Interrupted Flight of "Edelweiss". Luftwaffe on the offensive in the Caucasus. 1942

On April 16, 1942, General E. Von Manstein reported Hitler a plan for the defeat of Soviet troops on the Kerch Peninsula called the "Drop Hunt". He approved everything, with the exception of the upcoming role of Luftwaffe. Führer believed that it was Aviation, as before, to play a decisive role in the offensive in Crimea, and then - and in the decisive throw in the Caucasus conceived. Therefore, the next day, he announced that he sends to the Crimea of ​​the commander VIII Aviakorpus Baron Von Richthofen, whom he considered his best specialist. You are the only person who can fulfill this work, the last Hitler rushes. And soon on the Soviet troops of the Crimean Front and the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, the strikes of German bombers were invisible in their power. Virtually destroying Soviet troops in the Crimea and erase from the face of the earth Sevastopol, Richthofen headed the 4th air fleet, at that time the most powerful luftwaffe. I have the impression that everything goes smoothly, he recorded in the diary on June 28, 1942, on the day of the beginning of the operation "Blau". Based on numerous archival documents, memories and reports of pilots, as well as previously not published domestic sources and memoirs in the book, talk about unknown episodes of the battle for Crimea, Voronezh, Stalingrad and the Caucasus, for the first time, the details of the fighting in the Caspian Sea are given. The authors give an answer to the question why the "best specialist" Hitler, which destroyed dozens of cities and towns, could not fulfill the order of the Fuhrer and in the end turned out to be "at the broken trough