who would learn to fly at Lipetsk in 1928,
recalled that the use of civilian airlines quickly became problematic as the
number of officers had made it “increasingly difficult to maintain outward
camouflage. While pilot and observer training could be conducted in Germany,
Speidel noted, “the training of fighter pilots . . . was not possible in
Germany.”32
The other missing
element of the Reichswehr’s secret aviation programs at home was developing new
aircraft prototypes. The Fili enterprise had not resulted in cutting-edge
designs. Given the limitations imposed by Versailles and the continued presence
of IAMCC inspection teams in Germany proper, some other place would have to be
found to test new aircraft prototypes that might serve as the basis for a
renewal of German air power later date. In the minds of senior Reichswehr
personnel, it was critical to preserve the hard-won engineering expertise of
the First World War and find a place to test the new prototypes Wilberg and
Student had commissioned with Arado Alabros,
Messerschmitt, and Heinkel in 1923. The solution was the Soviet-German
partnership to both the challenges of training new pilots and testing new
aircraft.
Seeckt’s interest in expanding the direct partnership was met
with equal enthusiasm from the Red Army, particularly Mikhail Frunze. In
January 1925, Frunze had replaced Trotsky as commissar for military and naval
affairs.33 He added other jobs to his portfolio as Stalin hounded Trotsky out
of his management of the Red Army. In May, Frunze became a candidate member of
the Politburo and then, some six months later, replaced Trotsky as chairman of
the RVs. Throughout the spring and summer of 1925, he demonstrated keen
enthusiasm for working with the Germans, not only seeing them as a model for
his reforms but actively seeking to continue the Junkers AG arrangement at Fili
despite the difficulties that had become apparent.34
Frunze saw an
opportunity at Lipetsk to develop the Soviet military’s own cadres. One of his
central tasks for the Soviet military was to replace Tsarist-era officers of
questionable loyalty with a generation of loyal communists from the working
class. Developing that expertise meant creating a whole new generation of
pilots, mechanics, and engineers. As noted, one Soviet officer had attended
Reichswehr training and maneuvers in 1924.35 Frunze aimed to expand those sorts
of officer exchanges massively in scope, providing opportunities for new,
communist officers to improve their professional military education. He hoped
to develop similar opportunities within the Soviet Union.
In addition, Frunze
wanted to gain direct access to German technology. At this early stage in its
development, the Soviet military in general, and the VVS in particular, largely
depended on reverse-engineering foreign technology. If German prototypes began
arriving at Lipetsk, the Soviets could study them without German consent. The
Reichswehr, initially eager for Lipetsk's opportunities, would agree to allow
the VVS to inspect all technical equipment sent to the airbase. This provision
would become more contentious as Lipetsk would grow into the Reichswehr’s
primary aviation testing ground. It was in this context that in mid-March 1925,
the Reichswehr held a secret conference in Berlin. A small group of German
officers met to draw up a clear program for leasing the Lipetsk Air Base before
a final contract was negotiated with the Soviets. For Lieth-Thomsen, heading
the project, the critical question was whom to hire to supervise the work at
Lipetsk. His criteria were quite specific: “a manager of the old type and a
good flier” who could maximize the Reichswehr’s limited resources.36
Simultaneously, however, to conceal the enterprise's illegal nature,
Lieth-Thomsen wanted a retired officer to run it, thus giving the illusion of
being a private enterprise so as not to contravene Versailles.37 All of the
school’s activities and communications would be subordinated to Lieth-Thomsen’s
office in Moscow, but Lieth-Thomsen intended to leave Lipetsk’s commandant with
considerable autonomy.38
Lieth-Thomsen’s ideal
candidate was Colonel Walter Stahr, an old friend of his former commander of
the Seventh Army’s Air Wing, whom he had invited to the discussion sessions in
Berlin. Lieth-Thomsen described Stahr as “an extraordinarily practical person .
. . who has often made the most of slim resources.”39 Further, Stahr had the
advantage of being (like Lieth-Thomsen) retired, leaving the Reichswehr as a
major in 1922. But Stahr proved hesitant to commit to Lipetsk, in part because
of his young wife and two children. The conditions in Russia in 1925 were still
very inhospitable for foreign residents, both politically and economically.
That year, one German officer had resigned, and another requested to take an
extended leave of absence, both citing the poor living conditions. Stahr
eventually agreed to take over management of the school at Lipetsk for a hefty
salary, paid in US dollars.40
Stahr’s first month
on the job was a busy one; he traveled to Russia to meet with Soviet
counterparts and also began searching for suitable personnel in Germany to
staff the new base.41 In conversations with Stahr, Lieth-Thomsen had described
his ideal flight instructor as a combat veteran not currently in the Reichswehr
who had flown both the Fokker D-XI and XIII fighter aircraft and could teach
“dogfighting, squadron flying, shooting, and theoretical training.”42 In
addition, Lipetsk required the services of a master mechanic, who knew the
latest engine designs and could teach how to build and test them.43 This
officer would have teams of mechanics training under him while at Lipetsk. This
role Stahr and Lieth-Thomsen filled more easily, as Lieth-Thomsen knew an
“excellent mechanic” who had also spent five years in a Russian POW camp and
therefore spoke fluent Russian.44
Lieth-Thomsen also
made it clear to Stahr that he wanted as few German staff present as possible,
given concerns over cost and the terms of Versailles. He told Stahr that the
total staff for the first summer session in 1925 should be only about a dozen “retired”
officers, equipped with eighteen total aircraft for use by both the staff and
the Russians.45 While circumstances had improved, it remained uncertain what
would happen should the British or French intelligence learn about covert
German rearmament plans. After all, the late payments of reparations had led to
the occupation of part of Germany. Secrecy and deniability were key.
With these details
arranged, the Germans presented their program for a flight school at Lipetsk to
Baranov. After some negotiation in Moscow, Lieth-Thomsen and Baranov signed a
protocol establishing a flight school at Lipetsk on April 15, 1925.46 The contract
provided for the immediate lease of the base at Lipetsk Sondergruppe
R to establish a flying school and factory for the testing and modification of
aircraft. As there were almost no buildings on site, the treaty required
establishing a “hangar, workshop, administrative office, storage facilities”
and barracks to be built on-site no later than the end of June 1925, only three
months away.47 According to Speidel, Seeckt himself
oversaw developing a seven-point program for the proposed flight school,
centered on training pilots and testing aircraft.48 The task was to develop the
nucleus of a new German air force.
Part One: Russia, Germany, and Poland Part One
Part Two: Russia,
Germany, and Poland Part Two
Part Three: Russia,
Germany, and Poland Part Three
Part Four: Russia,
Germany, and Poland Part Four
Part
Five: Russia,
Germany, and Poland Part Five
Part Six: Russia, Germany, and Poland Part Six
Part
Seven: Russia, Germany, and Poland Part Seven
Part
Nine: Russia, Germany, and
Poland Part Nine
Part
Ten: Russia, Germany, and
Poland Part Ten
Part Eleven: Russia,
Germany, and Poland Part Eleven
Part Twelve: Russia, Germany, and Poland Part Twelve
Part Thirteen:
Russia, Germany, and Poland Part Thirteen
Part Fourteen:
Russia, Germany, and Poland Part Fourteen
Part Fifteen: Russia, Germany, and Poland Part Fifteen
1. Giulio Douhet, “The War of 19—,” 292–405, in command of The Air,
trans. Dino Ferrari (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program,
1998), 372.
2. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari
(Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Programs, 1998), 6–7.
3. Robert Harris and
Jeremy Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and
Biological Warfare (New York: Random House, 2002), 32.
4. Fishman, “Betrieb: Erscheinungsformen der chemischen Luftwaffe” [Subject: Forms of the Chemical Air
Force], 1925, 1.
5. “Doklad itogakh raboti gostei za 1930 g.” [Report
on the results of work by the guests for 1930, 15 January 1931, RGVA, f. 33988,
op. 3, d. 162, l. 10, 6–7. Whether this is true or not seems uncertain;
Sonderkommando Z noted in a report dated 1924 that “Chemical aviation: since we
have no prior experience in this field, I am unable to nominate a candidate.
But I will get in touch with Stolzenberg.” “Fl.N.Nr.
4” [Flight Report Number 4], 8 August 1924, BA-MA, RH2/2216/311–312, 1–2.
6. Corum, The Roots
of Blitzkrieg, 106.
7. Col. Phillip S.
Meilinger, “Giulio Douhet and the Origins of Airpower
Theory,” in The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory, ed. Col.
Phillip S. Meilinger (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1997),
17.
8. Authors repeatedly
mentioned American experiments in both the German Militär-Wochenblatt
and the Soviet Voina i Tekhnika
in the early 1920s.
9. Amos A. Fries and
Clarence J. West, “The Future of Chemical Warfare,” in Chemical Warfare (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1921), 436.
10. Christopher A. Warren, “GAS, GAS, GAS! The Debate over Chemical Warfare between the World
Wars,” Federal History, 4 (Jan. 2012), 43–60; 55.
11. Fishman, “Betrieb: Erscheinungsformen der chemischen Luftwaffe” [Subject: Forms of the Chemical Air
Force], 1925; Thomas Iain Faith, “Under a Green Sea: The US Chemical Warfare
Services, 1917–1929” (unpubl. diss., George
Washington University, 2008), 119.
12. Fishman, “Betrieb: Erscheinungsformen der chemischen
Luftwaffe,” 2.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Yakov Fishman, “Predsedateliu, Revolutionnogo Voennogo Soveta” [To the Head of
the Revolutionary Military Council], February 1929, RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d.
285, l. 13, (Y-RAP 152), 2.
16. Ibid., 1.
17. Stolzenberg, Fritz Haber, 168.
18. Stolzenberg, Fritz Haber, 168–169. The committee was headed by Reichswehr General Max
Ludwig.
19. Peter Hayes, From
Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), 132–133, 214–215.
20. Zeidler, 124.
21. Fishman, “Predsedateliu, Revolutionnogo Voennogo Soveta,” 2.
22. Ibid.
23. Zeidler, 202.
Many of these researchers were reintegrated into the German military after
Hitler came to power. Professor Neumann of the University of Würzburg joined
the SA in 1934 and the Wehrmacht in 1937. A number of his students would be
commissioned into the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, too. See
Stefanie Kalb, “Wilhelm Neumann (1898–1965)—Leben und Werk unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung seiner Rolle in der Kampfstoff-Forschung” [Wilhelm Neumann
(1898–1965)—Life and Work with a Special Emphasis on His Role in Poison
Gas Research] (unpubl. diss.,
University of Würzburg, 2005).
24. “Politburo—Iz Protokola No. 78” [From
Politburo Protocol Number 78], 13 January 1927, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 4,
l. 45, 1.
25. V. N. Ipatieff,
“Original Manuscript of ‘My Life as a Chemist,’ ” 1946, Ipatieff Collection,
Boxes 1 and 2, Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University (Hereafter
HIA), 608–639.
26. Zeidler, 98.
27. “Das Junkers-Unternehmen in Fili
(Russland) in seiner Entwicklung und seinem Verhältnis zum
Reichswehrministerium bis zum Herbst ’25,” 13 January
1926, 25.
28. Zeidler, 94; Gotthard Sachsenberg, “Brief Zampred RVS SSSR Tov. Frunze” [Letter to the Chairman of the RVS of the
USSR, Comrade Frunze], 13 July 1925, RGVA, f. 4, op. 2, d. 90, l. 148, 1–4,
3–4. 29. “Reichswehrministerium, Nr. 722/20 Stab vom 10.2.1920,” 10 February 1920, RH/2/2280, 175, 1–2. 30. Carsten, The
Reichswehr and Politics, 221–222.
31. Citino, The Path
to Blitzkrieg, 12–13.
32. Speidel, “Reichswehr und Rote Armee,” 21.
33. Kotkin, Stalin:
Paradoxes of Power, 557.
34. Gorlov, 101.
35. That officer,
Goretsky, visited Berlin for three months. “Spisok komandno-nachal’stvuiushchego sostava
RKKA,” June 1938, 45.
36. “Fl. Bericht 27; Schule Lipetsk” [Flight Report Number 27;
School Lipetsk], 12 March 1925, BA-MA, RH/2/2216, 2.
37. Ibid.; “Fl. Bericht Nr. 28” [Flight Report Number 28], 19 March 1925,
BA-MA, RH/2/2216, 1.
38. “Fl. Bericht Nr. 28” [Flight Report Number 28], 19 March 1925,
3.
39. “Fl. Bericht 27; Schule Lipetsk” [Flight Report Number 27;
School Lipetsk], 12 March 1925, 5–7.
40. “Vertrag zwischen Herrn v. d. Lieth und Herrn Stahr” [Contract Agreement between Herr
von der Lieth Thomsen and Herr Stahr], 12 March 1925, BA-MA, RH/2/2216, 1.
41. “Fl. Bericht Nr. 28” [Flight Report Number 28], 19 March 1925,
1.
42. Ibid., 2.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., 2–3.
45. Ibid., 4.
46. “Protokoll über die Vereinbarungen zwischen der Russischen
Luftflotte und dem Vertreter der Sondergruppe in Moskau über Einrichtung einer
Fliegerschule und eines Gerätelager in Lipezk” [Details of the Agreement
between the Russian Air Force and the representatives of the Special Group in
Moscow regarding a flying school and an equipment warehouse in Lipetsk], 15
April 1925, BA-MA, RH2/2214, 2, 1–4. Speidel
believed that the VVS and Reichswehr agreed to a contract for Lipetsk in 1924,
but the contract in the German national archives is dated the following spring.
He might have believed an arrangement had been reached earlier because of the
dispatch of a group of German pilots to Lipetsk the previous summer.
47. “Protokoll, Lipezk” [Agreement,
Lipetsk], 15 April 1925, 1. 48. Speidel, “Reichswehr und Rote Armee,” 25.
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