In July 1940 he was placed in command of coordinating flak, searchlight and radar units at Luftwaffe's General Staff.

[citation needed] He organised the night fighting units into a chain known to the British as the Kammhuber Line, which was a series of radar stations with overlapping coverage.

Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers flying into Germany or France would have to cross the line at some point and the radar would direct a searchlight to illuminate the aircraft.

Once this had happened, other manually controlled searchlights would also pick up the aeroplane and the night fighter would be directed to intercept the illuminated bomber.

To aid in this, a number of the night fighters were fitted with a short-range infrared device known as 'Spanner anlage' but these proved almost useless in practice.

De Havilland Mosquito bombers had dropped target marker flares over Berlin and most of the night fighter force was sent there.

However, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190s being flown by the Wilde Sau forces were able to reach them, and about 30 planes entered the third and last wave of the stream and shot down 29 of the 40 Avro Lancaster bombers lost on that raid.

[5] Zahme Sau envisioned freeing the night fighters (now equipped with radar for the final stages of the interception) from the Himmelbett cells and allowing them to attack on their own.

This was not all that easy, given the capabilities of the current generation of radars, but newer systems being developed would greatly increase the detection range and angles.

In this role the existing cells created as part of the original Kammhuber Line would be used primarily for early warning and vectoring the planes to the stream.

[6] At the same time Kammhuber continued to press for a new dedicated nightfighter design, eventually selecting the Heinkel He 219 Uhu after seeing it demonstrated in 1942.

In 1945 Kammhuber was re-appointed to command of the night fighters, at this point a largely ceremonial position considering the state of the Third Reich at that time.

[citation needed] After Germany's capitulation in May 1945, Kammhuber was held by the United States, but he was released in April 1948 without charges being brought against him.