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Erhard Milch (30 March 1892 – 25 January 1972) was a German general field marshal ('' Generalfeldmarschall'') of
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
heritage who oversaw the development of the German air force (''
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
'') as part of the re-armament of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
following
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. He was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation and
Inspector General An inspector general is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is "inspectors general". Australia The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia) (IGIS) is an independent statutory of ...
of the Air force. During most of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, he was in charge of all aircraft production and supply. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Milch Trial, which was held before a U.S. military court in 1947, and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Milch's sentence was commuted to 15 years in 1951. He was paroled in 1954, and died in 1972.


Descendance and Jewish heritage

Milch was born in
Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsh ...
, the son of Anton Milch, a
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
pharmacist who served in the
Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Wilhel ...
, and Clara, née Vetter. The
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
would later investigate Milch due to his Jewish heritage. Under the
Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of ...
, Milch would have been categorized as mixed race (''mischling''). However, he would not have been considered Jewish according to that religion's
orthodoxy Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Church ...
(or ''
halakha ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...
''), which states that a person’s Jewish status is passed down through the mother. In 1935, rumours began to circulate that Milch's father was a Jew. The
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
began an investigation which was halted by
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
, the commander-in-chief of the ''Luftwaffe'', who produced an affidavit by Milch's mother that his true father was her uncle, Karl Brauer. Milch was then issued with a German Blood Certificate. If true, that would mean that Milch's mother, Clara, committed not only
adultery Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal ...
but also
incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity ( marriage or stepfamily), ado ...
. Author and Holocaust denier David Irving claimed in his book ''The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch'', that Milch asked him not to reveal the truth about his parentage, so although Irving states that Erhard's father was not Anton Milch and concentrates on his wealthy great-uncle Karl Brauer (who died in 1906), he does not actually name Brauer as his father. However, Irving, who claimed to have had access to the Field Marshal's private diary and papers, says the rumours about Milch's parentage began to spread in the autumn of 1933, and that Erhard Milch personally obtained a signed statement by his putative father Anton that he was not the father of Clara's children. Furthermore, Irving claimed that Clara Milch had already written to her son-in-law Fritz Herrmann in March 1933 explaining the circumstances of her marriage, and that Göring had initiated his own investigation that identified his real father. During the Nuremberg trials 1946, Milch was again questioned about his alleged Jewish father and Göring's role in the matter by Chief United States Prosecutor,
Robert H. Jackson Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954. He had previously served as Unit ...
.


World War I and interwar career

Milch enlisted in the German Army in 1910, where he rose to the rank of
lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
and commanded an artillery unit in
East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label= Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
at the beginning of the First World War. He saw action against the Russian Army on the River Deime in September 1914 and later on the Angerapp Line in February 1915. In July 1915, he was transferred to the '' Fliegertruppe'' (Imperial Air Force) and trained as an aerial observer on the Western front, seeing action on the Somme in 1916 (through the period of it becoming the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' in October that year) and later in Flanders during 1917. After a spell as a company commander in the trenches in the spring and summer of 1918, in the waning days of the war, he was promoted to captain and appointed to command a fighter wing, ''Jagdgruppe 6'', even though he had never trained as a pilot and could not fly himself. Milch resigned from the military in 1920 to pursue a career in civil aviation. With squadron colleague Gotthard Sachsenberg, Milch formed a small airline in Danzig under the banner of Lloyd Luftdienst,
Norddeutscher Lloyd Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of ...
s union of regional German airlines. The airline linked Danzig to the
Baltic States The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone ...
. In 1923, Milch became the managing director of its successor company. From there, Milch and Sachsenberg went to work for rival
Junkers Luftverkehr ''Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.'' (from 1933 styled as ''Deutsche Lufthansa'' and also known as ''Luft Hansa'', ''Lufthansa'', or DLH) was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and th ...
, where Milch was appointed a managing director in 1925. In 1926, Milch was named a managing director (one of three) of the newly-formed airline
Deutsche Luft Hansa ''Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.'' (from 1933 styled as ''Deutsche Lufthansa'' and also known as ''Luft Hansa'', ''Lufthansa'', or DLH) was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and t ...
. Milch joined the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
(number 123885) on 1 April 1929, but his membership was not officially acknowledged until March 1933, because Hitler deemed it desirable to keep the fact hidden for political reasons. On 5 May 1933, Milch took up a position as State Secretary of the newly formed Reich Ministry of Aviation (RLM), answering directly to
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
. In this capacity, he was instrumental in establishing the ''
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
'', the air force of Nazi Germany. Milch quickly used his position to settle personal scores with other aviation industry personalities, including
Hugo Junkers Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and ...
and
Willy Messerschmitt Wilhelm Emil "Willy" Messerschmitt (; 26 June 1898 – 15 September 1978) was a German aircraft designer and manufacturer. In 1934, in collaboration with Walter Rethel, he designed the Messerschmitt Bf 109, which became the most important ...
. Specifically, Milch banned Messerschmitt from submitting a design in the competition for a new fighter aircraft for the ''Luftwaffe''. Messerschmitt outmanoeuvred Milch, circumventing the ban and successfully submitting a design. The Messerschmitt-designed ''Bayerische Flugzeugwerke'' corporate entry, the
Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...
, proved to be the winner. Messerschmitt maintained its leading position within the German aircraft industry until the failure of the
Me 210 The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. Design started before the war, as a replacement for the Bf 110. The first examples were ready in 1939, but they proved to have unacceptably poor ...
aircraft. Even after that Milch, as the leader, did not depose him, but put him in an inferior position. In 1935 doubts about the ethnic origin of Erhard Milch began when rumors circulated that his father Anton Milch was Jewish. The Gestapo began an investigation but it was stopped by Göring, who forced Erhard's mother to sign a document that Anton was not the true father of Erhard and his brothers but that it was her uncle Karl Brauer. Those events and the later extension of the "Certificate of German Blood" were the background to Göring's statement, "I decide who is a Jew in the airforce". However, many believe that he was merely quoting Karl Lueger, the former mayor of
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
.


World War II

In a reorganization of 1 February 1939, Milch, now with the rank of '' Generaloberst'', was given the additional job of Inspector-General of the ''Luftwaffe''. After the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Milch commanded '' Luftflotte 5'' during the
Operation Weserübung Operation Weserübung (german: Unternehmen Weserübung , , 9 April – 10 June 1940) was Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. In the early morning of 9 Ap ...
in
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
. Following the defeat of France, Milch was promoted to '' Generalfeldmarschall'' (field marshal) during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony. Following the suicide of ''Generaloberst''
Ernst Udet Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German Reich, German pilot during World War I and a ''Luftwaffe'' Colonel-General (''Generaloberst'') during World War II. Udet joined the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte, Imperial German Ai ...
in November 1941, Milch succeeded him as ''Generalluftzeugmeister'', in charge of all ''Luftwaffe'' aircraft production, armament and supply. In addition, in April 1942 he was named to the Central Planning Board along with
Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, h ...
,
Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production The Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production () was established on March 17, 1940, in Nazi Germany. Its official name before September 2, 1943, was the 'Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition' (). Its task was to improve the sup ...
, and Paul Körner, State Secretary of the
Four Year Plan The Four Year Plan was a series of economic measures initiated by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany in 1936. Hitler placed Hermann Göring in charge of these measures, making him a Reich Plenipotentiary (Reichsbevollmächtigter) whose jurisdiction cut a ...
, in an effort to coordinate control over all industrial war production. Milch cancelled production of the ineffective and dangerous
Me 210 The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. Design started before the war, as a replacement for the Bf 110. The first examples were ready in 1939, but they proved to have unacceptably poor ...
and He 177 and put them back in development. Under his direction, aircraft production focused on mass production of the tested and tried models. Production levels doubled in the summer of 1943 in comparison with the winter of 1941–1942. Adam Tooze comments: "For the first time, the German aircraft industry was able to achieve substantial economies of scale. The resources pumped into the Luftwaffe in 1940–41 were now concentrated in mass assembly." To achieve this level of mass production, the Armaments Ministries and the industry cooperated with the SS to procure labour from the concentration camps. Due to Milch's connections with the SS, the ''Luftwaffe'' had an advantage in obtaining slave labour. In order to increase the quantity, Milch also made some sacrifices in quality, notable in the case of the
Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...
. When the US Air Force began to directly challenge the fighter forces of the ''Luftwaffe'', the cost of Milch's decisions was shown. In particular, the handling of the Bf 109 G was so bad that they became, in the words of Tooze, "little more than death traps". On 10 August 1943, Milch finally addressed Germany's lack of a truly "four-engined"
heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range ( takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the larg ...
to carry out raids against Great Britain. He endorsed
Arado Flugzeugwerke Arado Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturer, originally established as the Warnemünde factory of the Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen firm, that produced land-based military aircraft and seaplanes during the First and Second World Wars. Hi ...
to be the subcontractor for the Heinkel He 177B separately engined heavy bomber design. Only three flyable prototypes were completed by early 1944. From March 1944, Milch, together with Speer, oversaw the activities of the '' Jägerstab'' ("Fighter Staff"), a governmental task force whose aim was to increase the production of
fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...
, in part by moving the production facilities underground. In cooperation with the SS, the task force played a key role in the exploitation of
slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to per ...
for the benefit of the German aircraft industry and the
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
. When the agitation among the legions of foreign workers in his factories threatened production, Milch was able to refer to his association with Himmler:
I spoke to Himmler recently about this, and told him his main task must be to see to the protection of German industry if unrest breaks out among this foreign scum. If, for instance, there is a mutiny at X, an officer with a couple of men, or a lieutenant with thirty troops, must appear in the factory and let fly with their machine-guns into the mob. The object is to lay out as many people as possible, if mutinies break out. This is the order I have issued, even if the people are our own foreign workers. Every tenth man is to be picked out, and every tenth man will be shot in front of the rest.
In 1944 Milch sided with
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...
, the propaganda minister and
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
, the ''
Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...
'', in attempting to convince
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
to remove Göring from command of the ''Luftwaffe''. When Hitler refused, Göring retaliated by forcing Milch out of his positions as State Secretary and ''Generalluftzeugmeister'' on 20 June 1944, and as ''Luftwaffe'' Inspector General in January 1945. From August 1944, he worked under Speer in the ''
Rüstungsstab ''Rüstungsstab'' (Armament Staff) was a Nazi German governmental task force whose aim was to increase production of military equipment and munitions during the final year of World War II. Established in August 1944 on the basis of the '' Jägers ...
'' (Armaments Staff) but was sidelined and achieved little. He was injured in a car accident in the fall of 1944 and hospitalized for several weeks. Finally placed into the '' Führerreserve'' in March 1945, he was not reassigned. Following Hitler’s suicide, Milch attempted to flee Germany, but was apprehended by Allied forces on the Baltic coast on 4 May 1945. On surrendering, he presented his field-marshals' baton to British Brigadier
Derek Mills-Roberts Brigadier (United Kingdom), Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, (23 November 1908 – 1 October 1980) was a British commando who fought with the 1st Special Service Brigade during the Second World War. In a quirk of military history, he became the ...
, who was so disgusted and angered by the atrocities he had seen when liberating the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentra ...
that he demanded to know Milch's thoughts on the terrible sights witnessed. Milch's reply (in English) was supposedly along the lines of - "''these people are not human beings in the same way as you and me''". This so infuriated Mills-Roberts that he seized the Field Marshal's baton from under Milch's arm and proceeded to brutally beat Milch with it over the head until it broke, afterwards switching to a champagne bottle. The following day, Mills-Roberts went to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to apologise for losing his temper with a senior German POW, only for Montgomery to cover his head with his hands in mock self-protection and joke "''I hear you've got a thing about Field Marshals''", with nothing more said regarding Mills-Roberts' indiscretion. The incident left Milch with several contusions and a fractured skull.


Trial and conviction at Nuremberg

Milch was intended by the Allies to be a witness for the prosecution at Nuremberg. However, seeing the conditions the defendants were being subjected to he changed his mind and refused to cooperate. He was then tried as a war criminal in 1947 by a United States Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. He was convicted on two counts: # War crimes, by participating in the ill-treatment and use of the forced labour of
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...
(POWs) and the deportation of civilians to the same ends. #
Crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
, by participating in the murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment,
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
, and the use of
slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to per ...
of civilians who came under German control, German nationals and prisoners of war. Milch was sentenced to
life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
. Unlike the vast majority of other Nazi war criminals who were tried under U.S. military law, Milch was not immediately sent to Landsberg Prison to serve his sentence. He was instead sent to Rebdorf Prison, near
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
, but was eventually transferred to Landsberg. Milch's sentence was commuted to 15 years imprisonment in 1951, and he was paroled in June 1954. He lived out the remainder of his life in
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
, where he died in 1972 as the last living ''Luftwaffe'' field marshal.


Awards

*
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (german: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes), or simply the Knight's Cross (), and its variants, were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. The Knight' ...
on 4 May 1940 as '' Generaloberst'' and chief of Luftflotte 5 and ''Befehlshaber Nord'' (commander-in-chief north). * Grand Cross with Swords of the Order of the White Rose of Finland on 30 March 1942 as '' Generalfeldmarschall''.


References

Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * *


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Milch, Erhard 1892 births 1972 deaths People from Wilhelmshaven German Army personnel of World War I Luftwaffe World War II field marshals Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals People from the Province of Hanover German people convicted of crimes against humanity German prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States military Recipients of the clasp to the Iron Cross, 1st class Recipients of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece) Grand Officers of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure 20th-century Freikorps personnel German people of Jewish descent Luftwaffe personnel convicted of war crimes Lufthansa people Military personnel from Lower Saxony Luftstreitkräfte personnel