Stalingrad na Odře 1945 - Letecké zásobování “Festung Breslau“ a české země – Rajlich Jiří (2025)

In the first months of 1945, one of the last acts of agony of the Third Reich was taking place not far from the Czech border. The garrison of besieged Breslau (now Wroclaw), then the largest German city east of Berlin, was not allowed to surrender on Hitler's orders. It resisted the Soviet overwhelming force longer than any other German 'fortress', from mid-February until early May 1945. And in the end, it capitulated not because it was conquered, but because Berlin had fallen several days earlier.
However, the nearly three-month resistance of the defenders of 'Festung Breslau' would have been completely unthinkable without continuous supply via an air bridge. It received absolute 'fuel' priority from Hitler, even over all other Luftwaffe operations. Night after night, crews of transport planes selflessly took off from Saxony and then from Bohemia to deliver ammunition and weapons to the 'fortress' under the heaviest enemy fire and to evacuate primarily the wounded defenders of the metropolis of historic Silesia.
The largest supply operation of the last months of the war – in terms of its scale and the losses incurred – cost the heavily tested German transport aviation dearly. It became its swan song. The wreckage of many dozens, even hundreds of transport Junkers and...