Nicholas Von Bilow was by Hitler's side, sa military secretrary of the Air Force, from 1937 until his last days in a bunker in Berlin in 1945. He was a witness to all the upheavals that Hitler went through and one of the last to see him alive. He began his career as a twenty-nine-year-old pilot, who was recommended for the job by Goering. He was with Hitler at every stage of the planning and occurrence of World War II. His diary is a first-rate source of information. Von Bilow was close to Hitler day and night, along with his other two military secretaries, the Army and Navy and the limited office staff. His diary describes all the events from Hitler's point of view. He states that Hitler headed the hierarchy of command so rigidly that the Nazi state was Hitler and Hitler was the Nazi state.
It can be understood from the diary, published as a book, that the development of military aviation was a major priority for Hitler. He acted during the war on the assumption that the German Air Force would be the force that would win it. This was reflected in the campaigns on all fronts, which were always conducted on the notion that a new Nazi plane would tilt the face of the battle, similar to what happened in the First World War. Thus, for example, the battle for Britain began immediately after the medium-speed bomber Yonkers-88, whose development was completed on the eve of the war, reached in a sufficiently large numbers for the squadrons. Similarly, the Messerschmidt 109 and the Shtoka were aircraft that gave Germany a sense of air superiority and led to the decision to open World War II.
Poland had excellent pilots and a very large air force. But the German planes were of a more advanced generation and easily defeated the Polish Air Force. The Polish pilots who fled to Britain set up squadrons with Spitfire planes, which were of better quality than the Germans. Thanks to their daring and skill they won the battle over Britain.
The sense of air superiority was created among decision-makers and the general public by an extensive discourse on the set of concepts involved in the ever-expanding aviation world, which undermined the peaceful agenda. The discourse included justification for the aggression against anyone according to Nietzsche's Superman philosophy. The sense of superiority permeated all levels. It undermined Hitler's uniqueness and gave him a personal reason to go to war, in addition to the ongoing threat of air strikes by Germany's enemies, which were also surprisingly intensifing.
Von Bilow gives an in-depth description of the motives for the invasions of Poland, France, Russia and the rest of Europe. He describes how Hitler reacted to the US joining the war against him and in particular to aerial bombardment. His point of view is clearly pro-Nazi in the early stages of the war and in particular regarding the invasion of Poland, which he describes as a result of the Poles' harassment of the German minority in the Danzig enclave. His enthusiasm continues with the invasions of Norway, the Low Countries, France, the Balkans and North Africa. The invasions are described by him with satisfaction as a military man, as military successes whose very success justifies them. His enthusiasm waned towards the invasion of the Soviet Union and from that passage in the diary he became increasingly skeptical about Hitler and increasingly depressed about the fate of the war and Germany.
Von Bilow's testimony is crucial for describing Hitler's motives in the second phase of the war, when it was clear to him that the order of forces and the course of the war guaranteed a decisive victory to the Allies and a crushing defeat of Germany. He explains and describes in details how Hitler put his trust in the development of the jet fighter.
The phrase that prevailed in Hitler's command circle in 1944 was: "The key word is airplanes." The concept of "airplanes" became a medium and a message, similar to the other key concepts of the Nazis, which advocated abbreviated semantics. The Nazis wanted to catch up with the 1940 backlog, in which Hitler made the decisions to give priority to resources to ground forces ahead of the invasion of Russia.
In 1944 Germany was constantly bombed from the air by bombers and Hitler was mainly concerned with air defense. There was an urgent need for a fast interceptor to stop the bombers. At the same time Hitler predicted the imminent Allied invasion of Germany. He therefore ordered the re-development of the revolutionary jet interceptor M-262, a light and agile aircraft, which was the first jet fighter in the world and the top product of the Nazi aviation industry. This instruction critically delayed the production of the aircraft, as significant changes had to be made in its design in order for it to be able to carry heavy bombs under its wings. On June 6, 1944, when Hitler was mainly focused on the technical problems that arose in the plane, which began to enter the battle in large numbers, Allied forces invaded Normandy and began to advance mile after mile towards Germany. The M-262 was ineffective in assisting ground forces. The design changes made to it greatly reduced its capabilities in air battles as well.
Hitler was very fond of Von Bilow, who appreciated him and became his young friend. There is no doubt that the friendship made Hitler invest more in aviation. Von Bilow was closer to Hitler than anyone else during the war, except for Martin Bormann, his personal secretary. He was much closer than Albert Sapir, who had rarely met with Hitler, and Goering, who had hardly seen Hitler since the outbreak of the war.
Von Bilow writes that he was impressed by Hitler's personality, and by his power to make the right decisions, often contrary to the opinion of experts. He was portrayed as a determined man, with normal and healthy impulses, who overcame his passions out of devotion to purpose. Hitler also became his family friend, an uncle to his children. In the same breath he confirms that the decision to exterminate the Jews was at the heart of Hitler's plans. It was not a spontaneous decision. It had existed in him in one version or another since the beginning of his reign.
That is why Hitler's personality is the main explanation for the Holocaust. He claimed to be the "ideological man" type, with Icarus and Napoleon complexes, who by the power of leaning on ideology, reinvented himself. The charcter, similar to that of members of fundamentalist terrorist organizations, permeated his commands at all levels. Every terrorist is a privately likable person, but what makes him meaningful is the rigid ideology.
One of the consequences of ideological rigidity versus private kindness was that in the Nazi regime, fickleness was a major character trait. Hitler excelled at it while writing "Mein Kampf" as a mixture of black and white, clean and dirty, and it became his "trademark". This fickleness permeated all levels of command and society and allowed for double personal morality. Von-Bilow had to be a "little head" in one area, and a "big head" in another, without admitting to himself the internal contradiction. He identified himself with the success and stayed away from failure, as long as it served him. It was a personal complexity similar to that of Udin, the senior god in Norse mythology, in whom wisdom and madness resided.
Plans to exterminate the Jews can be compared to the military development of airplanes, which is cleary an area of start-ups. Initially these were projects on paper, which received experimental budgets and some of them progressed in this way further. A few of them ended up being used in the war. If they entered the battle and succeeded, they gained momentum and created a change in the balance of power. They have become a self-fulfilling prophecy and created a new strategic reality, which has given them many additional budgets and inspiration for supportive activities from other sectors. What seems, in retrospect, to be an elaborate mechanism,was actually created step by step, in a systematic but fickle process of trial and error.
Air force failures, which have caused severe political defeats, are a widespread phenomenon in 20th century history. The decisive air confrontations take place for a few hours or days, but it takes many years and huge capital to build a serious air force. This is at a time when there is no definite information about the strength of the enemy. The gap between victory and failure is often the result of a tiny technological advantage. Air intelligence is crucial for the existence of any country.
