Misinformation, even today, about the WW II History (revised 26 / 06 / 2020)

Always the war is a powerful leverage used by countries to fulfill their political needs. 

This induce a well known connection between war and propaganda. 

Indeed, the propaganda was used to an an extraordinary high level during all the WWII (and, may be, ever during the present days).... 

In this way, the German propaganda was strong and used a lot of different channels to reach its goals (while the French one was completely useless). 

The true Hitler's goals

The Hitler’s goals were to transform the North Europa in a huge German land. 

For that purpose, the Führer needed the alliance of the South Europa (Spain and Italy) and the neutrality of the United Kingdom.

Hitler must also absolutely delete France for three reasons : 

• this nation was a potential and powerful military threat behind him if he attack the Est side of Europa ; 

• since the 18^th century, France had developed and exported a lot of concepts which are absolutely deadly for all politics based on inequality between people (concepts obviously contradictory to the own French colonization policy...) ; 

• France had a real love for the Democracy, even the actual 3^rd Republic was very "special" on this point of view (the women were excluded from votes). 

So, a simple military victory against France was insufficient for Adlof Hitler. 

He need a moral annihilation of this nation.

Among the means used, the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty in 1939 introduced, in France, a division between communists and other workers leading to many strikes, incidents and, likely, sabotages. 

Depriving the geographical unity of the country by the annexion of Alsace was running the same way. 

This was not sufficient for Hitler.

The French people must be humiliated mainly in his military self respect. 

To reach that goal, he used the Blitzkrieg, focusing its own offensive to the maneuvers of two experts on the subject: Guderian and Rommel. 

These two generals jostled the French Staff (may be the oldest one in the world, thoroughly cleared - by the IIIrd Republic politicians - from any general able to renew the French military methods). 

The idea was to break the front before the French troops can understand what happened to them. 

The exceptional quickness of the operation provoked some panics and the completion of the psychological maneuver was obtained when “neutral journalists” (see W. Shirer: Berlin Diary) were used to testify that “French soldiers does not fight at all”. 

The reality was a bit different. 

The fights

French soldiers fought fiercely, as during the Stonne battle where the German Gross Deutschland elite division (= special forces) and the 1^st Panzerdivizion clashed from May 15 to May 25 with total losses of 26,500 casualties among them 3,000 KIA, three times more than the French losses in the same battle, as also during the Hannut tanks battle, as also the Abbeville offensive of De Gaulle, who induced real panics in the German troops. 

The great success of the Dunkirk evacuation was build on the sacrifice of the French soldiers (11,000 KIA + 34,000 POW) who hold quite alone the perimeter from May 25 to June 4 against the strongest part of the Wehrmacht (which suffered from 20,000 casualties).

In the air, the German propaganda was as efficient than everywhere. 

The German losses? Largely underestimated from 1939 to 1941 

The best example is given in his book Famous Fighters of the Second World War by William Green (p. 11, vol. 1, 1960) when he wrote “the tendency to swing on take off and landing [of the Messerscmitt Bf 109]” "contributed substantially" to the accidental loss of 1500 fighters in the first two years of the war. 

The available official German amount of combat losses of Bf 109 fighters were: 

•     67 during the Battle for Poland, 

•   205 during the Battle of France and  

•   610 during the Battle of Britain.      

To these 882 losses, one had to add at most:

  100 losses for both Norwegian and Balkan operations. 

One may estimate losses during the Barbarossa until September 1941 operation to be at most 400 fighters 

This giving a grand total of about 1,400 losses "claimed".

Such an amount is silly! 

The Jagdwaffe pilots would have been more dangerous for themselves than the pilots who fought against them (!). 

I cannot believe such a fairy tale. 

The only self dangerous pilots are those who cannot fly sufficiently. 

During these 2 years, the German pilots suffered no flight restriction at all and they were excellent.

Indeed, the amount of accidental losses reported by Green was a typically nazi method to disguise their combat losses, especially those caused by Slave (Polish or Russian) or French pilots.

Its would be absolutely reasonable to think the losses of German fighters were twice of the claimed ones.