The day and night air battles over Germany during the war involved thousands of aircraft, units and aerial engagements to counter the Allies bombing campaigns.

The Oil campaign of World War II led to chronic fuel shortages, severe curtailment of flying training and accelerated deterioration in pilot quality, eroding the Luftwaffe's fighting capacity in the last months.

[18] The intensification of night bombing by the RAF and daylight attacks by the USAAF added to the destruction of a major part of German industries and cities, which caused the Nazi economy to collapse in the winter of 1944–45.

German strategy, termed the cult of the offensive, worked in 1939–41, but when faced with a war of attrition, the growing power of its enemies, its forces spread thinly over four fronts, the failure to develop defensive doctrines, tactics and plans led to defeat.

[28] Most Luftwaffe leaders were born well before the First World War and the army preferred officer candidates from the Real Gymnasien high school, that emphasized sciences and modern languages.

However, because of the social and political situation, they looked for candidates from the Humanistische Gymnasien, a high school enrolled with sons of families of the higher classes, of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and which stood against the egalitarian and democratic ideas of the lower, more technical-minded worker and craftsmen.

[37] This doctrine was also a result of the then C-in-C Bomber Command, Air Marshal Charles Portal's conviction that attacking German morale would be a key method of forcing capitulation.

[47] Although Kammhuber was skeptical about radar, he established Kombinierte Nachtjagdgebiete ("combined night fighting zones") around prime targets in which fighters cooperated with Würzburg sets supported by AAA.

[52] The difficulties of the Luftwaffe to protect Berlin from a series of small-scale raids made by RAF Bomber Command during the Battle of Britain led to the construction of a solid air defence programmes.

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring ordered General-Leutnant (lieutenant general) Hubert Weise, who had commanded the I Flak Corps with distinction during the Battle of France, to form Luftgaukommando III on 27 September 1940.

The Germans possessed large numbers of AAA batteries, of good quality and varying calibers supported by searchlights, sound detectors and visual ranging apparatus.

[61] Fully half of the Luftwaffe was assigned to the Eastern Front and its most powerful air command, Luftflotte 4, supported Case (operation) Blue, the Army's drive towards the Stalingrad and into the Caucasus.

[23] This was correct, but at that time the lack of any mass attacks by the USAAF units arriving in Europe and the failure of RAF bombing in daylight meant few senior commanders were concerned with this development.

[38] American air intelligence believed attacks against economic targets, such as electric and industrial power could achieve the results sought by the RAF, without resorting to what it considered "indiscriminate civilian bombing".

Hitler had repeatedly refused to accept reports from the German military attaché in Washington suggesting that the United States war industry was gearing up and able to produce thousands of first-rate aircraft.

A front line experience report of the Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte covering the last quarter of 1941 contained a myriad of complaints, including inadequate early-warning and direction-finding radar, lack of Zerstörer (destroyer, heavy fighter) aircraft with all weather capabilities, and the poor rate of climb of the Bf 109.

The high-altitude Focke-Wulf Ta 152, the twin-DB 603 engined centre-line thrust Dornier Do 335 as a potential Zerstörer capable of top speeds just beyond that of the fastest marks of the Mustang, and the Me 262, the world's first frontline jet fighter, were delayed for various reasons.

[111] "By early 1944," writes Richard Overy, "the German fighter force was obtaining an average net gain every month of only twenty-six new pilots", reducing the Luftwaffe to "a brittle shield".

The German Observer Corps was essential to this move initially until the introduction of the Wassermann and Mammuth long-range radar in large quantities and plotting became centralized and simplified.

[99] The British refused to believe tracking H2S transmissions was possible, despite Ultra reports identifying these new radar systems and calculating that they were responsible for 210 of the 494 bombers (42 per cent) lost over Germany from January to February 1944.

[133] Field Marshal Milch, in charge of German aircraft production recalled: During June/July [1943], however, the heavy raids – mainly American, but also English – started, which had as their chief target the air-frame industry.

"[135] Mounting evidence from a variety of intelligence sources and observation of ground movements indicated that the Germans were suffering desperate local shortages, prompting Allied air forces to intensify their attacks on oil trains and storage dumps near the front lines.

Whenever their warning system indicated the approach of air fleets over Yugoslavia toward Romania, the Germans would use the 40 minutes available to them before the attack to light hundreds of smoke pots around the Ploesti fields, with the result that most of the area would be concealed by the time the bombers arrived.

[161] RAF Bomber Command struck at synthetic targets in the Ruhr districts until November 1944, when the Combined Chiefs of Staff concluded that the oil plants had been reduced to the extent that further attacks were wasteful.

[162] The crippling of Germany's warning system in the west as a result of the Allied victory in France and the increased efficiency of blind-bombing techniques made such RAF missions possible and they proved generally successful.

Germany's oil production for November was estimated at 31 per cent of the monthly average in the preceding spring, with most of the supply coming from the benzol plants, which had not been regarded as worth attacking until the autumn.

Speer went on to say that on three occasions, a relatively small number of bombing raids (on ball bearings and on the dams in 1943 and on oil and transport in 1944–1945) nearly collapsed the German war machine.

[164] Intercepted German intelligence from 1943 to 1945 made clear that the American destruction of oil and transportation facilities had a vastly greater impact on the fighting ability of the Wehrmacht than British area bombing operations.

[146] The campaign caused huge shortfalls in fuel production and contributed to the impotence of the Luftwaffe in the last 10 months of the war, and the inability of the German Army to conduct counter offensives.

In the winter of 1944–1945, the German state was carved into "isolated economic regions" living off stocks while military production was to be moved under ground into caves, salt mines and underground factories manned by slave labourers.