Hitting the Mark,but Missing the Target: Luftwaffe Deception Operations,1939-1945

Abstract

During the course of the air campaign against the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe employed a variety of active and passive defensive measures. The overwhelming tendency to focus solely on the performance of fighters and flak provides only one piece of the air defence mosaic and has led to a widespread under-appreciation of the contributions of deception measures and the role of dummy sites within the Luftwaffe’s air defences. The dummy installations and decoy measures experienced varying degrees of success throughout the conflict, but at times they proved instrumental in luring Allied aircraft away from their intended targets. On the one hand, the relatively modest costs associated with these efforts highlighted the benefits that could be achieved by deception. On the other hand, the dynamic nature of these defences and their ability to adapt in the face of Allied countermeasures aptly illustrated the dialectic battle between offence and defence during the Second World War.