General der Flieger Helmut Wilberg: How a man of Jewish descent co-created the Blitzkreig

Helmut Wilberg was born on June 1, 1880 in Berlin to a Jewish mother and a Christian father. He became one of the most distinguished airmen of WWI earning the Knight’s Cross with Swords of the Royal House of Hohenzollern (somewhat equivalent of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor), the Iron Crosses First and Second Class (roughly the equivalent of the Silver and Bronze Stars) and the German Flyer’s Badge.

Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria, when still a crown princess, had taken a liking to the Wilberg family during the 1890s. As a result, when Wilberg finished his Abitur (prep-school diploma) at a classical Gymnasium in 1898, she fulfilled his wish to join the army and he started training with the 80th Infantry Regiment.

Despite having a Jewish mother and flat feet, Wilberg was accepted by the officer’s academy where he performed well. Later, he received a special assignment as military tutor of the relatives of the Kaiser, a position usually given only to officers of high academic standing. In 1910, he earned acceptance to enter the General Staff Academy, a high honor and rare opportunity for any officer. He had to take competitive exams lasting several days and score higher than the vast majority of applicants. This was the equivalent of attending Harvard or Yale University in today’s world; the entrance exam was extremely rigorous and very few were accepted.

In 1910, he became one of the first pilots in Germany and earned Imperial pilot’s license Number 26 training on the Wright B Flyer. This was dangerous, and many pilots lost their lives during that time. Before the outbreak of war in 1914, he served in the Army’s Aviation Inspectorate.

On completing the General Staff Course in 1913, he became the adjutant of the aviation branch. This important position brought him into contact with central figures like Lt. Colonel and Inspekteur der Fliegertruppe Wilhelm Siegert who built up German aviation. A disproportionately small number of the elite members of the General Staff opted for aviation at this time. Wilberg was one of the few German officers who recognized aviation as key to successful operations in the long run.

Wilberg was less antagonistic in his approach than Mitchell, but the fact that in 1910 Wilberg had picked aviation for his military occupational specialty would have been viewed by most of his contemporaries as an exciting opportunity, but one that did not lead to high rank. He, on the other hand, viewed himself as a pioneer in one of the most important branches of the modern military.

Adolf Hitler’s personal chief pilot and fighter ace Hans Baur served under Wilberg during WWI and described him as the leading air theorist of the German military. What is important to note here is that Wilberg was building up the air force as an effective organization of close air support using planes in mass attacks. According to historian James Corum, the “Germans were a lot better at close air support in World War I than the Allies.” They used combined arms in mass and at the appropriate times when, according to Corum, “it could have operational effect.” They designed their planes for the mission at hand syncing their factories with their operational doctrine.

As a result, Wilberg was one of the pioneers of “ground support tactics” who laid the foundation for the strategy later known as Blitzkrieg being the first air commander in WWI to employ specialized squadrons for ground assaults as seen with his skillful handling of the air war at the battle of Flanders in 1917, where he commanded sometimes more than 700 planes, one of the high points of German airpower during the Great War. He strongly emphasized the use of radios in airplanes to coordinate strikes with the infantry, an ingenious use of this technology at this time. He commanded the air units that supported the First and Fourth armies. From 1917-18, he sometimes commanded more than seventy squadrons. He gained valuable experience in aerial strategy and became one of the most successful air commanders. He was one of the leading experts on ground attack tactics. Due to these responsibilities, he was one of the senior officers of the Luftstreitkr?fte (air service in WWI).

Wilberg was a serious airpower thinker during the interwar period and widely respected in the aviation field, especially later pushing the jet fighter program and the night fighter squadrons. Historian James Corum argues that “Wilberg did a brilliant job at building up a shadow Luftwaffe and G?ring had a firm foundation when he became air minister in 1933.”

Ironically, it took Wilberg two decades to indoctrinate and train his air force in the ideas and lessons he drew from his WWI experiences. He was changing how one should deploy planes from how they were used in WWI by shifting the focus from using planes for dogfights and strafing runs to using bombs, machine guns and mass waves of planes at the Schwerpunkt (critical point) of battle where they were needed most. Only this would create what the world would term Blitzkrieg in giving the ground forces a critical advantage in dissolving enemy forces at the point where German troops had massed their attack.

Wilberg and the Third Reich

Though Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933, Wilberg entered the Air Force Ministry as a major general indicating that having a Jewish mother, if known at the time, was not yet a disqualification or a death sentence. There were numerous Jews and men of Jewish descent serving in the German armed forces when Hitler seized power. Wilberg did not regard himself as a Jew, a non-Aryan or a Mischling (partial-Jew), which, still in 1933, he defined as the biracial offspring of a black person and a Spaniard (sometimes referred to as Mestizos).

The Nazi racial ideology was based on a pseudo-scientific theory of superior and inferior races who would battle for world supremacy. Protestant, Catholic or atheist convictions or affiliations of any person or their parents were irrelevant. Consequently, to Wilberg’s great surprise in 1935, the Nazi Nuremberg racial laws officially labeled him a “Mischling of the First Degree” or “half-Jew” because of his Jewish mother (the Nazis considered Judaism a race as opposed to a religion). But he continued his duties.

Later that year Hitler granted Wilberg “100% Aryan status” thus magically transforming his race under German law. Unwilling to delegate the life or death decision even when crucial evaluations were being made about the war, Hitler personally reviewed thousands of thick petitions for Aryanization prepared by attorneys throughout his rule, many from servicemen. He granted few. SS-Obergruppenführer and Chief of Himmler’s personal staff Karl Wolff stated: “Wilberg, like Milch was accepted despite his Jewish background because of his genius...”

           Wilberg may have experienced a lot of mental anguish during that time. His son Joachim claimed that all his father wanted was to forget his Jewish past. Moreover, he would make fun of Hitler with the family calling out his hypocrisy saying if Hitler wanted Aryans so badly for Germany, then the Fūhrer himself should leave Deutschland because he was only 5’8”, had dark hair and was not muscular—all anti-Aryan traits. However, if Wilberg indeed felt that others would ignore or forget his non-Aryan trait of having a Jewish mother, then he was sorely mistaken. If he truly wanted to forget his Jewish ancestry, he we deluding himself. That was simply not an option in Nazi Germany. In 1934 Wilberg had written in his diary that he had little hope for mankind and, without ever specifically referring to his own situation, repeatedly discussed the Jewish problem in Germany. Wilberg’s son believed that G?ring was responsible for his father’s special exemption granted by Hitler which historian James Corum and Wolff confirm. Corum wrote that G?ring personally took Wilberg’s case to Hitler and obtained a signed order from him to “Aryanize” Wilberg. According to Corum, “G?ring was not about to lose the services of a talented officer no matter how ardent the Luftwaffe’s official commitment was to the ideology of National Socialism.”

When the Luftwaffe was officially formed in 1935, Wilberg coordinated many experienced officers in the writing of the “Conduct of Air Operations” manual which served as the Luftwaffe’s “primary expression of battle doctrine” into WWII. He had started work on this doctrine in 1934, when he was given command of the Air Ministry. One might be tempted to state that he was the author of this text, but what is more appropriate to say is that he was the overseeing editor, and this doctrine grew out of the 1926 directives he issued as leader of the secret Reichswehr Luftwaffe. The “Conduct of Air Operations” also known as Regulation 16 laid out six missions of the Luftwaffe: Some of which were to maintain air superiority, support ground troops, support the navy, disrupt enemy communication and supply, attack sources of enemy power and destroy the enemy’s governmental centers. According to Corum, this doctrine “expressed Wilberg’s balanced approach to air doctrine.”

Wilberg’s Troubles with the Nazis

Even with all these accomplishments, Hitler dismissed Wilberg in March 1938. According to Wilberg’s son, it was because he was a “half-Jew.” According to Wolff, the pressure came from SS-General Reinhard Heydrich personally, one of the most ruthless men of the Third Reich. Possibly, Wilberg’s ancestry started to become more widely known within the Nazi elite circles forcing Hitler’s hand in enforcing his chaotic and illogical racial policies. Moreover, Wilberg was discharged in connection with the Blomberg-Fritsch affair when Hitler got rid of several generals he did not particularly like. Wilberg actually supported General Werner von Blomberg and felt he had been wronged. When Wilberg was removed, Chief of the German General Staff General Ludwig Beck lamented, “The day they removed Wilberg they killed the Luftwaffe.” Beck was being hyperbolic here, but it was telling that one of the fathers of the Luftwaffe and the originators of Blitzkrieg was treated with such disrespect simply due to his ancestry and not due to his merits or lack thereof, showing how illogical the Nazi Reich in general was when it came to military leadership and racial and political policy. Hitler purged his forces in 1938 of the “old guard” who he considered less supportive of the Nazi Reich, and Beck and Wilberg were in this category.

Yet, when Hitler was about to start another conflict, he recalled Wilberg to the Luftwaffe as its chief of training right before the invasion of Poland. Hitler knew he could depend on Wilberg even after having dismissed him. Wilberg, although upset by Hitler’s fickle handling of his service and person, was willing to once again put on the Wehrmacht uniform and prepare for war. He felt a deep obligation to his fellow officers and men, and believed his service could help save the lives of his countrymen and win wars.

In June 1939, Wilberg had breakfast with Hitler and other dignitaries and military personalities. Although he had been critical of the Nazis, he did not display such views in a letter he wrote to a close friend after this meeting. He described how freely the Führer discussed and developed his ideas in this small group. In September 1940, Wilberg was promoted to General der Flieger (General of the Aviators), a three-star general.

Without Wilberg, the Wehrmacht might not have performed as well as it did from 1939 to 1941 invading Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, North Africa and the Soviet Union. Many in the air force considered him the “natural commander of the Luftwaffe.” General Jaenecke noted that “Wilberg, owing to his abilities and career, was the obvious choice to command the Luftwaffe, a position given... to G?ring because of party politics. He was tall, good-looking, gifted and an officer who was a pleasure to work for, but, unfortunately, he was a 50% Jew.”

Jaenecke said that no one would see that Wilberg was “Jewish” in any way referring to his German “looks” and “behavior.” That is not surprising, because the Jew of Nazi propaganda was not representative of German Jews, but a grotesque caricature often showing a short, fat, swarthy, bugged-eyed, big-nosed and unkempt figure. The exemption General Wilberg received from Hitler also allowed his two children to officially describe themselves as “Aryans.” But according to Jaenecke, although Hitler did not object to meeting with Wilberg throughout most of the 1930’s, by the latter part of this decade, he now refused to allow Wilberg in his presence to seek advice on military matters even after he had Aryanized him due to his ancestry (as the war progressed, Hitler’s anti-Semitism continued to grow in its extremism). As a result, Jaenecke, the chief of Wilberg’s staff, often had to attend meetings with Hitler in place of his boss. So perhaps Hitler did not really believe in his power to “Aryanize” someone.

Wilberg was an apolitical career soldier who clearly did not like the Nazis. According to Baur, he also stressed to junior officers under his wing that “…politics was the business of the mentally challenged, or unscrupulously ambitious, and nothing for an officer to be involved with.” Nonetheless, even though he disliked the Nazis, Wilberg remained loyal to the Luftwaffe and did not question the political leadership until his death in a flying accident in bad weather outside Dresden on November 20, 1941. Shortly after takeoff, the wings on his aircraft iced over and the plane plummeted to the earth.

Wilberg’s tragedy was that the nation whose military he so ably served was controlled by Hitler. His hope had been that Hitler’s star would soon fall, and that Germany would come under honorable leadership, which, when looking at the Weimar Republic and the numerous power struggles and different governments, was not an unrealistic expectation. He loved his Germany and the German armed forces. To maintain his code of conduct, he felt he had to serve Hitler regardless of the unjustness of the Nazi cause and the immoral and often sadistic means they employed. Unlike Field Marshal Milch, who admired Hitler, Wilberg hated the Austrian corporal turned dictator.

Yet, Wilberg not only failed to act against the regime because of his upbringing and code of conduct, he was a key enabler of it. That was not only a tragedy for Wilberg, but for thousands of other German officers and enlisted men when looking through the glass of their proud military traditions. That they were unable or unwilling to remove Hitler and prevent the genocide of millions of innocent people, the misery and deaths of tens of millions of others, and the aggression leading to the utter destruction of Germany, which illustrates how their upbringing and training prevented them from seeing the horror all around them and acting to stop it.

To learn more about the shocking true story of Wilberg and other Nazi officers of Jewish descent, see my book “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers.” https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Jewish-Soldiers-Descent-Military/dp/0700613587/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=hitlers+jewish+soldiers&link_code=qs&qid=1595345717&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-2&tag=mozilla-20