1. Josef Kammhuber was a career officer who served in the Imperial German Army, the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany and the post-World War II German Air Force.
20 Facts About Josef Kammhuber
1. 2.
At the outbreak of World War I Josef Kammhuber was 18 and joined a Bavarian engineer battalion.
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Josef Kammhuber participated in the Battle of Verdun in 1916 and was promoted to Second Lieutenant in 1917.
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Josef Kammhuber remained in Germany's post-war army, and in 1925 was promoted to First Lieutenant.
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On his return, Josef Kammhuber joined the staff of General Walter Wever, chief of staff of the Luftwaffe prior to World War II.
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Josef Kammhuber returned to active duty in February 1939 and was assigned as chief-of-staff of Luftflotte 2.
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Josef Kammhuber was then transferred to the Western Front where he became commander of KG 51.
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Josef Kammhuber was shot down and briefly became a prisoner of war.
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Josef Kammhuber was released upon the Armistice of 22 June 1940.
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Josef Kammhuber reached the rank of Generalleutnant by October 1941 and General der Flieger on 1 January 1943.
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Josef Kammhuber organised the night fighting units into a chain known to the British as the Josef Kammhuber Line, a series of radar stations with overlapping coverage.
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Josef Kammhuber started looking for solutions, and the result was the two-prong concept of Wilde Sau and Zahme Sau.
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In 1945 Josef Kammhuber was re-appointed to command of the night fighters, at this point a largely ceremonial position considering the state of the Third Reich at that time.
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Josef Kammhuber wrote a series of monographs for the US Department of Defense on the conduct of the German defenses against the RAF and USAAF.
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Josef Kammhuber later spent time in Argentina, helping to train the air force under Juan Peron.
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Josef Kammhuber returned to Germany and joined the German Air Force while it was being formed.
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Josef Kammhuber was promoted to Inspekteur der Luftwaffe, serving in that role between 1956 and 1962.
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Josef Kammhuber was the only inspector of a branch of the German Armed Forces to achieve the rank of General in this office, although actually designated as a Lieutenant General, because of his services to the development of the post-war Air Force.
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Josef Kammhuber retired shortly after the crash of a Starfighter formation on 19 June 1962 near Norvenich.
20.
Josef Kammhuber died on January 25,1986, aged 89 in Munich and is buried there.